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Drug rehabilitation programs
In 1864, the New York State Inebriate Asylum, the first hospital intended to solely treat alcoholism as a mental health condition, was founded. As the public began to view alcoholism and related drug abuse more seriously, more community groups and sober houses began appearing. Following Prohibition and the Twenty-first Amendment, which overturned Prohibition, a major step for the rehabilitation movement came in 1935, when Dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson, founded Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) -
Patent Medicines
The term "patent medicine" has become particularly associated with drug compounds in the 18th and 19th centuries, sold with colorful names and even more colorful claims. In ancient times, such medicines were called nostrum remedium, "our remedy" in Latin, hence the name "nostrum." Also known as proprietary medicines, these concoctions were, for the most part, trademarked medicines but not patented. -
Pure Food and Drug Act
The Federal Meat Inspection Act of 1906 (FMIA) is a United States Congress Act that works to prevent adulterated or misbranded meat and meat products from being sold as food and to ensure that meat and meat products are slaughtered and processed under sanitary conditions. -
Sinclair's The Jungle
The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. However, most readers were more concerned with his exposure of health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meatpacking industry during the early 20th century, greatly contributing to a public outcry which led to reforms including the Meat Inspection Act. -
Harrison Act
he Harrison Narcotics Tax Act (Ch. 1, 38 Stat. 785) was a United States federal law that regulated and taxed the production, importation, and distribution of opiates and coca products. -
Prohibition
Ban on alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933 in the United States. The purpose of prohibition was to reduce crime, corruption, social problems, and tax problems. However, prohibition wasn't effective due to a large amount of organized crime that occurred. -
Drug Policies and racial and ethnic groups
African Americans account for 14% of total drug users, but account for 37% of those arrested for drug offenses . The prevalence of drug use within racial minorities is not the reason so many of them are arrested, but mainly because of law enforcements focus on urban areas and on communities of color. -
Crack Cocaine
Crack cocaine (crack) is a free base form of cocaine that can be smoked. It offers a short but intense high to smokers. The Manual of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment calls it the most "addictive" form of cocaine. Crack cocaine sentencing presents a particularly egregious case. Since the 1980s, federal penalties for crack were 100 times harsher than those for powder cocaine, with African Americans disproportionately sentenced to much lengthier terms. -
Marijuana
Cannabis, also known as marijuana among other names, is a preparation of the Cannabis plant intended for use as a psychoactive drug or medicine.The main psychoactive part of cannabis is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC); one of 483 known compounds in the plant,including at least 65 other cannabinoids.Cannabis can be used by smoking, vaporization, within food, or as an extract. -
Coca Plant
Coca is any of the four cultivated plants in the family Erythroxylaceae, native to western South America. Coca is known throughout the world for its psychoactive alkaloid, cocaine. Extraction of cocaine from coca requires several solvents and a chemical process known as an acid/base extraction, which can fairly easily extract the alkaloids from the plant. -
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th President of the United States from 1981 to 1989. Reagan announced a War on Drugs in 1982, in response to concerns about the increasing crack epidemic. Though Nixon had previously declared a war on drugs, Reagan advocated more militant policies. -
1990s
In the 1990s there was decline in most drug abuse but not all. In the 1990s there was a rise in pot smoking, the rise of the rave culture, and also “mom and pop” labs of methamphetamine. Heroin use in the 1990s also increased, as well as the number of overdoses.