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Bureau of Narcotics
In 1930, Congress created the Bureau of Narcotics and in 1937 passed the Marijuana Tax Act, designed to prohibit marijuana use. -
president Nixon takes office
When President Nixon took office in 1969, America's consumption of illegal was shifting from a hidden, marginal activity to a symbol of youth revolt and the basis of a new, underground economy. -
Ronald W. Reagan took office
President Ronald W. Reagan took office in 1981 knowing the political value of taking a hard line on “culture war” issues. Before his administration was over, he had more than doubled the drug-enforcement budget from $800 million to $1.7 billion in 1987, with 90 percent of the money going to law enforcement rather than treatment -
Crack Boom
Halfway through his administration, a new version of an old drug soared to terrifying popularity. Crack cocaine, as it was called, came to national attention in 1985 and seemingly overnight became the dominant drug in U.S. cities, including New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Detroit and in the shadow of the U.S. Congress in the slums of Washington, D.C. -
Bush becomes president
Bush became president in 1988, the stage was set for even more dramatic action.Crack was generating so much violence and misery that 35 percent of the public, according to one survey, considered the nation's top priority. In Washington, D.C., alone, the number of murders rose by 64 percent in 1988. “Take my word for it,” Bush vowed in his inaugural address. “This scourge will stop!” -
invation of Panama
In 1989 Bush ordered the U.S. invasion of Panama and the toppling of its strongman, Gen. Manuel Noriega, partly on the grounds that Noriega was wanted on U.S. drug-trafficking charges. In 1992, Noriega was convicted of eight out of 10 charges and sentenced to 40 years in prison. Bush hailed the conviction as a “major victory against the drug lords.” -
Bill Clinton becomes president/war on pot
President Bill Clinton took office as the first president to have admitted ingesting an illegal drug. His insistence that he “didn't inhale” when trying marijuana as a Rhodes Scholar in England in the late '60s was roundly ridiculed.Drug use came to touch Clinton's life in another way as well. As governor of Arkansas, he'd been notified that his half-brother, Roger, who had become hooked on cocaine, was under investigation for dealing the drug. Roger eventually was arrested, pleaded guilty to -
Meth
The late 1990s saw the beginnings of a potential new drug epidemic. Use of methamphetamine, an addictive super-stimulant, spread east and south from California and Hawaii. Rural communities in the West and South proved especially receptive to the drug, which proved particularly devastating to families, because meth-addicted parents are notoriously neglectful of their children. -
Meth number 1 problem
By 2005 the National Association of Counties amine the No. 1 drug problem for local governments. Though experts disagree on whether the meth boom was morphing into a full-blown national epidemic, there is no dispute about the damage the drug causes to individuals and families, including — in some reported cases — irreversible brain damage.
