Chapter 11: Drug Abuse and Crime

History of Drug Abuse in the United States

The widespread illegal use of drugs affects all segments of today's society. Sadder still is the fact that almost all forms of illicit drug use in America are associated with other forms of criminality. Drugs, and their relationship to crime provide one of the most significant policy issues of our time. Famed Washington Monthly columnist Paul Savoy recently reported polls showing that Americans "are so fearful about the drug-driven crime epidemic that more than half of those polled expressed an opinion [which] favored cutting back the constitutional rights of criminal defendants and overruling Supreme Court decisions that limit police conduct in gathering evidence."(1)

The rampant and widespread use and abuse of mind- and mood-altering drugs, so commonplace in the United States today, is of relatively recent origin. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s, the use of illegal drugs in America was mostly associated with artistic individuals and fringe groups. One hundred years ago drug abuse, as we understand it today, was almost exclusively confined to a subsegment of musicians, painters, poets, and other highly imaginative individuals seeking to enhance their creativity. While it is true that medicinal elixirs of the period contained a variety of potent substances, including cocaine, alcohol, and opium, the lives of relatively few Americans were seriously affected at the time by any drug other than alcohol. One significant exception existed in the form of "opium dens" that flourished in West Coast cities and eventually made their way across the country as a result of increased Asian immigration. Some Chinese immigrants brought opium products with them and introduced other segments of the American population to opium smoking.

Psychoactive substances gained widespread acceptance during the hippie movement, a period of new-found freedoms embraced by a large number of American youths during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The movement, which was characterized by slogans such as "if it feels good, do it" and "tune in, turn on, drop out" promoted free love, personal freedom, experimentation with subjective states of consciousness, and "mind expansion." "Cheech and Chong" movies, "flower power," paisley clothes, bell-bottom jeans, long hair on men, and Eastern religions all flourished within the context of a drug-fed countercultural movement.

One influential figure in the drug-inspired movement of the times was Harvard professor, Dr. Timothy Leary. Leary formed the League of Spiritual Discovery in the mid-1960s, describing it as "an orthodox, psychedelic religion that permits the use of LSD and marijuana as sacraments by League members." With the advent of the hippie era, marijuana, LSD, hashish, psyliocybin, and peyote burst upon the national scene as an ever-growing number of individuals began to view drugs as recreational substances and more and more young people identified with the tenor of the period.

It was during this time, apparently, that President Bill Clinton's experiments with marijuana took place. Clinton revealed during the 1992 presidential campaign that he had smoked marijuana as a youth, claiming that he never inhaled.

Summary

Drug abuse has a long and varied history in American society. Policy responses to abuse have been equally diverse. Although recent statistics on drug use show some decline, a hard-core population of illicit drug users remains. Strategies to reduce the flow of illegal drugs into this country, while meeting with some success, are being increasingly supplemented with programs of education and treatment intended to reduce the demand for controlled substances. In the meantime, the potential for official corruption in the face of a lucrative drug trade remains high. Drug traffickers are now in control of vast amounts of money, leading some to suggest that only legalization can solve the secondary problems of drug-related crime, official corruption, and drug-related public health concerns.

 

Discussion Questions

Note: you may be requested by your instructor to e-mail the answers to these questions to his or her office. If so, be sure to add your name (or other identifying information) to your answers, since your e-mail address may not tell your instructor who you are.

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1. What are some of the costs of illicit drug usage in the United States today? Which costs can be more easily reduced than others? How would you reduce the cost of illegal drug use?
2. What is the difference between decriminalization and legalization? Should drug use remain illegal? What do you think of the arguments in favor of legalization? Those against?
3. What is the difference between drug-defined and drug-related crime? Which form of crime is more difficult to address? Why?
4. What is "asset forfeiture?" How has asset forfeiture been used in the fight against controlled substances? How have recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions limited federal asset seizures? Do you agree that such limitations were necessary? Why or why not?

 

Notes

(1) Paul Savoy, "When Criminal Rights Go Wrong: Forget Liberal. Forget Conservative. Think Common Sense," Washington Monthly, Vol. 21, no. 11 (December 1989), p. 36.

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