Dec 25, 2009
The Bureau of Justice Statistics is an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC. In a 1993 report entitled Drugs, Crime, and the Justice System, the bureau presented an overview of how the U.S. justice system attempts to combat illegal drugs.
Many areas of society are included in the overview. Here we present summarized data in easy to review format, with new, post-1990 information provided by Mark Kleiman and Thai Ishizuka-Capp, both from the Drug Policy Analysis Program, School of Public Policy and Social Research, University of California, Los Angeles. Much of the information offered here is fully discussed throughout the alphabetical entries of the encyclopedia—in Volumes 1, 2, and 3. Consult the Index at the end of this volume for references to items of further interest.
Prohibition is the ban on the distribution, possession, and use of specified substances made illegal by legislative or administrative order and the application of criminal penalties to violators.
Regulation is control over the distribution, possession, and use of specified substances. Regulations specify the circumstances under which substances can be legally distributed and used. Prescription medications and alcohol are the substances most commonly regulated in the U.S.
Demand reduction strategies attempt to decrease individuals' tendency to use drugs. Efforts provide information and education to potential and casual users about the risks and adverse consequences of drug use, and treatment to drug users who have developed problems from using drugs.
Supply reduction focuses diplomatic, law enforcement, military, and other resources on eliminating or reducing the supply of drugs. Efforts focus on foreign countries, smuggling routes outside the country, border interdiction, and distribution within the U.S.
User accountability emphasizes that all users of illegal substances, regardless of the type of drug they use or the frequency of that use, are violating criminal laws and should be subject to penalties. It is closely associated with zero tolerance.
Zero tolerance holds that drug distributors, buyers, and users should be held fully accountable for their offenses under the law. This is an alternative to policies that focus only on some violators such as sellers of drugs or users of cocaine and heroin while ignoring other violators.
Criminal justice activities include enforcement, prosecution, and sentencing activities to apprehend, convict, and punish drug offenders. Although thought of primarily as having supply reduction goals, criminal sanctions also have demand reduction effects by discouraging drug use.
Prevention activities are educational efforts to inform potential drug users about the health, legal, and other risks associated with drug use. Their goal is to limit the number of new drug users and dissuade casual users from continuing drug use as part of a demand reduction strategy.
Taxation requires those who produce, distribute, or possess drugs to pay a fee based on the volume or value of the drugs. Failure to pay subjects violators to penalties for this violation, not for the drug activities themselves.
Testing individuals for the presence of drugs is a tool in drug control that is used for safety and monitoring purposes and as an adjunct to therapeutic interventions. It is in widespread use for employees in certain jobs such as those in the transportation industry and criminal justice agencies. New arrestees and convicted offenders may be tested. Individuals in treatment are often tested to monitor their progress and provide them an incentive to remain drug free.
Treatment (therapeutic interventions) focus on individuals whose drug use has caused medical, psychological, economic, and social problems for them. The interventions may include medication, counseling, and other support services delivered in an inpatient setting or on an outpatient basis. These are demand reduction activities to eliminate or reduce individuals' drug use.
Drugs of abuse have changed since the 1800s—most rapidly over the past quarter century Problems with opiate addiction date from widespread use of patent medicines in the 1800s. The range of drugs included opium, morphine, laudanum, cocaine, and, by the turn of the century, heroin. The tonics, nostrums, and alleged cures that contained or used such drugs were sold by itinerant peddlers, mail order houses, retail grocers, and pharmacists. There also was unrestricted access to opium in opium-smoking dens and to morphine through retailers.
When morphine was discovered in 1806, it was thought to be a wonder drug. Its use was so extensive during the Civil War that morphine addiction was termed the "army disease." The availability of the hypodermic syringe allowed nonmedicinal use of morphine to gain popularity among veterans and other civilians. After 1898, heroin was used to treat respiratory illness and morphine addiction in the belief that it was nonaddicting.
In the 1880s coca became widely available in the U.S. as a health tonic and remedy for many ills. Its use was supported first by the European medical community and later by American medical authorities. In the absence of restrictive national legislation, its use spread. Initially cocaine was offered as a cure for opiate addiction, an asthma remedy (the official remedy of the American Hay Fever Association), and an antidote for toothaches.
By 1900, in the face of an estimated quarter of a million addicts, State laws were enacted to curb drug addiction. The major drugs of abuse at the time were cocaine and morphine.
©2000-2009
Enotes.com Inc.
All Rights Reserved