Drug Abuse In the 70's

Drug Abuse In the 70's

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Monday, February 17, 2014

Vol XCIII, No. 311

Drug- Use Rise in the 70's

Then V.S Now

NOW:

The Drug Enforcement Administration is still in use as a federal agency responsible for enforcing laws and regulations on narcotics as well as controlled substances. Their primary goal is to put drug trafficking at a stand-still.

THEN:

Due to Icons enforcing the use of drugs not only did the use of it increase but also dealing and trafficking. This caused the U.S. Government to respond with new laws and new anti-drug units, culminating in the creation of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1973.

Drug use in America reached its peak in 1979, when one in ten Americans used drugs regularly. During the 1970s, cocaine reappeared as the "champagne of drugs" because it was expensive, high-status, and said to have no serious consequences. The social media and Hollywood also sent the message that doing drugs was the "cool" thing to do causing more and more people to do them. The price dropped steadily, and soon millions of Americans used it regularly. Cocaine was gradually rediscovered to be extremely addictive and dangerous, the death of college basketball star Len Bias in June 1986 helped to press this idea onto the public as well as government.

Citation:

"Illegal Drugs in America: A Modern History." Illegal Drugs in America: A Modern History. Web. 18 May 2014. <http://www.deamuseum.org/museum_idarc2.html>.

"And Then I Became a Junkie ..." Russell Brand's Autobiography. Web. 19 May 2014. <http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/nov/13/biography.drugsandalcohol>.

"Drug History In The US." PBS. PBS. Web. 18 May 2014. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/buyers/socialhistory.html>.

Effect On The World Today

Firsthand Accounts

Today, drug gangs from Mexico control many aspects of the American drug trade. In the late 1980's, the cocaine mafias turned to established drug traffickers along the 2,000-mile Southwest border to help smuggle cocaine across the border. For decades, Mexico-based mafias trafficked marijuana and heroin. In the 1980's they expanded into cocaine and became far more powerful. By the late 1980's, the Mexico-based gangs were being paid in cocaine making them create their own circulation systems. In the mid-1990s, traffickers from Mexico further expanded into methamphetamine, a market they quickly came to dominate. Starting on the West Coast, they have been rapidly expanding, saturating region after region with this highly addictive drug. Like other traffickers who preceded them, the traffickers from Mexico depend on high levels of violence and corruption.

Russell Brand gives his own account of becoming addicted to heroin and how it took over is life.

"It makes you feel lovely and warm and cosy. It gives you a great big smacky cuddle, and from then on the idea of need is no longer an abstract thing, but a longing in your belly and a kicking in your legs and a shivering in your arms and sweat on your forehead and a dull pallor on your face. At this point, you're no longer under any misapprehension about what it is that you need: you don't think, "Nice to have a girlfriend, read a poem, or ride a bike," you think, "Fuck, I need heroin." - Russell Brand