Right now, in the U.S, 80 million people some way have smoked to the least one joint. This number is still consistent even back in 1960s. In the sixties, marijuana develop into a trend and drug use were hugely accepted by the society. The world was a different place backed in the 19th century but how greatly did the drug world shifted all through history? Start at opiates served and was legal in a everyday medication, Laws being created to stop drug exchange, marijuana relevance becoming more popular in 1960s. And the aftermath of what America went through with drugs which still influences us today.
During the early nineteenth century opiates and cocaine were big factors. They were considered as general medications that were treatments for cramps, hay fever, diarrhea, and even to treat depression. Opiates though are very effective pain killers that are highly addictive and often used by men that return from war, they became addicted to the painkiller. The growing addicts brought concerns to the government as they were pressured to fix it. So, in 1906, the ‘Pure Food and Drug Act’ was passed. The Act demanded that medicine labels have to outline the full ingredients it is made of and if the medication consist of any addictive drugs, to give fair warnings of endangerment. Not too long later in 1914, the government passed the ‘Harrison Narcotics Tax Act’. It was now illegal for common doctors without a legitimate documented illness to prescribe drugs to addicts for the sake of the adicts being addicted to the drugs.
By the 1930s knowledge of how dangerous opiates are were spreading across the United States and number users of opiates and cocaine had decreased. However, marijuana- that was still legal during the early 1930s became more popular to the public (and it did not go unnoticed by the government). The ‘Marijuana Tax Act’ was passed in 1937, the purpose of the Act was to keep track on the selling and transportation of marijuana but due to the few stamps that were documented, meaning the rest of the dealers were under the table selling, marijuana was made illegal. During this period of time, Mexico and U.S’s relationship were rocky due to the drugs transportation to U.S from Mexico, as Sara Miller Llana and Sara Shahriari said, “Latin America remains the world’s No. 1 supplier of cocaine.” The U.S governments were afraid that Mexicans would immigrate from Mexico to America, bringing in all the drugs and cause more drug crimes.
Despite all the fuss with new laws being passed, drugs were still widely accepted by society and common along the middle white class citizens by 1960s but the war against drugs was taken to a next step by America’s current president back then. It was President Lyndon B. Johnson who created a campaign called the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in 1968, his plan was to search every car that passed the border lined from Mexico entering America, “The goal was to disrupt the Mexican drug trade, but the operation failed and was abandoned after less than three weeks.” The next big attempt to stop drug trafficking was in 1971. President Nixon founded the ‘war on drugs’ campaign, he stated that drugs was the ‘public enemy number one.’