Narcotics and Drug Abuse

• Author: Bryce Pardo,Peter Reuter
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12363
• Published date: 01 May 2018
• Date: 01 May 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

PRESIDENT’S CRIME COMMISSION:

PAST AND FUTURE

Narcotics and Drug Abuse

Foreshadowing of 50 Years of Change

Bryce Pardo

Peter Reuter

University of Maryland—College Park

Abstract

Fifty years ago, the U.S. President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Adminis-

tration of Justice saw drugs as a modest but growing problem for the criminal justice

system. The reemergence of heroin occupied the Commission’s attention. Many recom-

mendations are admirable, such as a focus on public health interventions and a concern

about the appropriateness of criminal prohibitions on marijuana use. Throughout the

past 50 years, the problem has both massively expanded and changed in many ways; the

principal drug of abuse has shifted multiple times, as has the populations most affected

by them. Policy, largely stuck on tough enforcement for 30 years, is now moving in

a direction more consistent with the Commission’s views. Researchers have made only

modest advances in understanding what enforcement can do to reduce drug use and

related problems, but society has made some progress in developing interventions that

have both a sound theoretical base and the promise of avoiding the unintended negative

consequences of the highly punitive system of the 1980s and 1990s. A Commission in

2018 would face a much different and larger problem that has transformed many

aspects of criminal justice. Investing in more data collection and evaluation research

would be among its major recommendations, as would an admission of considerable

uncertainty about what to do with the latest twist in the U.S. drug problem, the

addition of the much more dangerous fentanyls.

Keywords

illegal drugs, drug policy, President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and Adminis-

tration of Justice

We are happy to acknowledge helpful comments from two anonymous referees. Direct correspondence to

Peter Reuter, University of Maryland School of Public Policy, 2101 Van Munching Hall, College Park, MD 20742

(e-mail: preuter@umd.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12363 C2018 American Society of Criminology 419

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 17 rIssue 2

Research Article President’s Crime Commission: Past and Future

Law enforcement had long been tasked with handling problems generated by the

supply and use of psychoactive substances. By the 1960s, changing norms and

growing wealth brought new illegal drugs and drug-using behaviors. Mass illegal

markets in plant-based drugs as well as diverted pharmaceuticals and hallucinogens emerged

in major population centers around the country. Heroin, the drug most associated with

social decline, was returning to urban centers after more than a 40-year hiatus (Musto,

2002). Concerns about acquisitive crime committed by heroin users contributed to the

general public’s fear and frustration with theft and robbery. The growing number of lives

lost to addiction and overdose contributed to a sense of urgency. Although difficult to

measure, the number of opiate addicts reported at the time amounted to slightly less than

60,000, based on primitive epidemiological techniques. Concerns centered on the increasing

importance of drug trafficking activity, especially of foreign-sourced drugs like heroin and

marijuana, for organized crime; profits from the drug trade were thought to fuel other

criminal activities. Responding to the drug problem of the late 1960s required an increasing

share of law enforcement resources.

Written at the dawn of modern mass illegal drug markets, the U.S. President’s Com-

mission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice’s (commonly known as the

President’s Crime Commission or just “the Commission”)chapter on “Narcotics and Drug

Abuse” (herein, “the Chapter”; Commission, 1967) nonetheless identified some issues that

have haunted society in the last 50 years: acquisitive drug crime, the appropriateness of

criminal sanctions for marijuana, the difficulty of stopping the importation of drugs and di-

version of prescriptions, an acceptance of the limitations of enforcement, and an expectation

that methadone and other treatment modalities would make a major difference. An affir-

mation of treatment over punishment for drug addicts and a more nuanced understanding

of addiction is just as relevant today.

Even after the passage of the Harrison Act in 1914, heroin remained the primary

drug of concern for law enforcement. Yet until the mid-1960s, the 50-year-old policy of

prohibition seemed to work, in that heroin had been a minor problem through most of that

time. With minor localized exceptions, illicit drug use was uncommon, law enforcement

was not preoccupied with arresting and prosecuting drug offenders, incarceration rates

were low, and there was little reason to be concerned with the harms of enforcing criminal

prohibitions. General quotidian property and violent crime, such as burglary and theft,

were more of a priority than was use of narcotics for both law enforcement and society.

The Commission (1967) supported existing policies aimed at reducing access and noted

the high price as an indicator of success. It argued that supply-side mechanisms coupled

with recent innovations in demand reduction would reverse heroin’s recent upward trend.

Alongside the return of heroin, marijuana had emerged as a popular drug among many

segments of society. Economically depressed urban denizens, academics, bohemians, and

young professionals were using marijuana. Although use of the drug was prevalent, the

Commission (1967) was skeptical of the drug’s classification, alongside heroin in Schedule

420 Criminology & Public Policy