The Drug Wars

American Decades

THE DRUG WARS

Status Is Not a Crime

In the spring of 1962 the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Robinson v. California, involving a Los Angeles man who had been convicted of being a narcotics addict. At trial a police officer testified that he had examined the defendant Robinson and found what appeared to be needle scars on his arm. The trial judge instructed the jury that they could find Robinson guilty if they believed he fell into the category of a drug addict. In legal terms that meant that Robinson could be convicted even if the prosecutor had failed to offer evidence of his actual use of an illegal drug. In a landmark decision handed down in June 1962, Justice Potter Stewart held that status could not be made a criminal offense. To do so, said the majority opinion, would be a cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Use of banned drugs could be sanctioned by criminal penalties, and addicts could be forced by the government to enter treatment programs which involved involuntary confinement. But mere proof of addiction was no longer sufficient to send a person to prison.

The Treatment Alternative

In a series of court decisions and administrative rulings in the 1920s, the punitive approach to the drug problem had become entrenched in American legal practice. Criminal sanctions reached their high point in the 1950s, when the sale of narcotics by an adult to a minor could be punished by death. At the same time, however, there was a growing body of opinion among mental health professionals that treatment was a better solution than punishment. A few months after the decision in Robinson v. California, a White House Conference on Drug Abuse was convened, leading to the establishment of the Presidential Commission on Narcotic and Drug Abuse. In its 1963 report the commission recommended that criminal sanctions for illegal drug use be relaxed and that the government in-crease funding of medical and psychological research into the problem of narcotic abuse. By mid decade the treatment alternative was challenging the purely punitive approach to drug control.

LAWYERS' SALARIES

In the early 1960s the majority of attorneys practiced on their own in one-man offices. The average yearly income for such practitioners was about $8,000. Yet while people often felt that the law was one of the more profitable of professions this was not necessarily the case. The average solo dentist at the time earned $12,000 a year, and the average medical doctor earned well over twice as much at $18,000. Yet those attorneys who practiced in law firms could earn a good bit more than their solitary colleagues. The average income of lawyers in two- or three-man firms was $15,000, and for those practicing in large firms with a dozen or more attorneys, it reached $28,500. As the decade progressed the earnings rose. The 1960s also saw the beginning of a movement toward more firm practice and larger law firms. This reflected the advantages of group effort as well as increasing amounts of litigation and the growing need for specialization in legal services as legislation increased in both extent and complexity. The change in lawyers' earnings over the decade was particularly striking in starting salaries for new attorneys. In 1963 new associates at the top Manhattan firms were offered a salary of about $7,000. By the end of the decade competition among such firms for the best and brightest had driven the salaries up to $15,000 a year.

Sources:

Time (15 November 1963): 70;

Time (23 February 1968): 54.

The Legislative Response

In response to these legal and scientific trends, Congress passed in 1966 the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act. The new law empowered the U.S. Public Health Service to provide rehabilitative treatment not only for people charged with or convicted of crimes but also those who voluntarily committed themselves. Many states, such as New York and California, also launched their own treatment programs. In addition to standard psychological techniques, some of the new programs experimented with novel alternatives. One widely popular innovation involved giving heroin addicts a synthetic substance called methadone, which seemed to reduce their craving for the drug so that other treatments could become effective. In all cases the objective was to reduce self-destructive drug use and socially harmful crime while, at the same time, returning drug abusers to more productive and satisfying lives.

The Political Reaction

Unfortunately for advocates of the treatment alternative, the public perception was that drug abuse increased greatly in the latter part of the 1960s. New products like LSD appeared on the streets of America, joining traditional narcotics such as heroin and marijuana. In the 1968 presidential election the successful candidate, Richard M. Nixon, ran his campaign on a strong anticrime and antinarcotics platform. In the minds of most Americans, narcotics and crime were closely linked. It logically followed that criminal sanctions for drug use deserved a leading role in the fight against social disorder. With the inauguration of President Nixon in January 1969, the political foundation was laid for the "War Against Drugs" that was to be declared and fought in the following decades.

Sources:

James A. Inciardi, ed., Handbook of Drug Control in the United States (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990);

David F. Musto, M.D., The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973).

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