oct 27, 1970 - The Controlled Substances Act

Description:

On the day of October 27, 1970 Richard Nixon, former US president, signed the Controlled Substances Act. This act places controlled substances into five categories, from one being the most severe and to five being the least. According to the DEA, the category it is placed in is based on the drugs medical use, risk for abuse, and safety liability or likelihood for addiction. This placed Marijuana with Schedule I drugs such as heroin, LSD, and ecstacy. Meanwhile cocaine and methamphetamine are considered Schedule II drugs.

Placing marijuana in the Schedule I drug category alongside hard drugs is ill-informed. According to the Shafer Commision Report, it states that there is no difference between people who consume mairjuana and use tobacco or alcohol. Furthermore, a report from Nixon’s National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse found no direct relationship between marijuana and physical/psychological harm or influence on behavior. This commission recommended Nixon to decriminalize natural forms of cannabis, although he did not. The reason for this is that the war on drugs was a system designed to target anti-war leftists and people of color. According to John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy chief, “By getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course, we did.” Subsequently, this led to mass incarceration for possession of marijuana in the United States for decades, in a manner that escalates every year. According to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), from 2001-2010 there were more white people consuming marijuana from the ages 18-25. Despite that, black people were 4 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis use. This explicitly highlights the racist nature of the war on drugs, prison industrial complex, and the criminal justice system. Due to the harms accrued from this, public opinion shifted and created an incentive for the legalization of marijuana.

Added to timeline:

Date:

Images: