A major political and culturally significant event during the period between 1945 and 2000 and then beyond is the use of drugs recreationally and the “War on Drugs”. The “War on Drugs” spans several decades and touches multiple facets of the US from political to cultural and social. While drug use was present before the 1960s, the hippie movement which swept across the US launched the use of drugs to new proportions. Then the political “War on Drugs” was sparked when the Reagans launched their individual campaigns on drug use. With Nancy Reagan launching her “Just Say No” campaign that is still going on today and impacted the public’s view on drugs completely. And Ronald Reagan's “War on Drugs”, that would gain political and social momentum and continue on to present day. And finally there is the impact and cultural significance that drug use and the “War on Drugs” has today.
When connecting drugs to a culturally significant item the first thing that comes to mind when looking back on what will be called the “then” era, which is from 1945 to 2000, more often than not that culturally significant item is the Hippie movement. From a very broad view, the hippie “phenomenon” was a monumental movement that was predominantly made up of the younger generations that, at the beginning, simply wanted to rebel against authority. It was one of the largest cultural movements in recent American history, perhaps only comparable by its long lasting impact to the civil rights era. When trying to find a source that was appropriate to use I discovered that it wasn't a simple thing to do. While I did find a massive number of "sources" when I was searching, most of them were far from appropriate or even usable. The majority of the information I gathered came from one source, The Flowering of the Hippie Movement by John Robert Howard, which was an article I discovered on JSTOR. It was the real first comprehensive source that was acceptable academically. The article lists four types of hippies, “four character types commonly found on the hippie scene: (1) the visionaries, (2) the freaks and heads, (3) the midnight hippies, and (4) the plastic hippies.” (Howard; pg. 45). The two important of those four types are the “visionaries” and “the freaks and heads”. This is because as the article states, which after further reading I agreed with, “The public stereotype of the hippie is actually a composite of these two somewhat different types.” (Howard; pg. 48). I discovered that the two different types of hippies were almost like yin and yang. In my research I found that the visionaries were the pioneers of the hippie movement in the same way that those that pioneered the internet era were to that specific movement. “The visionaries gave birth to the movement. It lived and died with them...” (Howard; pg. 45). The larger distinction between the “visionaries” and “the freaks and heads” is their drug usage, which was the original point. The “visionaries” were the ones with an actual cause while “the freaks and heads” were the ones who jumped on the ban wagon. The article states, “The visionaries used drugs, but that was not at the core of their behavior.” (Howard; pg. 48). What this really means is that the “visionaries” used drugs to cause hallucinations, which were to them a tool to achieve euphoria and to see new world. The “freaks and heads” used drugs for several reasons: some used them to get “in” (Howard; pg. 48); some used them to enter a state of euphoria; and, in one of the subgroup, “places the use of drugs within a religious or ideological context.” (Howard; pg. 48). The type of drug that was most abused was LSD, which stand for Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. The article highlights two of the more major ideology points that are associated with LSD's and hippies. “(1) LSD introduces the user to levels of reality which are ordinarily not perceived.” (Howard; pg. 48), and “(2) LSD develops a certain sense of fusion with all living things.” (Howard; pg. 49). LSD, while not categorized by the medical community on a whole as an addictive substance, was extremely abused and when on LSD it would not be very hard for a user to harm themselves, sometimes to such a degree that it caused death. Some of the more famous OD'es that happened in the time period were the deaths of Jimmie Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison. The uses of LSD and other drugs, like marijuana, ranged from recreational to religious. The hippie movement is up there among the culturally significant movements or generations like the “Lost Generation” of the 1920's, and the Beat movement of the 1950's.
One of the very first campaigns that was launched against drugs was Nancy Reagan's “Just Say No” movement. When researching Nancy Reagan and her “Just Say No” campaign I discovered what originally sparked her interest in the drug problems that plagued the US came from the fact that some of the children of her friends were users and some had even committed suicide. Her goal was to make the country aware of how damaging and what negative effects that drugs were having. She traveled all across the US and even around the world, “She traveled to sixty-five cities in thirty-three states, the Vatican and eight other foreign countries.” I found that specific quotation and the majority of the facts and information on Nancy Reagan and her "Just Say No" campaign from the Just Say No 1982-1989 page on the Reagan Foundation website. Her campaign rallied the founding of over 12,000 “Just Say No” clubs across the country between its start and 1988, a fact which I discovered while reading through the same article. Nancy Reagan could be argued to be the one who led the U.S. in the anti-drug movement. It is very much a movement that can be argued to have been a success due to how it socially marginalized drug use from its widespread acceptance during the Hippie Movement and that it is no longer as socially or culturally acceptable to do drugs.
President Reagan really launched his “War on Drugs” with the signing of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986. This bill was a major part of Reagan's campaign and served as the foundation for the rest of Reagan's campaign. The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 was an omnibus bill, which means “A bill related to a specific area that covers many issues or topics.” It provided a substantial amount of funding to fight the growing drug abuse dilemma, in total it provided $1.7 billion in funding. That $1.7 billion was used for three different items. The first of which was a sum of $97 million in funds to build new prison. Secondly, $200 million in funds for educating the public on drugs. And finally, $241 million in funding went to treating those with drug abuse problems. I found those statistics on the PBS timeline "Thirty Years of America's Drug War". The bill also established mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses, which is viewed by many as the major achievement of the act. The PBS timeline also included the rest of the major event that occurred during Reagan's presidency and his involvement during that time with the “War on Drugs”. For the rest of Reagan's campaign on drugs there were 2 major indictments: the hugely important arrest and extradition of Carlos Lehder who was the co-founder of the Medellin Cartel, and the extradition treaty between Colombia and the U.S. The extradition treaty was later annulled by the Colombian Supreme Court after its members had received a high degree of personal threats. Reagan ended his presidency with the indictment of Noriega being the last major event that was a part of the “War on Drugs” for him. This was a major victory for Reagan to end on due to the fact that Noriega played a key role in the laundering of money and building cocaine laboratories in Panama.
The two things that generally comes to mind most often when discussing the “now” era, which is simply the present day era, are the growing number of drug usage, and the debate over legalization of different types of drugs. The chart below demonstrates the dramatic increases in arrests by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) starting in 1986 with the start of the “War on Drugs.”,. The chart below shows at the data that I found on the Stats & Facts page of the DEA website, which I then took all of the data I found there and placed it into a bar graph that show the raising arrest numbers from 1986 to 2010 in 4 year increments. Intuitively this seems odd considering that one would expect the number of arrests for drug usage and abuse should be falling as the war on drugs continues and escalates, presuming success in the counter-narcotic efforts. However, when researching drugs and the war on drugs during the 21st century I came across a book, The Cult of Pharmacology: How America Became the World’s Most Troubled Drug Culture by Richard DeGrandpre, that in its description identifies a simple but powerful fact: “Drug prohibitions were few, and while alcohol was considered a menace, the public regularly consumed substances that are widely demonized today.” In present day society it is no longer socially or legally acceptable to use drugs. So despite the fact that in the present day the large majority of drugs are illegal the number of how many people use drugs has increased and is still growing. This debate is simply about whether or not drugs like marijuana should be legalized. Many argue in support of legalization, arguing the health benefits of marijuana just like the hippies had before, as well as that if legalized it would mean the public would not need to by illegal drugs and hence cutting off drug dealer’s flow of income. On the other side are those who stand by keeping drugs illegal. The major arguments for these are that marijuana and other drugs have hardly any health benefits when comparing them to the health risks, and the simple fact that marijuana is a gate way drug.
In conclusion, the analysis and comparison of the “War on Drugs” over all holds revealing facts what some consider controversial. The argument can be made that the hippie movement was the spark that turned the smoldering drug problems in the United States ablaze, with a jump in drug usage and abuse. Then the beginning of the fight against drugs really started when Nancy Reagan launched her “Just Say No” campaign, which continues even today, bringing the public eye on the drug problem. The first major step that the government took came with the passing of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 that Ronald Reagan signed into law, after which the “War on Drugs” picks up even more momentum and continues through four more presidencies, the fourth being Obama's presidency. In an overall sense the “War on Drugs” has not been successful, based on the growing number of drug users and drug related arrest made between 1986 and 2010, and the continuing and ever-present debate over the legalization of marijuana. In comparison between the 1960s and present day, public awareness of the social and health issues has certainly increased since the 1960’s even while the number of drug users has grown; and, the “War on Drugs” continues to escalate as a response to continued drug use. So it would seem that the as the “War on Drugs” progresses it has ultimately not been successful, and it can even be argued that it has had less and less of an impact on the drug flow and drug abuse. Over all the “War on Drugs” and drug use had a major effect on the United States in a culturally significant way, yet has failed to either stem the flow of drugs or their use today.
