Anti-Drug Grassroots Organizations

The Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914, and the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 resulted in very little illicit drug use in the United States after these laws were passed. By 1960, the National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that less than 2 percent of the population aged 12 and older and less than 1 percent of adolescents had ever used any illegal drug. The social protests of the 1960s and the Vietnam War changed that. Over the next two decades, illegal drug use escalated to levels never seen before. By 1979, one-third (31.3 percent) of Americans age 12 and older had used an illicit drug in their lifetimes. This escalation had the greatest impact on adolescents (ages ...