Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act

The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act represented an innovative and sweeping change in how the United States dealt with drugs. It came about at a time when there was mounting alarm in this country over drugs and related social problems, particularly with the rate of crime. A major force was the fear that soldiers returning from the war in Vietnam, where heroin and other drugs were cheaply and readily available, would overwhelm American society with a massive wave of drug addiction. President Richard M. Nixon and other officials felt hampered in their self-declared “War on Drugs” by a complex patchwork of laws and enforcement and regulatory agencies. The act was a cornerstone in efforts to reorganize this policy quagmire into a uniform federal ...