Federal Bureau of Narcotics

[Page 295]The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was the forerunner of the Drug Enforcement Administration. Prior to 1930, the U.S. Department of Treasury contained within it the Prohibition Unit for the enforcement of the Volstead Act of 1918, which declared alcohol illegal. Within the Prohibition Unit was the Narcotics Division. The Narcotics Division was responsible for the enforcement of the Harrison Act of 1914. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was established in 1930 by an act of Congress. It consolidated the Federal Narcotics Control Board and the Narcotics Division in the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics remained in the Treasury Department.

Two of the major reasons for the creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics were the inefficiency and the level of corruption within the previous narcotics agencies with the Narcotics Division of the Department of Treasury. Through 1929 and 1930, there were various charges of use of narcotic drugs by agents, collusion between agents and narcotic drug dealers, financial mismanagement, and the padding and falsification of arrest reports. Eventually, a grand jury investigation was initiated in New York into the corruption and incompetence of the narcotics agencies. The investigation expanded into the activities of the son and the son-in-law of the chief of the Narcotics Division, Levi Nutt. Apparently, his son and son-in-law ran a law and accounting office that was involved with Arnold Rothstein, an underworld figure who was a notorious narcotic drug organizer and suspected of fixing the 1919 World Series in the infamous “Black Sox” scandal. Also, there was a legitimate concern that the enforcement of narcotics laws had to be separated from the prohibition of alcohol laws, because of the increasing problems and resistance to prohibition laws. Combined with the 1929 stock market crash, the time was ripe for a serious reorganization. Accordingly, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was formed, separate from the Prohibition Unit.

The first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was Harry J. Anslinger. Anslinger was an interesting person who, in only a decade, rose from being merely a clerk in the Foreign Service to commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. One of remarkable feats of Anslinger was that he remained commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from its inception in 1930 until 1962, a total of 32 years. Only J. Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had a longer career in a comparable federal law enforcement agency. In contrast to Hoover, however, Anslinger was a strong opponent of the Mafia, and his efforts and the work of [Page 296]the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was instrumental in the deportation of Lucky Luciano in 1946. In contrast to the FBI, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was relatively small, having an average of approximately only 240 agents through 1962. This would change in 1968, when the Federal Bureau of Narcotics of the Department of Treasury and the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, were merged to form the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs in the Department of Justice. By the early 1970s, the number of narcotics agents had risen to over 1,300. In 1973 the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs became the Drug Enforcement Administration.

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