Johnson Administration, Lyndon

Lyndon Johnson taking the oath of office on board Air Force One on November 22,1963, after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Johnson's administration eventually changed some drug policies based on the recommendations of the Pettyman Commission.

With this as its basis for intervention, the Johnson administration began what was essentially a three-pronged approach to the nation's growing drug problem. Johnson established strategies that would dominate well into the Nixon administration, including a body of domestic legislative reforms tailored to the particular challenges of the drug problem (both as a criminal and public health concern). The administration also made diplomatic overtures toward source countries with a goal of reduction or elimination of drug crops as well as disruption of their production and distribution structures. Lastly, the Johnson administration completed the wholesale bureaucratic reorganization of federal narcotics law enforcement and drug policy begun under Kennedy.

It bears noting that all of these system-level changes took place in the shadow of broad social upheaval. As American military commitments to the war in southeast Asia increased, antiwar protests likewise rose. Similarly, the civil rights movement fomented an often violent and fundamental reordering of race relations in America. Youth culture in its various guises challenged conventional attitudes about the place and acceptability of drug use in society. All of this occurred in the context of deeply divided debate among policymakers, the legal community, and medical experts, and social, religious, and academic leaders. As these varied constituencies argued the greater social implication of drugs in society, all aspects of the issue were considered: the size and scope of the problem; the nature of drug [Page 432]use among the public; moral and ethical implications; and the appropriate place of public policy as a means to reconcile emerging trends.

Context

To better understand the climate in which the Johnson administration was obliged to operate, one must look back beyond even the Kennedy administration. In the mid-1950s, members of the medical and legal profession levied criticisms of the government's approach to the growing problem of drugs in American society. The American Bar Association (ABA) and the American Medical Association (AMA) published a joint report titled “Interim Report” in 1958. Contrary to the monolithic law enforcement approach spearheaded by Harry Anslinger and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), the ABA-AMA report supported outpatient treatment for drug addicts, legal reform related to drug crime and greater research to better understand drug use and addiction. Perhaps the greatest point of divergence from the Anslinger-approved line was the contention by ABA-AMA Committee Chairman Judge Morris Ploscowe that not all drug users were necessarily drug addicts and that the connection between drug use and other crime was not as clear-cut as some would contend.

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