United States

State and Local Intervention

The growing worry that cocaine and other drugs like heroin were dangerous manifested itself first in state and local regulation. Because the federal system offers states and localities considerable discretion on how to create and implement a wide array of social policies, state and local differences in drug policy were commonplace at the turn of the 20th century. For example, lawmakers in Pennsylvania reacted to a statewide rise in morphine use (the state was home to a few leading morphine manufacturers) by outlawing the drug in 1860. Illinois outlawed cocaine in 1897; Ohio had done so a decade before. The Atlanta City Council passed a city ordinance in 1901 allowing cocaine use only with a prescription. Other states like New York soon followed. Anti-morphine and heroin laws also appeared in various states like Texas.

Local drug control mechanisms, however, did not always restrict drug use. Many jurisdictions flirted with experimental treatment procedures, like controlled drug distribution to addicts. Historian David Musto calls this time a period of state and local statute revision and treatment experimentation. For example, lawmakers in New York State set up facilities for drug maintenance for addicts. A Jacksonville, Florida, doctor established free narcotic prescriptions in 1912 for drug addicts (a practice that would later prompt federal intervention). Tennessee lawmakers decided in 1913 to register drug addicts and allow them to legally obtain opiate prescriptions. At the same time, Massachusetts lawmakers prohibited drug use by prescription. No national attempt was made to regulate these drugs. Until 1914, many agreed that such far-reaching federal intervention would be deemed unconstitutional.

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