Drug Enforcement Administration

Early Enforcement Efforts

The Department of Treasury maintained primary responsibility for drug enforcement, forming the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) under the leadership of Harry B. Anslinger. Although Anslinger served as director of the FBN almost as long as J. Edgar Hoover did at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), neither he nor his agency ever became as well known. Part of the reason for this was that the FBN had a much narrower mandate than the FBI and throughout its history shared jurisdiction with a number of other agencies also involved in federal narcotics enforcement efforts. Among those who held major responsibility for such enforcement was the U.S. Customs Service, which was heavily involved in drug smuggling interdiction and formed a drug enforcement unit within its Investigative Bureau.

By the 1960s responsibility was further spread with creation of the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (BDAC) within the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The BDAC was an attempt to control the growing misuse and diversion of prescription drugs, pharmacy thefts, and the illicit manufacture of drugs such as LSD, MDA, amphetamines, and methamphetamines. A number of indictments of BDAC and FBN agents for corrupt activities and misuse of office led President Lyndon B. Johnson, in 1968 to win congressional approval to merge the two agencies into the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) under the Department of Justice. According to the plan, the attorney general would have full authority and responsibility for enforcing the federal laws relating to narcotics and dangerous drugs, but would not oversee the U.S. Customs Service's continued investigation of drug smuggling cases at the nation's borders.

By the 1970s, BNDD had established offices in 14 foreign countries, including Turkey, Vietnam, and Mexico. But lines of authority continued to overlap and to confuse enforcement efforts. In January 1972, President Richard M. Nixon issued Executive Order 11641 creating the Office of Drug Abuse Law Enforcement (ODALE) within the Department of Justice. ODALE was proposed as an innovative approach to attacking drug distribution at the local level by concentrating federal resources to bear on street-level heroin pushers. Although ODALE was a means of setting up an independent group of enforcement officers under the direct control of the president, it also was viewed by the president's adversaries as a potential political vehicle for supporting a strong anticrime platform. A number of provisions of ODALE reinforced this view, including that the director served as both a special assistant attorney general and a special consultant to the president; that the office was designed to showcase a number of new crime-fighting tools, including use of no-knock warrants, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization, and special investigative grand juries; and that it had a sunset provision of 18 months, which would take it through the next election. Overzealous actions by some of the agents provided political ammunition for the opponents of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act and resulted in negative publicity for the BNDD based on its agents' involvement in ODALE task forces. By this time, task forces had become regular narcotics enforcement tools. In 1970, the New York Regional Office of BNDD had established the first joint narcotics task force in New York City, comprised of its agents, New York City Police Department officers, and New York State Police troopers.

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