Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act

The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (Public Law 91–513) was signed into law by President Richard M. Nixon on October, 27, 1970. This sweeping law, and its many subsequent amendments, combined many different drug laws into a single federal statute that covered substance use and abuse, treatment and prevention, as well as drug traffic interdiction efforts. It was purposely constructed to serve as a broad uniform federal approach to address substance use and abuse. The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act still serves as the major legal foundation for drug enforcement efforts in the United States, as well as for guiding the regulation of illicit drug manufacturing in this country.

The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was intended to replace and update a wide array of earlier U.S. drug laws. For example, the law reduced the penalties for marijuana possession for personal use from a felony to a misdemeanor offense. It also broadened the definition of a drug-dependent person and thereby greatly expanded drug abuse treatment programs in the United States by allowing federally funded addiction treatment centers to serve nonnarcotic drug abusers as well as those who are narcotic addicts. The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act repealed both the Harrison Narcotic Act of 1916 and the Drug Abuse Control Amendments of 1965, the latter of which were intended to eliminate illicit drug trafficking of stimulants, depressants, and other drugs with the potential for abuse and which also required drugs to be identified by stipulated symbols, primarily for the ease of pharmacists. The pharmaceutical industry is required under this law to maintain strict security over certain substances along with rigorous record keeping responsibilities. The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act also amended the Public Services Act, and other related laws, to increase research on drug abuse and individuals who are drug abusers, as well as to conduct research into substance abuse prevention. The act also has mechanisms in it by which new substances can be investigated as to whether they should be placed under regulatory controls. A major accomplishment of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was that Congress no longer had to pass separate laws to regulate each respective drug.

The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act contained, as its Title II, the Controlled Substances Act, which established schedules for manufacturing, regulating, and distributing drugs, such as opioids, depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, and anabolic steroids, as well as many of the chemicals used in the making of controlled substances, as determined by evaluating their possible medicinal value and their addictive potential. The law also gave much greater powers to the police and other enforcement agencies for conducting searches and seizures for drugs. In fact, the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was amended in 1978 to permit the criminal justice system to seize all assets, including property, money, and other valuables, from anyone either intending to trade such assets for drugs or who acquired such assets as illegal proceeds from the selling of drugs.

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