Introduction
A drug is any substance
(other than food
that provides nutritional support) that, when inhaled, injected,
smoked,
consumed,
absorbed via a patch
on the skin, or dissolved under the tongue causes a temporary
physiological (and often psychological) change in the body.
In pharmacology,
a drug is a chemical substance of known structure, other than a nutrient of an
essential dietary ingredient, which, when administered to a living organism,
produces a biological effect. A pharmaceutical drug, also called a medication
or medicine, is a chemical substance used to treat,
cure, prevent, or diagnose
a disease
or to promote well-being. Traditionally drugs were obtained through
extraction from medicinal plants, but more recently also by organic
synthesis. Pharmaceutical drugs may be used for a limited duration,
or on a regular basis for chronic disorders.
Drug
laws and drug crimes have gotten lots of attention in the past decade. Laws in
every state and at the federal level prohibit the possession, manufacture, and
sale of certain controlled substances including drugs like marijuana,
methamphetamine, ecstasy, cocaine, and heroin.
Federal, State, and Local Drug Laws
Though there is a longstanding
federal strategy in place to combat the abuse and distribution of controlled
substances, each state also has its own set of drug laws. One key difference
between the two is that while the majority of federal drug convictions are
obtained for trafficking, the majority of local and state arrests are made on
charges of possession. Out of these state and local arrests, over half are for
the possession of marijuana.
Another difference between
federal and state drug laws is the severity of consequences after a conviction.
Federal drug charges generally carry harsher punishments and longer sentences.
State arrests for simple possession (i.e. possession without intent to
distribute the drug) tend to be charged as misdemeanors and usually involve
probation, a short term in a local jail, or a fine -- depending on the criminal
history and age of the person being charged.
Drug Laws
Authority
to regulate drug use rests foremost with the federal government, derived from its
power to regulate interstate commerce. States are free to legislate so long as their
laws remain consistent with federal law. Most states have adopted federal models
for their own drug legislation.
Current law has two main objectives.
First,
it regulates the manufacture, sale, and use of legal drugs such as aspirin, sleeping
pills, and antidepressants.
Second,
it prohibits and punishes the manufacture, possession, and sale of illegal drugs
from marijuana to heroin, as well as some dangerous legal drugs.
The Laws
To control
the use of dangerous
drugs, federal law
and most state
statutes use a classification
system outlined by the Uniform Controlled
Substances Act, based
on the federal Comprehensive
Drug Abuse Prevention
and Control Act.
This system includes
both illegal and
dangerous legal drugs.
It uses five groups,
called schedules, to organize drugs according
to their potential for medical use,
harm, or abuse, and
it imposes a series of controls and penalties
for each schedule.
Heroin, hallucinogens, and marijuana
are placed on schedule
I, as they are thought
to have a high potential
for harm and
no medical use. Other
types of opiates and
cocaine are on schedule
II. Most depressants
and stimulants are
on schedule III. Some
mild tranquilizers are on schedule IV.
Schedule V is for drugs that are considered medically useful
and less dangerous
but that can
cause limited physical
and psychological dependence, such as cough-syrup
mixtures that contain
some codeine. Under
the law, drugs
may be rescheduled as new evidence of their
uses or risks becomes
apparent, and the
attorney general has
the authority to add
new drugs to the
schedules at any time.
Penalties
are established according
to the severity of the crime. Possession
of a controlled substance is the simplest crime
involving drugs. Possession
with intent to sell
is more serious. Selling
or trafficking incurs the greatest penalties.
The exact penalty
for a particular offense
depends on numerous factors, including the
type of drug, its
amount, and the
convicted party's previous criminal record.
Penalties range from
small monetary fines
to life imprisonment and even greater
punishments. Under a general expansion of federal
offenses that can
invoke Capital
Punishment, the Violent
Crime and Law
Enforcement Act of 1994, Pub. L. No.
103-322, 108 Stat.
1796, imposes the
death penalty for
major drug trafficking.
Generally, the highest
price paid by drug
offenders is prison time for trafficking.
In 1999, according to statistics from the
department of justice, the average sentence
for drug offenders
engaged in drug trafficking
was 77.1 months,
compared to an average of 15.8 months for drug possession.
Between the mid-1980s and
early 1990s, lawmakers
enacted the harshest
drug laws in U.S.
history. The impetus
for these laws
came from the
so-called war on drugs,
a broad federal and
state public-policy push initiated under
President ronald reagan that received
widespread public support. Among its
many initiatives was
the creation of the
cabinet-level office of the national director
of drug control policy,
known as the drug
czar, to coordinate national and international
antidrug efforts.
The war on drugs also
created a patchwork of antidrug laws. These
included the Anti–Drug
Abuse Act of 1986
(Pub. L. No. 99-570,
100 Stat. 3207),
which toughened penalties
for drug violations
involving cocaine, especially its smokable
derivative, crack. The law imposed mandatory minimum sentences,
even for first-time
offenders. For sentencing
purposes, it established a ratio that regards
one gram of crack
as equivalent to 100 grams of powder cocaine.
While greatly increasing
the number of drug
offenders in prisons, the law has provoked considerable controversy
over its effect
on minorities. The Anti–Drug Abuse Act
of 1988 (Pub. L. No.
100-690, 102 Stat.
4181) further increased
federal jurisdiction over drug crime.
For the first
time, it became a federal crime to possess
even a minimal amount
of a controlled substance. Penalties were added
for crimes that
involve minors, pregnant
women, and the
sale of drugs within
100 feet of public
and private schools.
States toughened their
laws, as well. Michigan,
for example, imposed
life imprisonment without Parole
for cocaine trafficking
(Mich. Comp. Laws
Ann. § 333.7403[2][a][i]).
Under the Violent Crime
and Law Enforcement
Act, Congress exempted
certain first-time, non-violent offenders from
minimum sentencing. An exempted person must
be a first-time offender with a limited criminal
history; must not
have used violence
or possessed a weapon during the offense;
could not have
organized or supervised activities of others; and
must provide truthful
information and evidence
to the government during the offense.
The fight against illegal
drugs has extended
to housing. The Anti-Drug
Abuse Act mandates
that every local
public-housing agency insert a clause in its
standard lease document
that gives the
agency the right
to evict tenants if they use or tolerate
the use of illegal
drugs on or near their
premises.
The law has been lauded as an effective means
of ridding public housing of drug dealers
and other criminal
activity that comes
with it. However,
critics have contended
that many elderly
citizens who live
with their children
and grandchildren have been unfairly
evicted under this
zero-tolerance policy. These critics have
argued that the
eviction of so-called "innocent" tenants violates the 1988
law, as Congress only
meant to penalize those persons who
have knowledge of drug use. The U.S. Supreme Court,
in Department of Housing
and Urban Development
v. Rucker, 535 U.S. 125, 122 S.
Ct. 1230, 152
L. Ed. 2d 258 (2002),
rejected these arguments,
ruling that the
law clearly gives
the housing agency
discretion to evict tenants, whether or not
they knew about
drug use. The
case arose when
a 63-year-old grandmother in Oakland, California, was
evicted when her
adult daughter had
been caught using
crack cocaine three
blocks from her
mother's house.
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