Drugs Through Time: 1940-2008

1943

In 1918 the Swiss chemist Arthur Stoll had isolated the ergot alkaloid from a fungus which grows on cereal crops; while war raged in Europe, his protégé Albert Hoffman continued investigations into the substance and its analogues. One of these, Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, was accidentally ingested by Hoffman, who went on to experience the world’s first Acid trip.

1946

After WW2, the Geneva Protocol transfers all functions of the League of Nations over to the United Nations, including international drugs control.

1960s

The social upheavals of the sixties include the emergence of a worldwide youth culture, in which drug use assumes a prominent and often integral role. The decade represents a key transitional period in the history and culture of modern drug use, and in the policies adopted to respond to it. Drugs become widely identified with social change, which they symbolise and arguably become a vehicle for.

1961

The United Nations Single Convention unifies and consolidates previous instances of drug control legislation, embracing nine multi-lateral treaties negotiated between 1912 and 1953. Its main focus was on plant-based drugs and their derivates, such as opium, morphine, heroin, cocaine and cannabis.

The Single Convention was intended to renew and rationalise legislation and to set up new forms of UN drug control administration. Over 100 drugs are covered by the legislation, classified according to four schedules representing varying degrees of regulatory control. The Convention obliges all signatory states to bring domestic law into accordance with its extensive protocols.

1961

The Report of the Second Inter-departmental Committee on Drug Addiction.

Like its predecessor, the committee was named after its chairman Sir Russell and later Lord Brain. The first Brain committee had been commissioned at the end of the 1950s to reconsider the situation vis-a-vis Britain's drug laws and arrangements for dealing with its addicts, and to advise on whether new measures were necessary. Its report came down in favour of the status quo, and concluded that, in view of the small number of drug addicts in the UK, further restrictions on heroin and cocaine were not necessary. The 'British System' devised by Rolleston had prevented the development of an illicit market comparable to that in the USA.

1964

In the UK, the Dangerous Drugs Act is passed, enabling Britain to ratify the UN Single Convention.

1965

This year saw the publication of the second Brain Report, (Brain II), the interdepartmental committee having been reconvened the previous year. This had been prompted by 'Moral Panics' in the mass media regarding youth and drugs, especially in relation to the London-based prescribed pharmaceutical diamorphine scene. The report was to assign responsibility for this state of affairs to private doctors prescribing to meet the needs of addicts, and, according to the committee, greatly over-prescribing.

The report marked the most significant turning point in British drug policy since its predecessor met under Rolleston, and represents the beginning of the end for the 'British System'. The main recommendations included the notification of addicts, wide-ranging restrictions on the prescribing rights of doctors, and the setting up of special treatment centres or clinics for the provision of drug treatment. The right to prescribe heroin and cocaine to addicts was now limited to specialist psychiatrists working in clinics and equipped with a license from the Home Office. From this point, in addition, the quantity of these drugs prescribed was reduced dramatically, the heroin substitute methadone being supplied in their place. While technical developments (such as the availability of methadone) and administrative imperatives are sometimes cited as the reasons for these changes, it was profound social changes of the 1960s that formed the underlying causes. The large and rapid increase in drug use, and the tendency of drugs to stand as symbols of social and cultural change, meant that the old structures were considered no longer adequate to meet the challenge that drug use posed to authority.

1967

A new Dangerous Drugs Act implements the Brain Committee recommendations, consigning the British System to history. The legislation also introduces new police powers of 'Stop and Search', allowing the police to search people and vehicles for drugs.

1967

The Summer of Love saw hippie culture and LSD use peaking in the UK. The international youth movement rejects the money, power and status that structure the value system of its parents’ generation. Turning on, tuning in and dropping out, the Sixties culture quake, while failing to initiate the global revolution for which it hopes, does bring about deep and enduring changes in the social and cultural fabric of the western world.

1971

UK introduces new legislation in the form of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

1971

US president Richard Nixon initiates the full-blown policy of War On Drugs, declaring drug use to be 'Public Enemy Number One'. The stance adopted by the Nixon regime takes US drug policy to an even more aggressive level, fully committing the country for the foreseeable future to a law-enforcement solution to the problems associated with drugs. US policy has yet to emerge from this project, and continues to deploy its influence, economic, diplomatic and military in discouraging other UN countries from adopting any alternative approaches.

1971

United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances. This treaty extends international control to synthetic drugs including amphetamine, depressants, barbiturates and hallucinogens. As in the Single Convention, the drugs are classified according to four schedules associated with their perceived potential for abuse and their therapeutic value.

1980s

The advent of AIDS, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Initially, the disease is strongly identified with marginal groups including homosexuals, blacks, prostitutes and intravenous drug users. The fear of the spread of the infection beyond these socially stigmatised groups into the 'normal' population is a major influence on the development of a largely new drug treatment philosophy that becomes known as Harm Reduction or Harm Minimisation. It inspires the setting up of needle exchanges, and has a major impact on restricting the transmission of blood-borne viruses in the UK.

1985

In the UK, the Controlled Drugs (Penalties) Act introduces life imprisonment as a maximum penalty for trafficking.

1988

Ecstasy (MDMA) and rave culture turn this year into the UK’s second Summer of Love. The youth movement rejects the values of Thatcher’s Britain and its individualised culture based on the consumption of alcohol and sex. ‘Loved-up’ on E, young ravers in their thousands dance away the night at outdoor festivals.

1988

United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances (Vienna Convention). The treaty seeks to impose international controls upon trafficking through enhanced co-operation between law enforcement agencies, and by strengthening the penalties contained in the domestic laws of signatories. Its provisions deal with the various facets of inter-state co-operation including: extradition, money-laundering, freezing and forfeiture of assets, in addition to the sharing of law enforcement information.

1994

UK Drug Trafficking Act implements the Vienna Convention.

1998

Under the banner “A drug-free world- we can do it”, the United Nations sets out its plan to significantly reduce the production and use of illicit drugs by 2008. At the U.N. General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS 1998), the international community (as represented by the UN delegates) reaffirmed their support for prohibitive drug policy and committed themselves to achieving “significant progress” by 2008- i.e. setting a 10 year timetable for realising the project. A video address by UN secretary general Kofi Annan contained the following pledge: "Our commitment is to make real progress towards eliminating drug crops by the year 2008. It is my hope that this session will go down in history as the time the international community found common ground to take on this task in earnest."

2003

When the UNGASS delegates met in April 2003 for a mid-term review of the ambitious 10 year project devised at the 1998 session, an official brave face was put on events, and on the alleged progress toward “significant reduction” in drug production. However, according to critical commentators the cracks were beginning to show in the facade of unity. The politics of the North-South global divide, the European, Australian and Canadian experiments with harm reduction and the movements toward decriminalisation, in addition to the continued prevalence of illicit drugs and their widespread use: all these factors have questioned the efficacy/validity of the present regime of international drug control. [this sentence needs some clarification]

2003

In the UK, the Anti-Social Behaviour Act is intended to respond to public alarm about the existence of “crackhouses”, and the like. The Act permits extensive powers of discretion to the police in issuing closure notices and relies heavily on hearsay evidence. The likely result is that highly vulnerable, socially marginalised persons will be made homeless at short notice by closure orders made under the Act.

2004

On January 29th, cannabis is reclassified. Following the recommendations of the ACMD, the drug is downgraded from class B to class C by then Home Secretary David Blunkett. The move is welcomed by Release and many other organisations in the drugs field, but remains controversial; claims of confusion as to its real legal status and of cannabis-induced psychosis circulate in the popular media, prompting then Conservative party leader Michael Howard to promise to reverse the move at the earliest opportunity. While fears are expressed that the reclassification has led to an increase in use, in 2005 the Independent Drug Monitoring Unit finds that the number of users has remained stable.

2005

The Drugs Act is slipped onto the statute books on the day the general election is announced. The Act confirms and extends the trend toward ever-closer linkage between law enforcement and drug treatment, and an overall criminal justice focus. It includes clauses introducing Compulsory drug-testing of arrestees in the case of certain trigger offences, or where the police have “reasonable grounds” for believing that Class A drugs have played a role in the commission of an offence. Failure to comply with testing is itself an offence, even in cases where no subsequent action is taken against the individual for the trigger offence, and no conviction results. Positive tests lead to compulsory drug treatment assessment, again regardless of whether any further action is taken in relation to the original alleged offence.

2005 saw the inclusion of fresh Liberty Cap or “magic mushrooms” in Class A of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Prior to the passing of this Bill, only dried or prepared mushrooms were considered to be illegal, the assumption being that such procedures demonstrated intent to extract psilocybin. The passing of the Drugs Act meant that all magic mushrooms were now an illegal class A substance. The Liberty Cap is a native plant growing naturally in many parts of the UK. The Act also proposed to introduce the presumption of supply whereby suspects are found in possession of a quantity which exceeds what might be considered a “reasonable” amount for personal use. i.e., it will be up to the defendant to prove that there was no intent to supply in cases involving amounts above a quantity – this proposal has been thought it be unworkable and the Government has announced they do not intend to bring it into force.

The Act further enmeshes drug control legislation with measures to deal with Anti-Social Behaviour. Cases in which Anti Social Behaviour Orders are invoked can result in the imposition of compulsory testing and drug treatment orders on individuals, despite widespread recognition that coercive treatment is ineffective. In relation to a number of points, the Act is arguably in conflict with the Human Rights Act 1998, although the government insists otherwise.

2008

In March, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs meets in Vienna to begin the process of reviewing progress made toward the goals set at the UN Special Session on Drugs in 1998. Following the theme developed by the last few UN World Drug Reports—that drug use has been “stabilized” and “contained”, and that problematic use is confined to about 26 million individuals worldwide—the meeting accepts that there are some unfortunate side-effects of the drug control system, but that it is basically sound. A “period of reflection” is agreed, and a series of Expert Working Groups convened to examine the performance of the system and suggest some fine tuning. A fundamental look at the system’s failings or changes to the three international drug control treaties that underpin the system is, however, firmly off the agenda.

2008

In May of this year the government announces its intention to upwardly reclassify cannabis from Class C back up to Class B. It is anticipated that this reclassification, which is contrary to the guidance received from the ACMD (whose job it is to advise ministers on matters of drug classification), will be put into legal effect in January 2009.

1500-1799 - 1800-1899 - 1900-1939 - 1940-2008

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