Note: Hopefully this has a factual answer. I’m not looking for arguments either pro or against these laws, just the reasons behind them.
Anyways, has the goverment provided a reason as to why some drugs are illegal? If so, what exactly is their reasoning?
They’re only illegal in the sense that their distribution is tightly controlled: If not taken under the direction and supervision of a licensed professional, they can cause illness or death. In the case of schedule 1 controlled substances, no medical use has been recognized. I am not sure why plain old cigarettes aren’t also listed in schedule 1, but I suppose that’s another thread.
Schedule 1: High Abuse, No Recognized Medical Use
Heroin
LSD
MDMA
Marijuana
Methaqualone
Methadrine, methamphetamine
Schedule 2: High Abuse, Medical Utility, High Dependency Risk
Opium
Morphine
Coca
Cocaine
Methadone
Methamphetamine
Schedule 3: Lower Abuse, Medical Utility, Moderate Dependency Risk
Amphetamine
Barbiturate
Valium
Xanax
Anabolic Steroids
Codeine
Schedule 4: Limited Abuse, High Medical Utility, Limited Dependency Risk
Chloral Hydrate
Meprobamate
Paraldehyde
Phenobarbital
(from the Controlled Substances Act of 1990)
Duder, I wish the government provided official texts for their reasoning on many issues. Then we could pour over them and debug them right here on the Straight Dope.
Drugs are illegal because, for various reasons, the government decided that their use caused serious problems to either the users or to society as a whole.
That’s what I would think too, but has the government itself explicitly stated this?
Oh, and very informative post Patty O’Furniture.
The problem is that there’s so many lies and distortions on both sides of the issue that even if the government has clearly stated it’s reasons, that finding undistorted facts to counteract the claims made by the government. I’ve heard that one of the justifications for banning pot was that there were a number of race riots in NYC in the 30s, and politicians thought that it was pot making blacks riot. It’s an oft-repeated tale, but I’ve never seen anything conclusively proving it.
Er, make that " finding undistorted facts to counteract the claims made by the government would be a royal PITA." You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve got the flu.
Didn’t meth used to be sold as a weight loss drug in the 50’s or something? There’s this:
So much for no medical use.
Yes, Methedrine. Back then, it was also commonly used by truck drivers, students, and anyone else who wanted to stay awake and alert.
That’s why methamphetamine is a Schedule II drug. Patty mistakenly listed it in both Schedules I and II.
To (somewhat) help answer the OP, here is an interesting page with just about everything you could possibly want to know about the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, the first federal marijuana law.
Yeah, that explains all the problems with peyote within the Native American Church.
Anyway, the exact requirements for a substance to be in schedule I are those that have no accepted medical use in the United States (U.S.), are not accepted as safe for use under medical supervision,and have a high abuse potential.
The first two conditons fr scheduling are political. There have been medical drugs which have been transferred between schedules, sometimes into schedule I, notably methaqualone. The last criteria is ‘potential for abuse’. Here’s what the DEA has to say about abuse:
Point 3 is interesting, in that, it says that if a drug is used without a medical reason, that constitutes abuse.
This is a Great Debate. not a suitable GQ
Anyway, here’s one person’s account of the road to marijuana prohibition. Here’s an account behind Ecstasy scheduling.
According to promo’s for an NPR show, the military is looking at giving troops suffering PTSD LSD and Ecstasy as part of their treatment.
I thought that may be, but that’s why I asked whether the government ever stated the reason for drugs being illegal. I’m not interested in hearing opinions as to why they’re illegal.
You also asked “what exactly is their reasoning?”. I doubt you’ll get a factual answer to that. The DEA page I linked to, itself admits that one of the metrics for scheduling has not been defined in the CSA. At most, you’ll be able to dig up some statements by DEA or other govt. officials are ‘drugs are an imminent hazard to public safety’. If you want to know the definitions of those terms & basis/validity for such judgement, you’re entering a thick forest. Your best bet is to go to your nearest university library and search under the subject heading of ‘Drug Abuse United States’ .
Right. Perhaps it didn’t come across well, but I simply wanted to know what the government’s stated reason was, if there ever was one.
Since it seems that there isn’t a clear reason, so far as I can tell, the question has been answered.
Just to nitpick Patty a little bit, Diazepam(Valium) and most other benzodiazepines are in fact schedule IV, not schedule III. This is a big deal in California now, because they recently increased regulation of schedule III’s to more closely resemble schedule II’s.
For a really cool website about all sort of drugs, check out http://www.erowid.org. Specifically, their section on controlled substances is especially relevant.
I don’t know much about the war on drugs or drug regulation but I do know a bit of American history.
In the 19th century pharmacists, druggists, apothecaries, snake oil salesmen et al all sold drugs to alleviate various ills. Some of them are drugs you can probably still find in a pharmacy today, while some of them were illicit drugs that you will only find on the streets today. But along with drugs that actually had some effect of lot of plain crap was sold, some things that were highly toxic and of no real medical value at all.
The progressive movement of the early 20th century saw the regulation of the meat industry because of the book “The Jungle.” The Jungle described such horrific sanitary conditions that Theodore Roosevelt decided it was in the public’s interest to insure meat has a certain degree of regulation, some of the things in the Jungle upset the President so much he was a vegetarian for some months (interesting sidenote is Upton Sinclair did not write his book to revolutionize the meat industry, but rather to give sympathy to the plight of the workers in meat processing plants.)
Other similar government actions basically laid the foundation for the FDA. The FDA came about in 1938. Basically the American people got tired of having to worry about the powders, herbs, oils et cetera they were buying from people of extremely varying authenticity.
In the 19th century in some places there was no way you could tell the difference between a pharmacist that truly cared and knew about his trade and someone that opened up a shop just to sell innocuous powders for profit.
Basically for many reasons I think most of us can see as pharmaceuticals became more sophisticated and caveat emptor became more ridiculous (honestly, buyer’s beware may apply to an extent but you can’t expect Americans to perform chemical tests on their prescription drugs to insure they are what they are advertised as) the drug industry had to be controlled by the government.
From this regulation came the idea that druggists shouldn’t be selling drugs that have no medical purpose, more specifically drugs that can cause serious side effects. The initial banning of drugs like cocaine and etc was in my opinion not fueled by morality but rather a desire to get things out of drug stores that did more harm than good and were being foolishly used as “cure-alls.” People addicted to cocaine were viewed as people who were duped by druggists and not so much as addicts, and the matter wasn’t really viewed as a civil liberties thing. People just didn’t want druggists selling that crap to them anymore.
Just a correction, cocaine is in many drug stores. It is an excellent topical anesthetic. I used to use eye drops compounded with cocaine when I had severe allergies to various types of pollen. They worked very well and they did not turn me into a dope fiend.
Most likely, the clearest answer sought by the OP would be in the committee reports to the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. As legislation is passed out of congressional committees, the committees issue a report stating why it recommended this or that. Another similar report is usually issued when the compromised legislation is presented to the House and Senate for final approval.
The thing is, these reports only say why a handful of Senators and Representatives decided this or that should or shouldn’t be in the bill. It cannot give a full accounting of why all 535 members of Congress approved the legislation, because they might have voted for it for many reasons.
For example, one Senator might have voted to place pot on Schedule I because he saw Reefer Madness. Another might have cast the same vote because he is a pot user and didn’t want to raise suspicions of being “pro-marijuana.”
Unfortunately, committee and conference reports from 1970 are not available online. If one gets really motivated, the reports would be available in any Federal repository library, which are generally the larger libraries associated with fair-sized cities, universities, and colleges.
Hypothetical:
Which of these categories would alcohol fit in, if it were outlawed? What about nicotine?
Schedule 1: High Abuse, No Recognized Medical Use
Schedule 2: High Abuse, Medical Utility, High Dependency Risk
Schedule 3: Lower Abuse, Medical Utility, Moderate Dependency Risk
Schedule 4: Limited Abuse, High Medical Utility, Limited Dependency Risk