A Look at the Harrison Act of 1914
Crystal L. Featherstone
Grand Canyon University: PCN-527
November 22, 2017
Introduction
Americas war on drugs goes back year
in time with controversial aspects that have led the country into on-going
fight after another to regulate the drugs humans will use. The issue of safety,
making decisions for others, and greed are at the forefront of this massive
fight. According to Redford and Powell (2016), “The Harrison Narcotics Tax Act
of 1914 is widely viewed in the scholarly literature as the beginning of the
U.S. government's war on drugs (Miron and Zwiebel 1995; Benson and Rasmussen
1997; Libby 2006; Francis and Mauser 2011; McNamara 2011) as cited in Redford
and Powell Para 1). It has been debated that the real war began in 1906 because
the food and drug administration did actively pursue these same wars. These
nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century policies represent the beginning of the
U.S. government's war on drugs; a war that is till on-going.
History of the Laws
This word “intervention” was
introduced and the law makers felt the need to do so because of the effects
that drugs were having on people. The death, illness, and crime levels rose,
and this issue had to be addressed. According to Redford and Powell (2016), “when
the government prohibits a drug, people have the incentive to stop using that
drug (the intended consequence), but they also have the incentive to switch to
a different drug that satisfies similar ends (the unintended consequence),
which creates an entrepreneurial opportunity for individuals to supply more of
the alternative drug.” (p. 510). The Harrison Act of 1914 was to correct other
laws that had failed and at the same time the question is, did this one work? From
1860-1913 previous laws were attempted to fight the war on drugs and in this
case the drugs were Opium. By 1906 Cocaine, heroin, cannabis, and other such
drugs continued to be legally available without prescription as long as they
were labeled. Now the issue arrived that these drugs were not being labeled
correctly as far how addicting a dangerous they were. In other words, they were
called by their scientific name, e.g., narcotics. These drugs impacted society
in a way never seen before in our recent history.
The Impact on Society
In 1911 Hamilton Wright argues that
of all the nations of the world, the United States consumes most habit-forming
drugs per capita. Meaning Americans were getting higher than most nations. Opium
was taking its toll on America and they tried to ban the influx from China, yet
his method was a failure at the time as well. In society because of the amount
of money made from opium the drug user emerged as a new criminal subject at the
center of an array of medico-penal technologies that sought to understand the psychological
and somatic dimensions of addiction, and to normalize the addicted person,
(Ghatak, 2010). This take on the users versus the dealers impacted therapy by
one major issue. It was time to stop demonizing the user and get to the root of
the issue to heal people psychologically.
The Impact on
Psychology and dealing with Users
The most shocking issue then with
the Harrison Act of 1914 was the message of “treat an Addict Go to Jail’,
(Clark, 2003). This was real and
consequently medical professionals were reluctant to address the medical needs
of those with opioid-use problems. In 2003 there were only 1200 reported
treatment centers for opioid use and the death toll was rising. One of he
tricks used was that crude opium was not covered in the treaty between China
and the United States of America, and this was a “loop hole” that was not
anticipated. According to Redford and Powell (2016), “once again, Americans
were free to engage in this newly created profit opportunity by playing the
role of arbitrageur-they could produce smoking opium domestically and turn it
over to the Chinese, just as they had done with smoking-opium imports. The
evidence from Wright shows that crude-opium importations increased from 380,621
pounds in 1890 to 521,749 in 1891, 587,122 in 1892, and 1,073,999 in 1897
(1910, 81), almost doubling the amount imported five years earlier,” (p. 520).
Again, the greed factor is he root cause to the drug problem.
Conclusion
The issue of drugs is a battle of morals,
care, concern, and the need for money. The reason this issue will always be a
so-called war is because of these underlying factors. The need for human
consumption will always be a factor because as human’s people need to escape
reality when it becomes to much to bare. This writer thinks that the real
criminals are in government seats that allow the drugs to satisfy their own
selfish material needs. The need for people to get high and the drug dealers
fall on the same lines. A better living for drug dealers and a better way to
deal with horrible aspects of some peoples lives. Psychology and holistic
methods are needed now more than ever. The fact we do know the mind better and
see addicts as people who need help is a big step in the war on drugs. The 1914
Harrison Act did attempt to be proactive yet it failed in its original
endeavor.
References
Clark, H. W. (2003). Office-based practice and opioid-use
disorders. The New England Journal of Medicine, 349(10), 928-30. Retrieved from
https://search-proquest-com.contentproxy.phoenix.edu/docview/223929758?accountid=134061
Ghatak, S. (2010). “The Opium Wars”: The Biopolitics of
Narcotic Control in the United States, 1914–1935. Critical Criminology, 18(1),
41-56. doi:10.1007/s10612-010-9098-
Redford, A., & Powell, B. (2016). Dynamics of
intervention in the war on drugs: The buildup to the Harrison act of 1914. The
Independent Review, 20(4), 509-530. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.contentproxy.phoenix.edu/docview/1777262409?accountid=35812
No comments:
Post a Comment