1980s Drug Enforcement History

In 1973, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration was created to enforce federal drug laws when many of the seventy-six million baby boomers embraced not only drugs, but also dealing and trafficking them. This caused the drug culture to explode. Drug use reached its peak in 1979, when one in ten Americans used drugs on a regular basis.
The early 80’s brought the reappearance of cocaine. It emerged as the fashionable new drug for entertainers and important business people. It provided them with energy for long nights of working or partying, and quickly became the most popular recreational drug of the 1980’s. It was often referred to as “the rich man’s drug” and “the champagne of drugs”. It received these labels because it was a glamourized, high-status drug used by celebrities in Hollywood, and was said to have no serious consequences.

They starting shunning the powdery cocaine. Drug dealers then refocused their aim to traditional, inner-city drug markets by introducing crack, an intensely addictive, relatively cheap alternative to traditional cocaine. The biggest surge of crack use occurred during the “crack epidemic” between 1984 and 1990. It quickly gained the reputation of America’s most dangerous and addictive drug. Reports have linked crack with increased urban poverty, gang violence, crime, death, and family disruption such as “crack babies” (infants born addicted to crack because of the addictions of their mothers during pregnancy). This set off America’s most devastating drug epidemic yet. It was seen by many as the social problem of the decade. Whole communities were left overwhelmed and underprepared by the scope and horror of this drug. Crack appeared in these urban neighborhoods spreading addiction, crime and violence at alarming rates, which also caused law enforcement to be initially overwhelmed as