Weekly:
This
Week
in
History
6/17/05
June 17, 1971: President Richard Nixon declares "war on drugs," at a press conference naming drug abuse as "public enemy number one in the United States" and announcing the creation of the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention (SAODAP), to be headed by Dr. Jerome Jaffe, a leading methadone treatment specialist. Drug treatment for a brief time receives the majority of federal anti-drug funding. June 18, 1986: The evening death (heart failure from cocaine poisoning) of promising college basketball star Len Bias, the recent Boston Celtics draft choice, stuns the nation, leading to passage of federal mandatory minimum sentences. June 18, 2002: The US Supreme Court rules that in conducting random searches for drugs or weapons on buses, police need not advise passengers that they are free to refuse permission to be searched. June 19, 1812: The United States goes to war with Great Britain after being cut off from 80% of its Russian hemp supply. Napoleon invades Russia to sever Britain's illegal trade in Russian hemp. June 19, 1991: In a secret vote, the Colombian assembly decides 51-13 to ban extradition in a new Constitution to take effect on July 5. The same day Pablo Escobar surrenders to Colombian police. June 20, 1995: On a Discovery Channel special, "The Cronkite Report: The Drug Dilemma," former CBS news anchorman Walter Cronkite -- regarded internationally as one of the most trusted figures in America -- calls the drug war a failure and calls for a bipartisan commission to study alternatives to prohibition. Cronkite concludes, "We cannot go into tomorrow with the same formulas that are failing today." June 20, 2002: Rolling Stone magazine reports that the Senior Judge of England's highest court, Lord Bingham, has publicly declared his country's marijuana prohibition "stupid" and said he "absolutely" supported legalization. June 21, 1995: The Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA publishes commentary: "It is time for physicians to acknowledge more openly that the present [schedule 1] classification [of marijuana] is scientifically, legally, and morally wrong." June 22, 2002: The General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association passes its "Alternatives to the War on Drugs" Statement of Conscience.
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