March 3, 1905: The first Congressional anti-drug law is passed when the US colonial government prohibits opium in the Philippines.

[image:1 align:right]March 6, 1907: Gov. James Gillett signs the Poison Act Amendments, launching California's war on drugs.

March 8, 1973: The US Coast Guard conducts its first Coast Guard-controlled seizure when the USCGC Dauntless boards a 38-foot sports fisherman boat, the Big L, and arrests its master and crew with more than a ton of marijuana on board.

March 9, 1982: The largest US domestic cocaine seizure ever to date raises US awareness of the Medellin cartel. The seizure of 3,906 pounds of cocaine, valued at over $100 million wholesale, from a Miami International Airport hanger tells US law enforcement that Colombian traffickers must be working together because no single trafficker could be behind a shipment that large.

March 4, 1992: George Bush's White House has bureaucrats terminate the federal government's Compassionate Investigational New Drug (IND) medical marijuana program, barring even approved patients from receiving marijuana and allowing only a small handful already receiving it to continue.

March 9, 2001: William J. Allegro, 32, of Bradley Beach, New Jersey is sentenced to 50 years in prison for growing marijuana in his home. "The court imposed this sentence because the court felt obligated to do so under the law," says Judge Paul F. Chaiet, a former prosecutor. "Mandatory sentencing provisions can create difficult results. In the court's view, this is one of those times where the ultimate results are difficult to accept."