PubMed · 15146768
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Ken Ortolon. 2004. Doctors as cops.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15146768/
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This article explains the international context of regulation to control addicting substances that gave rise to schedules. It discusses the impact of scheduling decisions on subsequent national drug control legislation and international drug control negotiations, highlighting how the creation of schedules introduced new incentives and rewards into calculations about the national/international commerce in drugs. In particular, the schedules affected the development and clinical application of psychotropic substances, and the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances receives special focus. The roles of governmental representatives, pharmaceutical company interests, medical researchers, physicians, and pharmacists are highlighted. The article illustrates how debates about scheduling in international treaties over the previous 40 years impacted the creation of the 1970 Controlled Substances Act in the United States and how the constituencies that contributed to constructing the Controlled Substances Act viewed their efforts in a global context.
In the United States, the basis of modern drug regulation is the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970. The CSA laid out the authority of the federal government and provided a framework within which all existing and new substances could be regulated on their abuse potential, safety, and medical utility. The debates over the CSA centered on several critical issues: where to place the authority to make scheduling designations, the impact of scheduling on drug research, and defining what constituted drug "abuse" for purposes of scheduling. Passage of the CSA was aided by broad language that provided a kind of "big tent" which could accommodate diverse points of view. A retrospective assessment of the CSA shows it to have greatly expanded federal administrative authority over the nation's drug supply, much as its authors intended. Other impacts of the CSA, however, are much less certain. This article concludes by highlighting the issues and questions that should guide future retrospective research on the efficacy of drug control regimes.
The 1970 Controlled Substances Act was part of an omnibus reform package designed to rationalize, and in some respects to liberalize, American drug policy. While the legislation provided additional resources for law enforcement and a systematic means for regulating the use of most psychoactive drugs, it also did away with mandatory minimum sentences and provided more support for treatment and research. Over the next three decades, and in response to public alarm about drug abuse, the US Congress continuously amended the law to produce a more punitive system of drug control. The amendments, which gave the Drug Enforcement Administration greater control over scheduling and maintenance and which substantially increased penalties for illicit trafficking, transformed the law into the legal foundation of America's "drug war," as the stricter criminal approach came to be known. By the 1980s, the flexibility and innovative spirit of the original Controlled Substances Act (and that of Nixon-era drug strategy generally) had largely disappeared from American drug policy.