Over the next two decades, states and the federal government continued to criminalize nonmedicinal and recreational drugs, and by mid-century, the division between legal and illegal drug
Trang 1others Ordinarily, all of these items may be sold without a pharmacy license
A physician does not have any special right to own or operate a drugstore A person should not, however, be denied a license merely because he or she is also a medical doctor Laws governing pharmacy do not generally interfere with the right of a physician to sell drugs to his or her patients The physician cannot, however, make it
a regular practice to fill prescriptions that other physicians send
CROSS REFERENCES Drugs and Narcotics; Health Care Law; Physicians and Surgeons
DRUGS AND NARCOTICS Drugs are articles that are intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention
of disease in humans or animals, and any articles other than food, water, or oxygen that are intended
to affect the mental or body function of humans or animals Narcotics are any drugs that dull the senses and commonly become addictive after prolonged use
In the scientific community, drugs are defined as substances that can affect a human’s
or animal’s biological and neurological states
They may be organic, such as the chemical tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), which occurs naturally in marijuana; or synthetic, such as amphetamines or sedatives, which are manu-factured in laboratories Drugs can be swal-lowed, inhaled through the nostrils, injected with a needle, applied to the skin, taken as a suppository, or smoked Scientists categorize drugs according to their effects Among their categories are analgesics, which kill pain, and psychoactive drugs, which alter the mind or behavior Some psychoactive substances pro-duce psychological highs or lows according to whether they are stimulants or depressants, respectively Others, called hallucinogens, pro-duce psychedelic states of consciousness; lyser-gic acid diethylamide (LSD) and mescaline are examples of such drugs Marijuana is placed in its own category
U.S law categorizes these substances differ-ently Commonly, federal and state statutes distinguish drugs from narcotics Drugs are substances designed for use in and on the body for the diagnosis, cure, treatment, or prevention
of disease These substances are regulated by the
FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION (FDA) Drugs
have been defined to include such substances as herb tonics, cold salves, laxatives, weight-reduction aids, vitamins, and even blood Narcotics are defined by statute as substances that either stimulate or dull an individual’s senses and that ordinarily become habit-form-ing (i.e., addictive) when used over time The regulation of narcotics falls into two areas Legal narcotics are regulated by the FDA and are generally available only with a physician’s prescription The production, possession, and sale of illegal narcotics—commonly called controlled substances—are banned by statute The U.S government has spent billions of dollars in a fight to reduce drug use in the United States, citing startling statistics about the number of individuals who use drugs Accord-ing to statistics compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half
of the adults in the United States between the ages of 18 and 34 have used illicit drugs during their lifetime Moreover, 28 percent of children between the ages of 12 and 17 have used illicit drugs Although much of the attention has focused upon use of such drugs as marijuana and cocaine, new “club” or “designer” drugs have become popular among some younger individuals About six million children and young adults over the age of 12 have reported using the designer drug methylene-n-methy-lamphetamine (MDMA), also known as “ecsta-sy,” which has sparked a national debate about improved drug education in grade schools and high schools in the United States
Drug Laws
Authority to regulate drug use rests foremost with the federal government, derived from its power to regulate interstate commerce States are free to legislate so long as their laws remain consistent with federal law Most states have adopted federal models for their own drug legislation
As of 2009, the law has two main objectives First, it regulates the manufacture, sale, and use
of legal drugs such as aspirin, sleeping pills, and antidepressants Second, it prohibits and pun-ishes the manufacture, possession, and sale of illegal drugs, ranging from marijuana to heroin,
as well as some dangerous legal drugs
The distinction between legal and illegal drugs is a twentieth-century phenomenon During the nineteenth century, there was very
Trang 2little governmental control over drugs The
federal government regulated the smallpox
vaccine in 1813 (2 Stat 806) and established
some controls through the Imported Drugs Act
of 1848 (9 Stat 237, repealed by Tariff Act of
1922 [42 Stat 858, 989]) But addictive
sub-stances such as opium and cocaine were legal;
in fact, the latter remained a minor ingredient
in Coca-Cola soft drinks until 1909 Heroin,
discovered in 1888, was prescribed for treating
other addictions California began restricting
opium in 1875, but widespread criminalization
of the substance did not come for decades
States began a widespread movement
to-ward control of legal and illegal drugs at the
turn of the twentieth century The federal
government joined this process with the PURE
FOOD AND DRUG ACT OF1906 (34 Stat 768, 1906,
ch 3915, §§ 1–13, repealed by Federal Food,
Drug, and Cosmetics Act of 1938), which
primarily sought to protect consumers from
“misbranded or poisonous” drugs, medicines,
and alcohol It established federal jurisdiction
over the domestic manufacture and sale of
drugs and also regulated drug imports
Nevertheless, when Congress passed the
Harrison Act of 1914 (Pub L No 223, 38 Stat
785), which imposed a tax on opium and
cocaine, it stopped short of declaring either
drug illegal Most efforts to restrict drug use
focused on alcohol The temperance
move-ment’s Prohibition crusade culminated in the
passage of the EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT and the
VOLSTEAD ACTof 1920 (41 Stat 305), which made
alcohol illegal Alcohol remained illegal until the
repeal of Prohibition in 1933 with passage of the
TWENTY-FIRST AMENDMENT
Despite numerous amendments, flaws in
the Pure Food and Drug Act spurred Congress
to replace the statute In 1938 federal
law-makers enacted the Federal Food, Drug, and
Cosmetics Act (FFDC) (21 U.S.C.A §§ 301 et
seq.), which established the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) as the federal agency
charged to enforce the law The FFDC exerted
broad control over the domestic
commercial-drug market Over the next two decades, states
and the federal government continued to
criminalize nonmedicinal and recreational drugs,
and by mid-century, the division between legal
and illegal drugs was firmly in place In 1970
Congress passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse
Prevention and Control Act (21 U.S.C.A §§ 801
et seq.), which continued as of 2009 to be the primary source of federal law on controlled substances
Over-the-counter and prescription drugs are tightly regulated under the FFDC This act and the Kefauver-Harris Drug Amendments of
1962 (Pub L No 87-781, 76 Stat 781) give the FDA a broad mandate The agency protects consumers from the potential hazards of dangerous drugs, misleading labels, and FRAUD The FDA sets standards of safety and quality, and its enforcement duties include the research, inspection, and licensing of drugs for manufac-ture and sale Because the law requires that drugs not be adulterated, the FDA ascertains that they conform to legal standards of strength, quality, and purity It also classifies the drugs that are to be dispensed only by a physician’s prescription Finally, new drugs can be placed
on the market only after being approved by the FDA Traditionally a slow process, FDA ap-proval was speeded up significantly for some drugs in the 1980s and 1990s, largely in response to the AIDS epidemic
The FDA does not typically ban nutritional supplements, but in some cases, these supple-ments have caused health problems that led to their removal from the market For instance, the herbal supplement ephedra became popular in the 1990s for dietary use However, the drug was also linked to heart attacks and strokes In
2004 the FDA banned its use, marking theFIRST INSTANCE where the FDA had banned an over-the-counter nutritional supplement
To control the use of dangerous drugs, federal law and most state statutes use a classification system outlined by the Uniform Controlled Substances Act, based on the federal Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act This system includes both illegal and dangerous legal drugs It uses five groups, called schedules, to organize drugs according to their potential for medical use, harm, or abuse, and it imposes a series of controls and penalties for each schedule
Heroin, hallucinogens, and marijuana are placed on schedule I, as they are thought to have
a high potential for harm and no medical use
Other types of opiates and cocaine are on schedule II Most depressants and stimulants are on schedule III Some mild tranquilizers are
on schedule IV Schedule V is for drugs that are considered medically useful and less dangerous
Trang 3but that can cause limited physical and psychological dependence, such as cough-syrup mixtures that contain some codeine Under the law, drugs may be rescheduled as new evidence
of their uses or risks becomes apparent, and the attorney general has the authority to add new drugs to the schedules at any time
Penalties are established according to the severity of the crime Possession of a controlled substance is the simplest crime involving drugs
Possession with intent to sell is more serious
Selling or trafficking incurs the greatest penal-ties The exact penalty for a particular offense depends on numerous factors, including the type of drug, its amount, and the convicted party’s previous criminal record Penalties range from small monetary fines to life imprisonment and even greater punishments Under a general expansion of federal offenses that can invoke
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT, the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Pub L No 103-322,
108 Stat 1796, imposes the death penalty for major drug trafficking Generally, the highest price paid by drug offenders is prison time for trafficking In 1999, according to statistics from theDEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, the average sentence for drug offenders engaged in drug trafficking was 77.1 months, compared to an average of 15.8 months for drug possession
Between the mid-1980s and early 1990s, lawmakers enacted the harshest drug laws in U.S history The impetus for these laws came from the so-called war on drugs, a broad federal and state public-policy push initiated under President RONALD REAGAN that received wide-spread public support Among its many initia-tives was the creation of the cabinet-level office
of the national director of drug control policy, known as the drug czar, to coordinate national and international antidrug efforts
The war on drugs also created a patchwork
of antidrug laws These included the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 (Pub L No 99-570, 100 Stat 3207), which toughened penalties for drug violations involving cocaine, especially its smokable derivative, crack The law imposed mandatory minimum sentences, even for first-time offenders For sentencing purposes, it established a ratio that regards one gram of crack as equivalent to 100 grams of powder cocaine While greatly increasing the number of drug offenders in prisons, the law has provoked considerable controversy over its effect on minorities The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988
(Pub L No 100-690, 102 Stat 4181) further increased federal jurisdiction over drug crime For the first time, it became a federal crime to possess even a minimal amount of a controlled substance Penalties were added for crimes that involve minors, pregnant women, and the sale
of drugs within 100 feet of public and private schools States toughened their laws as well Michigan, for example, imposed life imprison-ment without parole for cocaine trafficking (Mich Comp Laws Ann § 333.7403[2] [a] [i]) Under the Violent Crime and Law Enforce-ment Act, Congress exempted certain first-time, non-violent offenders from minimum sentenc-ing An exempted person must be a first-time offender with a limited criminal history; must not have used violence or possessed a weapon during the offense; could not have organized or supervised activities of others; and must provide truthful information and evidence to the government during the offense
The fight against illegal drugs has extended
to housing The Anti-Drug Abuse Act mandates that every local public-housing agency insert a clause in its standard lease document that gives the agency the right to evict tenants if they use
or tolerate the use of illegal drugs on or near their premises
The law has been lauded as an effective means of ridding public housing of drug dealers and other criminal activity that comes with it However, critics have contended that many elderly citizens who live with their children and grandchildren have been unfairly evicted under this zero-tolerance policy These critics have argued that the eviction of so-called innocent tenants violates the 1988 law, as Congress only meant to penalize those persons who have knowledge of drug use The U.S Supreme Court, in Department of Housing and Urban Development v Rucker, 535 U.S 125, 122 S Ct
1230, 152 L Ed 2d 258 (2002), rejected these arguments, ruling that the law clearly gives the housing agency discretion to evict tenants, whether or not they knew about drug use The case arose when a 63-year-old grandmother in Oakland, California, was evicted when her adult daughter had been caught using crack cocaine three blocks from her mother’s house
Drug Policy and Law Enforcement
The enforcement of U.S drug laws involves the use of substantial federal and state resources to educate, interdict, and prosecute Estimates of
Trang 4the total annual cost of drug enforcement
ranged from $20 billion to $30 billion in the
1990s The federal government directs drug
enforcement policy through the national
direc-tor of drug control policy Policy
implementa-tion involves both federal and state agencies,
including the Department of Justice (DOJ), the
DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION (DEA), the
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION(FBI), theSTATE
DEPARTMENT, branches of theARMED SERVICESand
the U.S Coast Guard, and local police
depart-ments Drug enforcement is primarily a
nation-al effort, yet because drugs enter the United
States from other countries, it also has
interna-tional considerations
The war on drugs can be traced back to the
1960s, when illicit drugs became especially
popular again The accompanying increase in
drug use led to comprehensive antidrug
legisla-tion under President RICHARD M NIXON, whose
administration introduced the word war as a
metaphor for the drive to enforce drug laws In
the 1980s, under President Reagan, the
cam-paign took the form it continued to have in the
early 2000s The Reagan administration’s
pub-lic-relations campaign (which popularized the
saying “Just say no”) was bolstered by stricter
state and federal drug laws Federal spending to
enforce drug laws rose from $37 million in 1969
to $1.06 billion in 1983 Over the next decade, it
increased to approximately $30 billion,
includ-ing the full cost of federal, state, and local law
enforcement efforts, along with costs incurred
by the judiciary and prison and healthcare
systems In 2009, President BARACK OBAMA set
aside about $2.2 billion to the DEA alone in the
fight against illegal drugs
Enforcement efforts are shared between
federal and state governments Joint
federal-state task forces investigate illegal drug sales for
two key reasons First, states have declared an
interest in eradicating the illegal sale and use of
controlled substances through the enactment of
severe antidrug laws, but they lack the necessary
resources Second, in return for their
participa-tion, state law enforcement agencies are eligible
for federal funds that are crucial to their
operation Besides helping the agencies to meet
administrative expenses, local undercover police
officers use these funds to buy drugs so that they
can arrest dealers
As a result of these shared operations,
prosecutors have broad discretion in pursuing
drug offenses They may charge defendants
under federal law, state law, or sometimes both
The U.S Constitution’s protection against
DOUBLE JEOPARDY (i.e., being tried twice for the same CRIMINAL ACTION) does not apply when separate jurisdictions bring charges, and the dual-sovereignty doctrine allows successive federal and state prosecutions However, many states prohibit prosecution in their courts if the conduct already has been the subject of a federal prosecution Prosecutors consider several fac-tors when deciding where to bring charges, including the relative severity of state and federal drug laws; the existence of mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines in federal court; and the comparative leniency of federal rules regarding wiretaps and informants Al-though federal law generally is tougher because
of its mandatory minimum sentences, nearly every state has enacted laws requiring manda-tory prison time for certain drug offenses
Prosecutors also take into account the kind of drug involved Under federal sentencing guide-lines, crack cocaine is treated much more harshly than is powder cocaine Prosecutors also may seek civil fines and civilFORFEITUREof property
The number of individuals charged with drug offenses by the federal government rose from 11,854 to 29,306 between 1984 and 1999
By 2006 this number had reached 35,210 The percentage of crimes prosecuted by the federal government likewise increased In 1984, 18 percent of referrals by federal prosecutors involved drug offenses This number increased
to 32 percent in 1999, though the number decreased to 26.1 percent by 2006
The majority of federal drug offenses involve marijuana, powder cocaine, crack cocaine, and methamphetamine In 2006 federal officials made 26,425 arrests for drug offenses Federal authorities confiscated thousands of ounces of drugs, including 660,969.2 kilograms of
marijua-na, 49,823.3 kilograms of cocaine, and 1,540.4 kilograms of methamphetamine
On February 12, 2002, PresidentGEORGE W
BUSH announced the creation of the National Drug Control Strategy The core principles include: (1) stopping drug use before it starts;
(2) healing American drug users; and (3) disrupting the drug market The goals of the initiative included the reduction of drug use by
10 percent in the first two years, and by 25 percent over the first five years A national survey conducted in 2009 showed that illicit
Trang 5drug use had declined by 25 percent, due in large part to the National Drug Control Strategy Use of such drugs as ecstasy, LSD, and methamphetamine declined by more than
50 percent from the time of the National Drug Control Strategy’s formation
In addition to domestic efforts to police drug sales, international efforts are part of the war on drugs These efforts include interdiction
by federal law enforcement agents at the U.S
border to prevent drugs from entering the country The federal government has also posted DEA agents in other countries, such as Bolivia and Colombia, as part of a broader campaign to prevent the flow of drugs into the United States Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the United States applied diplomatic pressure
to the governments of Bolivia and Colombia
to persuade them to end drug production in their countries In order to continue receiving U.S aid and government-backed loans, foreign nations have had to cooperate with the antidrug initiatives of Washington In March 1996,
President BILL CLINTON cut off such aid to Colombia for lack of cooperation
The funding in Colombia did not end in
1996, despite a strong opposition to the policies against funding the drug war through South American countries The United States has invested an estimated $30 billion in the war on drugs in Latin America, yet the influx of drugs into the United States continues An estimated
80 percent of drugs in the United States originate
in South America, many in Colombia
In 2000 President Clinton approved a spending bill that called for $1.3 billion in aid
to the Colombian government Members of Congress expressed concern that financing the Colombian government would spread the ongo-ing civil war in that country, which claimed more than 35,000 lives in the 1990s Much of the bill was designed to provide Colombia with military equipment, and it also called for training of Colombian soldiers Colombian leaders prom-ised that the aid would cut drug production in that country by half
Crack Cocaine, Race, and the War on Drugs
In the war on drugs in the United States,
race is a critical issue A 2008HUMAN
RIGHTS WATCHreport found that adult black
males are nearly 12 times as likely to be
imprisoned for drug convictions as adult
white men This racial disparity has drawn
the attention of policy makers, politicians,
and the courts Many observers attribute
much of it to the severe penalties imposed
for offenses involving crack cocaine, which
lead to the arrest and conviction of
primarily black defendants
Smokable cocaine, or crack,
origi-nated in the 1980s in U.S inner cities
Because crack costs much less than
powder cocaine, it quickly became the
choice of poor drug users In response to
the resulting increased use of crack,
Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse
Act of 1986 (Pub L No 99-570, 100 Stat
3207 [codified as amended in scattered
sections of 21 U.S.C.A §§ 801–970])
The 1986 law regards one gram of crack as equivalent to one hundred
SENTENCING COMMISSIONadopted this ratio when it revised the Sentencing Guidelines that same year In 1988 the Anti-Drug Abuse Act was amended to establish new mandatory minimum sentences The amendment’s sponsor, Representative E
Clay Shaw Jr (R-Fla.), said of the tougher sentences: “Crack is an extraordinarily dangerous drug so we must take extraor-dinary steps to combat it.”
Under federal law, the offense of selling five grams of crack, for example,
is punishable by a mandatory minimum sentence of five years To receive the same sentence for trafficking in powder cocaine,
an offender would have to sell five hundred grams Thus, small-time crack dealers can receive longer prison terms than cocaine wholesalers In addition,
mandatory minimum sentences for crack offenses mean thatPLEA BARGAININGfor a reduced sentence is not available First-time offenses involving crack or powder cocaine are also differentiated First-time offenders convicted in powder cocaine cases often receive parole and drug treatment; most first-time offenders in crack cases receive jail sentences
By the early 1990s, the effect of these harsher laws on African Americans was evident In a survey of 1992 sentencing data, the U.S Sentencing Commission found that 92.6 percent of offenders sentenced for crack offenses were black, whereas 4.7 percent were white With regard to cocaine offenses in general, 78 percent of offenders were black, and 6 percent were white
The Bureau of Justice Statistics in the
JUSTICE DEPARTMENT concluded in 1993 that blacks are jailed longer than whites
Trang 6The courts have played a significant role in
the war on drugs Broadly speaking, under the
FOURTH AMENDMENT, they have expanded the
power of the police to conduct searches and
seizures In a series of decisions during the 1980s
and 1990s, the U.S Supreme Court ruled that
police officers have the power to conduct
war-rantless searches of bus passengers, car interiors,
mobile homes, fenced private property and
barns, luggage, and trash cans In Minnesota v
Dickerson, 508 U.S 366, 113 S Ct 2130, 124 L
Ed 2d 334 (1993), the Court held that no warrant
was needed to seize narcotics that are
recogniz-able by“plain feel” while an officer is frisking
a suspect for concealed weapons
In contrast, the Court restricted the power
of state and federal governments to use civil
fines and civil forfeiture of property as
penal-ties in drug cases In a 1989 case that had a
substantial bearing on prosecutorial initiative in
drug enforcement, the Court held that the
government could not recover both a criminal
fine and a civil penalty in separate proceedings
(United States v Halper, 490 U.S 435, 109 S Ct
1892, 104 L Ed 2d 487) In 1993, the Court curtailed civil forfeiture laws by ruling that confiscation of property is subject to the Eighth Amendment’s protections against excessive fines (Austin v United States, 509 U.S 602,
113 S Ct 2801, 125 L Ed 2d 488)
Movement to Legalize Marijuana for Medical and Other Purposes
For many decades, the federal government has classified marijuana as a controlled substance that cannot be used legally except for scientific research projects Although state governments continue to make the possession, distributions, and use of marijuana a crime, nine states have legalized the use of the drug for medicinal use Through the use of ballot initiatives, voters approved these so-called medical marijuana laws in eight of these states, including Califor-nia Advocates contend that persons who are afflicted with serious illnesses such as AIDS, cancer, and multiple sclerosis are helped by
for drug offenses The bureau explained
whites’ … was that 83 percent of all
federal offenders convicted of trafficking
in crack cocaine in guideline cases were
black, and the average sentence imposed
for crack trafficking was twice as long as
for trafficking in powdered cocaine.”
Some critics believe that the racial
disparities in sentencing are a result of
intentional discrimination They argue
that race has long been an issue in drug
enforcement laws, from concerns about
Chinese laborers and opium at the turn
of the twentieth century to fears about
blacks and cocaine in the early 1900s that
Menace.” Other critics take the
sugges-tion of conspiracy farther, arguing that
the comparatively heavy drug use (as well
as violence) in the black community is a
result of deliberate attempts by whites to
foster black self-destruction
Legal challenges at the state level met
with little success As of 2009, one state court
had struck down enhanced penalties for
crack offenses as a violation of EQUAL
PROTECTION under the state constitution (State v Russell, 477 N W 2d 886 [Minn
1991]) In that case the court said that state law treated black crack offenders and white powder cocaine offenders unfairly, although that result may have been unintentional
On the federal level, several convicted crack offenders argued that the discrep-ancy between sentences for crack and powder cocaine violates equal protection
or due process, but it took many years for the U.S Supreme Court to come to that same conclusion In 1996, the Court held that statistics showing that most crack defendants are black do not in themselves support the claim of SELECTIVE PROSECU-TION Instead, the Court ruled, the burden
is on defendants to prove that“similarly situated defendants of other races could
(United States v Armstrong, 517 U.S
456, 116 S Ct 1480, 134 L Ed 2d 687)
However, the Court changed direc-tion in Kimbrough v United States (552 U.S 85,128 S Ct 558, 169 L Ed 2d 481 [2007]) In this case, the Court consid-ered how far courts could go in deviating from the Sentencing Commission’s crack
sentence The Court ruled that appellate courts must assess sentences based on a
“reasonableness” standard A judge may consider the disparity between crack and powder cocaine sanctions in fashioning
an appropriate sentence
Shortly before this decision was an-nounced, the U.S Sentencing Commission modified the guidelines, reducing the sentence range for first-time offenders for possessing crack cocaine The commission estimated that changing the crack guide-lines would reduce the size of the federal prison population by 3,800 in 15 years The commission also asked Congress to repeal the mandatory prison term for simple possession and increase the amount of crack cocaine required to trigger five-year and ten-year mandatory minimum prison terms In November 2007, the commission applied the lower penalties retroactively
to 19,500 crack cocaine offenders who were sentenced before the change Al-most 3,800 prisoners were released from federal prisons by early 2008
CROSS REFERENCES Due Process of Law; Equal Protection; Selec-tive Prosecution; Sentencing.
Trang 7smoking marijuana The federal government contested the constitutionality of these laws, believing that federal drug laws prevent the states from making exceptions
The federal government’s efforts to end the distribution of medical marijuana in California led to a U.S Supreme Court decision, United States v Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative,
532 U.S 483, 121 S Ct 1711, 149 L Ed 2d 722 (2001) The Court agreed with the federal government, concluding that the federal Con-trolled Substances Act did not recognize the use of marijuana for medical purposes
The case grew out of a 1996 vote in California Citizens had brought about an initiative called the Compassionate Use Act of
1996 The law sought to provide seriously ill persons with legal clearance to purchase mari-juana for medicinal use It permitted patients and their primary caregivers to possess or to cultivate marijuana for medical purposes if approved by a physician Following the law’s enactment, numerous organizations started medical cannabis dispensaries to distribute marijuana to eligible patients The Oakland Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative was one of those organizations The nonprofit cooperative employed a doctor and registered nurses to screen prospective members through a personal interview and a review of the treating physi-cian’s written statement If the person met the requirements, the cooperative issued the person
an identification card that entitled him or her
to purchase marijuana from the organization
The federal government sued the coopera-tive in 1998 and asked the federal district court
to issue an injunction banning the cooperative from distributing and manufacturing
marijua-na The court agreed that the cooperative had violated the federal controlled-substance law and issued the injunction On appeal, the Ninth
CIRCUIT COURT of Appeals reversed the lower court’s decision It ruled that a “medical necessity exemption” existed and that the district court could apply its equitable discretion and permit the cooperative to assert such an exemption
Subsequently, the U.S Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit in an 8-0 decision
JusticeCLARENCE THOMAS, writing for the Court, looked to the provisions of the Controlled Substances Act to determine whether the courts could make medical necessity a defense
Thomas noted that marijuana is classified as a
schedule I substance The only express excep-tion to the unlawfulness of possession, manu-facture, or distribution is for government-approved research projects Taking these provi-sions into account, Justice Thomas concluded that there was clearly no statutory exemption
In 2005 the Supreme Court considered another case involving the use of marijuana The State of California had enacted a statute in
1996 that permitted the possession and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes Two plaintiffs sought to enjoin the federal government from prosecuting those who possessed marijuana, which the federal government has not recognized
as having a medical use The Ninth Circuit Court
of Appeals ruled that the Controlled Substances Act was unconstitutional as applied to the case The Supreme Court reviewed the decision and reversed the Ninth Circuit, holding in Gonzales
v Raich, 545 U.S 1, 125 S Ct 2195, 162 L Ed 2d 1 (2005), that the federal government was within its power to outlaw marijuana use The decision in Raich appeared that it might strike down laws in nine states permit-ting use of medical marijuana However, several states and cities continued to approve medical marijuana laws in the years following Raich As
of 2009, 13 states had approved use of medical marijuana, and others were considering statutes that would permit use of the drug for medical reasons
FURTHER READINGS Brickey, Kathleen F 1995 “Criminal Mischief: The Federali-zation of American Criminal Law.” Hastings Law Journal (April).
Contrera, Joseph G 1995 “The Food and Drug Adminis-tration and the International Conference on Harmo-nization ” Administrative Law Journal of the American University 8 (winter).
Duke, Steven B 1995 “Drug Prohibition: An Unnatural Disaster ” Connecticut Law Review (winter).
“Executive Summary: Mandatory Sentencing.” 1995 CQ Researcher (May 26).
Inciardi, James A 1986 The War on Drugs Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield.
Justice Department Bureau of Justice Statistics 1993 Sentenc-ing in the Federal Courts: Does Race Matter? The Transition
to Sentencing Guidelines, 1986–1990 December Lowney, Knoll D 1994 “Smoked Not Snorted: Is Racism Inherent in Our Crack Cocaine Laws?” Washington Univer-sity Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 45 (winter) Lusane, Clarence 1991 Pipe Dream Blues Boston: South End Press.
National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information.
1992 A Short History of the Drug Laws.
Powell, John A., and Eileen Hershenov 1991 “Hostage to the Drug War: The National Purse, the Constitution,
Trang 8and the Black Community ” University of California at
Davis Law Review 24.
“Report of the Special Committee on Race and Ethnicity to the
D.C Circuit Task Force on Gender, Race, and Ethnic
Bias ” 1996 George Washington Law Review 64 (January).
Rowe, Thomas C 2006 Federal Narcotics Laws and the
War on Drugs: Money Down a Rat Hole Binghamton,
N.Y.: Haworth Press.
U.S Sentencing Commission 1992 Monitoring Data Files,
April 1–July 1, 1992.
CROSS REFERENCES
Criminal Law; Criminal Procedure; Education Law;
Employment Law; Privacy; Schools and School Districts;
Sports Law.
DRUNKARD
One who habitually engages in the
overindul-gence of alcohol
In order for an individual to be labeled a
drunkard, DRUNKENNESS must be HABITUAL or
must recur on a constant basis A person who
regularly drinks heavily but is sometimes not
under the influence of alcohol would be
con-sidereda drunkard, whereas a person who
occa-sionally gets drunk would not The test is the
question of whether or not excessive drinking
has become a frequent behavior pattern for a
particular person
DRUNKENNESS
The state of an individual whose mind is affected
by the consumption of alcohol
Drunkenness is a consequence of drinking
intoxicating liquors to such an extent as to
alter the normal condition of an individual
and significantly reduce his capacity for rational
action and conduct It can be asserted as a defense
in civil and criminal actions in which the state of
mind of the defendant is an essential element to
be established in order to obtain legal relief
vDU BOIS, WILLIAM EDWARD BURGHARDT
W E B Du Bois was an African American intellectual, sociologist, poet, and activist whose fierce commitment to racial equality was the seminal force behind important sociopolitical reforms in the twentieth-century United States
Although Du Bois may not have the same name recognition as FREDERICK DOUGLASS or
MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr., he is regarded by most historians as an influential leader King himself praised Du Bois as an intellectual giant whose
“singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people.” Reflecting on Du Bois’s legacy, playwright Lorraine Hansberry noted that“his ideas have influenced a multitude who
do not even know his name.”
Born February 23, 1868, in Great Barring-ton, Massachusetts, during the Reconstruction period following theU.S.CIVIL WAR, Du Bois was
of African, French, and Dutch descent
His tremendous potential was apparent to his fellow townspeople, who raised money in the local churches to send him to Tennessee’s Fisk University, a predominantly African American school Du Bois earned a bachelor of arts degree from Fisk in 1888 He then attended Harvard University, where his professors included George Santayana and WILLIAM JAMES An outstanding student, Du Bois received three degrees from Harvard: a bachelor’s in 1890, a master’s in
1891, and a doctor’s in 1895
Du Bois traveled extensively in Europe during the early 1890s and did postdoctoral work at the University of Berlin, in Germany It
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois 1868–1963
1868 Born, Great Barrington, Mass.
1895 Earned Ph.D from Harvard University
1899 The Philadelphia Negro published
1903 The Souls of Black Folks published 1934–44
Returned to professorship
at Atlanta University
1939–45 World War II
1944–48 Served as director
of special research at NAACP
1950–53 Korean War
1949–54 Served as vice chairman
of Council on African Affairs
1959 Won the Lenin Peace Prize
1961 Joined the American Communist Party; immigrated to Ghana
1963 Died, Accra, Ghana
1961–73 Vietnam War
1897–1910 Held professorship in economics and history at Atlanta University
1914–18 World War I
1910–32 Helped launch NAACP and served as
editor of The Crisis
1935 Black Reconstruction
in America published
THE COST OF LIBERTY
IS LESS THAN THE PRICE OF REPRESSION
—W E B D U B OIS
Trang 9was there that he pledged his life and career to the social and political advancement of African Americans When Du Bois returned to the United States, he accepted his first teaching position at Ohio’s Wilberforce University He later taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Atlanta University
Du Bois made his mark as an accomplished sociologist and historian, publishing ground-breaking studies on African American culture In The Philadelphia Negro (1899), he interviewed 5,000 people to document the social institutions, health, crime patterns, family relationships, and education of African Americans in northern urban areas In his 1903 book The Souls of Black Folk, he published a beautifully written collection of essays
on the political history and cultural conditions of African Americans
Although his success in academe was well recognized, Du Bois chose to cut a bolder swath
as a passionate social activist He became a symbol of principled social protest on behalf
of African Americans Du Bois combined his scholarly endeavors with the profound outrage
he felt over racial injustice and the South’s discriminatory JIM CROW LAWS He used his position as a respected intellectual to decry the unequal treatment of African Americans and
to push for fundamental change According to King, Du Bois knew it was not enough to be angry The task was to organize people so that the anger became a transforming power As a result, King said,“It was never possible to know where the scholar Du Bois ended and the organizer Du Bois began The two qualities in him were a single unified force.”
Du Bois was a contemporary of BOOKER
T WASHINGTON, the head of Alabama’s famed Tuskegee Institute and the undisputed leader of the African American community at the turn of the twentieth century A former slave, Washing-ton was a powerful figure who favored the gradual acquisition of CIVIL RIGHTS for African Americans He believed that the best route for African Americans was agricultural or industrial education, not college Although Du Bois agreed with some of Washington’s ideas, he eventually lost patience with the slow pace and agenda of Washington’s program
To Du Bois, Washington’s Tuskegee Ma-chine was much too accommodating to the white power structure Du Bois favored a more militant approach to achieving full social and political justice for African Americans Because
of Du Bois’s talent as a writer, he became an effective spokesperson for the opponents of Washington’s gradualism He became the unambiguous voice of indignation and activism for African Americans Du Bois insisted on the immediate rights of all people of color to vote;
to obtain a decent education, including college; and to enjoy basic civil liberties
His beliefs led to the creation of the Niagara movement in 1905 This organization was formed by like-minded African Americans to protest Washington’s compromising approach
to the so-called Negro problem Du Bois preached power through achievement, self-sufficiency, racial solidarity, and cultural pride
He came up with a plan called the Talented Tenth, whereby a select group of African Americans would be groomed for leadership
in the struggle for equal rights The Niagara movement lasted until 1910 when Du Bois became involved in a new national organization
In 1910 Du Bois helped launch the biracial National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) He became the group’s director of research and the editor of the NAACP publication The Crisis Du Bois’s work
on The Crisis provided a wide audience for his
W.E.B Du Bois.
FISK UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY
Trang 10views on racial equality and African American
achievement His writings influenced scores of
African Americans who eventually made
their demands for full citizenship heard in the
nation’s legislatures and courtrooms Du Bois
was a guiding force in the NAACP until 1934
when his interest in COMMUNISM led him to
leave the organization
On September 9, 1963, the NAACP Board
of Directors recognized Du Bois’s
contribu-tions to the CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT in the
following resolution:“It was Dr Du Bois who
was primarily responsible for guiding the Negro
away from accommodation to racial
SEGREGA-TIONto militant opposition to any system which
degraded black people by imposing upon them
a restricted status separate and apart from
their fellow citizens.”
Du Bois was also a proponent of
Pan-Africanism, a movement devoted to the political,
social, and economic empowerment of people
of color throughout the world Later, he became
active in trade unionism, women’s rights, and
the international peace movement Never one
to shy away from controversy, Du Bois also
embraced socialism and communism at a time
when they were especially unpopular in the
United States He joined the American
Commu-nist party in 1961, after winning the Lenin Peace
Prize in 1959 from the former Soviet Union
Du Bois became increasingly disenchanted
with the United States, and emigrated to Ghana
in 1961 He was a citizen of that country at the
time of his death in 1963
Du Bois’s influence on U.S law was indirect
but powerful He spoke out eloquently against
injustice and inspired generations of African
Americans to work for racial equality With
21 books to his credit and a zeal for organizing
social protest, he helped plant the seeds for the
civil rights and black power movements in the
United States during the 1950s and 1960s His
unswerving commitment to equal rights helped
bring about changes in the laws governing
education, voting, housing, and public
accom-modations for racial minorities
In 1900 Du Bois wrote Credo, a statement of
his beliefs and his desire for social change The
poet in him was revealed when he wrote,
I believe in Liberty for all men: the space to
stretch their arms and their souls, the right
to breathe and the right to vote, the freedom
to choose their friends, enjoy the sunshine,
and ride on the railroads, uncursed by color;
thinking, dreaming, working as they will in
a kingdom of beauty and love
FURTHER READINGS Berman, Nathaniel 2000 “Shadows: Du Bois and the Colonial Prospect, 1925 ” Villanova Law Review 45 (December).
Clarke, John Henrik, et al., eds 1970 Black Titan: W.E.B.
Du Bois Boston: Beacon.
Du Bois, W.E.B 1968 The Autobiography of W.E.B Du Bois:
A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of its First Century New York: International.
Logan, Rayford Whittingham, ed 1971 W.E.B Du Bois: A Profile New York: Hill and Wang.
Marable, Manning 2005 W.E.B Du Bois: Black Radical Democrat Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
Romano, Mary Ann, ed 2002 Lost Sociologists Rediscovered.
Lewiston, N.Y.: Mellen.
Wolters, Raymond 2004 Du Bois and His Rivals Columbia:
Univ of Missouri.
DUAL NATIONALITY
An equal claim, simultaneously possessed by two nations, to the allegiance of an individual
This term is frequently perceived as synon-ymous with dual citizenship, but the latter term encompasses the concept of state and federal citizenship enjoyed by persons who are born or naturalized in the United States
UnderINTERNATIONAL LAW, the determination
of citizenship whenDUAL NATIONALITYis involved
is governed by treaty, an agreement between two or more nations
A person who possesses dual citizenship generally has the right to “elect,” or to choose, the citizenship of one nation over that of another, within the applicable age limit or specified time period A person could be a U.S citizen because of his or her birth in the United States and a citizen of
a foreign country because his or her immigrant parents returned with their child to their native land Foreign law could deem the child to be a citizen of the parents’ native land, but it cannot divest the child of U.S citizenship
Under federal law, a native-born or natural-ized U.S citizen relinquishes his or her U.S
citizenship if the individual procures NATURALI-ZATION in a foreign state through a personal application, or pursuant to an application filed
in his or her behalf by a parent, guardian, or duly authorized agent, or through the naturalization
of a parent having legal custody An exception, however, provides that the individual will not lose his or her U.S citizenship as the conse-quence of the naturalization of a parent