14 - Rethinking Anti-Drug Policies and Changing Drug Education

Summary

In the late 1960s recreational drug use in the United States began to creep into the suburbs. As the children of white, middle-class Americans began to adopt this practice and the social stigmatization previously associated with recreational drug use began to fade as it became associated with protest and social rebellion in the era’s atmosphere of political unrest, these children’s parents began to demand that their government do something about it. In 1968 President Johnson formed the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs as the “War on Drugs” began. In the decades that followed groups like The Partnership for a Drug Free America and Drug Abuse Resistance Education sponsored media campaigns laced with anti-drug propaganda in a desperate attempt to protect the youth of America. Having had limited success parent’s organizations and government programs are now re-thinking how to create more effective drug education