WAR ON DRUGS TIMELINE

1970 - President Lyndon Johnson's final budget includes $43 million for
drug enforcement and $59 million for research, rehabilitation, and treatment.

1971 - Veterans addicted to heroin begin returning from Vietnam. President
Richard Nixon declares drugs "public enemy number one." Methadone
treatment expands.

1972 - Methadone recipients stand at 60,000, up from 20,00 in October 1971.

1973 - Nixon creates the Drug Enforcement Administration. In September he
says 'We have turned the corner on drug addiction in the United States."

1974 - Budget for drug enforcement reaches $292 million, and $462 million
for demand reduction and treatment.

1975 - President Gerald Ford issues a report that "all drugs are not
equally dangerous, and all drug use is not equally destructive."

1977 - Dr. Peter Bourne, Special Assistant for Health Issues to President
Jimmy Carter, tells Congress he favors decriminalizing marijuana, but
angers the marijuana advocates by supporting Mexico's use of herbicide on
marijuana.

1978 - NORML founder Keith Stroup confirms in a late-night call with a
reporter that Bourne had snorted cocaine at a NORML party. Bourne resigns.

1980 - President Ronald Reagan's wife, Nancy, launches "Just Say No" campaign.

1982 - Reagan launches a now strategy against organized crime and drug
trafficking, asking "What kind of people are we if we continue to tolerate
in our midst an invisible, lawless empire?*

1984 - Republican minority in Congress successfully agitates for bill
cracking down on drug dealers, trimming the insanity defense, reintroducing
asset forfeiture and bringing the military into the drug war.

1986 - University of Maryland basketball player Len Bias dies of cardiac
arrest related to cocaine use. Reagan calls for a national crusade against
drugs. Congress sets mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and
delivers millions of dollars for new prisons and drug interdiction efforts.

1988 - Congress and the President recreate the office of "drug czar' and
require annual "National Drug Control Strategies" with short and long-term
goals.

1989 - Drug budget reaches $6.7 billion. By late 1989, drugs top the
public's concerns in national polls. On Sept 5, Bush offers his first drug
control strategy, with an emphasis on law enforcement.

1991 - Bush issues a report touting success in seven of the original
two-year goals, and setting forth even more ambitious strategies for the
future.

1992 - Marijuana use, long in decline, begins to climb among 12 to
17-year-olds.

1993 - President Bill Clinton trims the staff of the Office of National
Drug Control Policy by 83 percent. Drug czar Lee P. Brown asks Congress for
$355 million for an aggressive new treatment program. He gets $59 million.

1996 - Clinton appoints Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star U.S. Army
general who experienced interdiction efforts as leader of the U.S. Armed
Forces Southern Command in Panama, as his new drug czar.

1997 - National Institutes of Health panel recommends greatly expanding
availability of methadone treatment.

1999 - McCaffrey announces support for new regulations improving the
quality and accessibility of methadone treatment, followed one day later by
his call for $1 billion worth of stepped-up interdiction efforts in
Colombia. Proposed drug budget exceeds $17 billion.