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 The federal government, nothing is more powerful than it. With it, comes

certain powers and, with that,come organizations and people to enforce the will of

the government. The government establishes laws and they expect us, the people, to

follow them. If not, there will be a punishment, maybe even death. Now in order to

help enforce these laws, there are agencies out there helping. Some you may know a

lot about, others not so much. At a state level, there are police officers, State

Troopers and so on. But the list doesnǯt stop there. The higher you go up on the food

chain the more power these law enforcement agencies have. Law agencies that are

powered by the government would be like the FBI, CIA, Secret Service and even

Federal Marshalls. All having certain duties that they are in charge of and all carry

out them to the letter of the law. There is one, that hasnǯt been mention yet. What is

one huge problem through out the United States? Itǯs something so big, that it is

considered war. It is the war on drugs. Now other agencies help enforce the law on

drug use, but one is specifically made to stop and combat this problem. The agency

is known as The Drug Enforcement Administration or DEA.

This all became an idea in 1915. Now around then drug use hadnǯt reached

its all time peak, but it was such a problem to warrant a serious response to it. But it

didnǯt start off as the DEA; no it actually started as the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

But in the years to come several federal agencies had drug enforcement

responsibilities too. By the 60ǯs, there were two agencies that were in charge of the

drug law enforcement and those two were the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control

(BDAC) and the federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). It was during the 1960s that

America really went through a serious change. The introduction of drugs into the
culture and the efforts to make drug use Dznormaldz really started to take a terrible

toll on the Nation.

Even though drug influence was infecting the nation, the youth of America

could still walk to school in relative safety, not worrying about anything except their

report card and bullies. Compared to now a days, where children come near a school

and they can or could see barbed wire, metal detectors and signs warning drug

dealers that school property is a Dzdrug free zonedz. A much bigger change then

probably was predicted in the 60ǯs. In 1960, only four million Americans had ever

tried drugs. Currently, that mere four million has to risen to over 74 million. This

can be contributed to the fact that before the 60s Americans didnǯt see drug use as

being acceptable behavior, or that drug use was an inevitable fact of life. This

tolerance of drug use accord between the 60s and 90s altered the landscape of

America forever.

By the 70s, drug use hadnǯt reached its all-time peak and this worried the

Federal government. They saw that what they were doing wasnǯt enough and that

they would have to step up to more serious methods. So during the spring and

summer of 1973, the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate heard

months of testimony of Richard Nixonǯs Reorganization of Plan Number 2, which

proposed the creation of a single federal agency to consolidate and coordinate the

governmentǯs drug control activities, thus creating the Drug Enforcement

Administration. By doing so, he declared Dzan all-out global war on the drug menacedz.

Nixon then went on to say, DzThe federal government is fighting the war on drug

abuse under a distinct handicap, for its efforts are those of a loosely confederated
alliance facing a resourceful, elusive, worldwide enemy. Certainly, the cold-blooded

underworld networks that funnel narcotics from suppliers all over the world are no

respecters of the bureaucratic dividing lines that now complicate our anti-drug

effortsdz. (Richard Nixon: http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/history/1970-

1975.pdf).

At the time this was happening, The BNDD (Bureau of Narcotics and

Dangerous Drugs), which was part of the Department of Justice, was in charge of

enforcing the federal drug laws along with U.S. Customs Service, and several other

small agencies. But between all of them, there was little coordination and also a lack

of willingness to cooperate with each other. They stopped from enforcing the drug

laws and the DEA became the sole agencies to combat it.According to the finial

report on the DEA and their operations, there would be 6 benefitsfrom its

creation("DEA history"):

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The first administrator of the DEA was John R. Bartels, Jr. From the start of

this new job, he faced an uphill battle. He had the task of figuring out where what

went and how to easily transform all the other drug enforcement agencies into the

DEA. He took some of the agents from the BNDD and made them top DEA agents.

That way he would have some experience helping him. Shortly after, they started to

train DEA agents. On November 19, 1973 the first DEA agents graduated from the

DEA academy.

As the years went on, and the drug trade grew, so did the DEA.

Eventually it became exactly what Nixon wanted it to be; a powerful federal agency,

with offices not only around the United States but also worldwide, with 60 plus

offices in 60 plus countries. The 90ǯs came about, showing the biggest increase in
the drug trade ever. The drug trade had evolved into a well-organized highly

structured enterprise that spanned the word!

By the late 90ǯs, the man in charge of the DEA was Thomas A. Constantine,

and he had just enough problems to worry about if not more as the founder John

Bartels. The 90ǯs showed an increase of violent drug gangs around the country;

violence and drug trafficking now went hand and hand. According to the DEA

records ("DEA history"), there was more than 1.5 million Americans arrested for

drug law violations in 1996 and also; they say a lot of other crimes were committed

while the person was on drugs. Another big thing the DEA had to try and combat

was the heroin trade, which was coming from Asia before, but during the 90s

started coming from South America, which was a lot closer and easier to ship drugs

from. But with all the drugs coming into the states, Americans started to realize that

the drug problem wasnǯt just a problem but an epidemic. That no matter how hard

the DEA and federal government tried, they couldnǯt stop the disease know as the

drug trade. The kingpin strategy was created in the 90s. This strategy was a change

from what had been done previously. The kingpin strategy did was to attack the

drug organizations at their most vulnerable areasǥthe chemicals that were needed

to produce the drugs their finances, transportation, communications and leadership.

This helped for the most part, but still wasnǯt enough to completely eradicate the

drug problem.

Toward the late 90s and early 2000s, the DEA was still fighting an uphill

battle. More types of drugs were being produced, plus there were more over the

counter drugs available to everyone. The DEAǯs budget was at a record high, and still
growing. They were also starting to work more and more with other countries,

countries like Mexico, which is the origin of most of the drugs in the US.

Present day, the DEA is basically in the same place it was in the early 2000s

and late 90s. Trying to take out the drug lords at their source, but as the technology

gets smarter and better so does the ways of the drug trafficker. Today, the Drug

Enforcement Administration has 5,235 Special Agents and a budget of more than

$2.3 million and 87 foreign offices in 63 countries

(http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/history/2003-2008.pdf). The DEA is also

focusing more on certain drugs than others. They realized that the more they focus

on one drug, the more effort they can put into it. They instrumented the Drug Flow

Attack Strategy in mid-2005. The idea of this was to attack the supply of drugs in a

way so that the cost of drugs would sky rocket to record prices, which in turn would

lower the demand for them. This paid of greatly and they still are using it to this day,

along with the kingpin strategy.

The federal government and the DEA all know that the war on drugs is far from

over. This has been the longest war the US has ever been in and will continue into

the future. But you can put money on it that the DEA will be right there, being a

thorn in the side of drug traffickers world wide, in their goal to cure not just

America, but the world, from this drug epidemic.

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