This Week in History 6/25/04

This Week in History 6/25/04


June 26, 1936: The Convention for the Suppression of the Illicit Traffic in Dangerous Drugs is signed in Geneva.

June 28, 1776: The first draft of the Declaration of Independence is written -- on Dutch hemp paper. A second draft, the version released on July 4, is also written on hemp paper. The final draft is copied from the second draft onto animal parchment.

June 29, 1938: The Christian Century newspaper claims, "in some districts inhabited by Latino Americans, Filipinos, Spaniards, and Negroes, half the crimes are attributed to the marijuana craze."

June 30, 1906: Congress enacts the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906, creating the FDA and initiating the prescription system and labeling requirements.

July, 1998: US and Mexican Attorneys General sign the Brownville Agreement, pledging to inform each other about sensitive cross-border law enforcement operations following the US Operation Casablanca and resulting Mexican anger.

July 1, 1930: The Porter Act establishes the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), an agency independent of the Department of the Treasury's Prohibition Unit and consequently unaffected by the passage of the Twenty-First Amendment. Harry J. Anslinger is named acting commissioner.

July 1, 1973: The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is established by President Nixon, designed to be a "superagency" capable of handling all aspects of the drug problem and consolidating agents from the BNDD, Customs, CIA, and ODALE.

July 1, 1998: IRONIC QUOTE OF NOTE: DEA Chief Thomas Constantine says, "[In] my era everybody smoked and everybody drank and there was no drug use."

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/343/thisweek.shtml