ENCYCLOPEDIA OF Espionage, Intelligence, and Security Volume ...

DEAA Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent stands guard next to 5,137 pounds of cocaine seized from a Panamanian vessel in Miami, Florida. AP/WIDEWORLD PHOTOS.campuses to the mainstream of middle-class life. At notime before or since has drug use been as socially acceptableas it was in the 1970s, and DEA faced an uphill battleboth culturally and operationally. The extraordinary growthin marijuana and cocaine use was coupled with a staggeringrise in drug traffic from Colombia, Mexico, and othercountries, and DEA greatly increased its interdiction effortsat borders, harbors, and airports.Drug use in the United States reached an all-time highin 1979, and began to steadily decline thereafter. Thechange is one for which DEA rightly claims considerablecredit, but a number of factors contributed. Some were atthe level of policy, both public and private, including the“war of drugs” initiated by President Ronald Reagan, the“Just Say No” campaign of First Lady Nancy Reagan, andthe efforts of companies who contributed airtime, advertisingspace, and creative talents to the Partnership for aEncyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence, and SecurityDrug-Free America. But a societal change was also underway,closely tied with the 1980s emphasis on traditionalvalues, health and fitness, and self-help. By the beginningof the 1990s, Alcoholics Anonymous and other addictionrecovery groups were as popular as drugs and alcohol hadbeen a decade earlier.New drugs and new challenges. Even as drug use becameless widespread, the level of commitment to drugs on thepart of users deepened. This was accompanied by the riseof ever more dangerous drugs. In the mid-1980s, therewas ecstacy, followed by an extraordinarily lethal cocainederivative called crack. The underpinning of new criminalenterprises, crack spawned an attendant culture in America’sinner cities, but the drug knew no ethnic barriers:users of all backgrounds joined the ranks of those addictedto this powerful narcotic.313