DEA Museum Highlights Pen That Nixon Used To Sign Modern War On Drugs Into Law

One of the featured exhibits at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)
Museum—which attempts to put a fun, exciting spin on America’s war on drugs—is
a relic that helped give shape to federal prohibition: the pen that
then-President Nixon used in 1970 to sign the modern drug war into law.

The pen and a signed photo of Nixon endorsing the Comprehensive Drug
Prevention and Control Act is featured on an episode of Stories From the
Collection, a video series from the DEA Museum intended to “take you into
the collection to share stories about our most exciting objects,” according
to the video’s host, Museum Technician Emma Miller.

“This set includes a signed photograph copy of the first page of the
Comprehensive Drug Prevention and Control Act, and a pen used by President
Nixon to sign it into law,” Miller explains in the video. “It commemorates
a pivotal moment in federal drug law enforcement.”

Title II of the federal statute is the Controlled Substances Act (CSA),
which created five schedules of substances—Schedule I to Schedule V—based
on the government’s perception of their medical value and potential for
abuse.

Fifty-four years ago Tuesday—on June 17, 1971—Nixon famously stepped up
America’s war on drugs, declaring substance misuse “public enemy number
one” and requesting increased funding for prevention.

“In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new all
out offensive,” he said. “I’ve asked the Congress to provide the
legislative authority and the funds to fuel this kind of an offensive.”

The pen used to sign the federal drug law, which took place the previous
October, was a gift from Nixon to Jack Ingersoll, who at the time was the
director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, which later became
DEA.

“This framed set commemorates the creation of a law that is still widely
utilized by DEA,” Miller said in the video, adding that the writing
instrument is “only one of over 45,000 artifacts, photographs, videos and
documents in the DEA Museum’s collection. Each illuminates important
moments in the history of DEA, federal drug law enforcement and drug use in
American culture.”

Earlier this year, the drug policy publication Filter visited the DEA
Museum in order to—as senior editor Helen Redmond critically put it—“see
all the lies and misinformation in one place” and “understand how the
curators sold and sanitized the war on drugs.”

“I was not disappointed,” Redmond wrote in an op-ed, concluding that “The
fiction that permeates the museum is that the DEA is somehow winning a drug
war that is justified.”

DEA is widely seen as ideologically committed to the drug war—a commitment
that former President Joe Biden’s drug czar recently said may have
compromised the government’s effort to move marijuana from the
most-restrictive Schedule I of the CSA to Schedule III.

About five months into President Donald Trump’s second term, there has
still been no movement on the pending plan to reschedule cannabis, leaving
advocates and stakeholders frustrated by both the current inaction as well
as the Biden administration’s failure to get the job done.

According to former White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
(ONDCP) Director Rahul Gupta, that may have been due to deliberate
resistance from within DEA—a suspicion shared widely among supporters of
the reform, including those involved in an administrative hearing that’s
been stalled for months, with no clear indication it will proceed any time
soon.

What happens next in the process is uncertain, especially ahead of the
potential Senate confirmation of Trump’s pick to lead DEA, Terrance Cole,
who has declined to say whether he supports the proposal but has previously
voiced concerns about the dangers of marijuana and linked its use to higher
suicide risk among youth.

Trump, for his part, has not publicly weighed in on cannabis reform since
taking office, and the White House did not include rescheduling in a
recently released list of drug policy priorities for the administration.

Other former DEA and HHS officials have separately expressed their sense
that, if rescheduling is going to happen, the president will need to
proactively demand its completion.

Former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), meanwhile—a backer of legalization whom
Trump first tapped for attorney general but withdrew from
consideration—recently made somewhat surprising comments about the
president’s position on rescheduling, suggesting that his endorsement of
the reform while campaigning last year may have been a politically
motivated move to try and win over more young voters but that he personally
has “a deep personal aversion to anything that dulls the senses.”

While Trump’s position on the issue has evolved over the years, including
several past comments supportive of medical cannabis, Gaetz said the
president is still “totally intolerant” to any reform that “he believes
will increase drug use.”

That represents a significant shift in rhetoric Gaetz used in an op-ed in
March, when he predicted that “meaningful” marijuana reform is “on the
horizon” under the Trump administration and praised the president’s
“leadership” in supporting rescheduling.

DEA recently notified an agency judge that the proceedings are still on hold—with
no future actions currently scheduled as the matter sits before the acting
administrator.

Separately, in April, an activist who received a pardon for a
marijuana-related conviction during Trump’s first term paid a visit to the
White House, discussing future clemency options with the recently appointed
“pardon czar.”

A marijuana industry-backed political action committee (PAC) has also
released a series of ads over recent weeks that have attacked Biden’s
cannabis policy record as well as the nation of Canada, promoting sometimes
misleading claims about the last administration while making the case that
Trump can deliver on reform.

Its latest ad accused former President Joe Biden and his DEA of waging a
“deep state war” against medical cannabis patients—but without mentioning
that the former president himself initiated the rescheduling process that
marijuana companies want to see completed under Trump.

Most Marijuana Consumers Oppose Trump’s Cannabis Actions So Far, But
Rescheduling Or Legalization Could Bolster Support, Poll Shows

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Drugs Into Law appeared first on Marijuana Moment.