NCJ Number
166021
Date Published
1995
Length
34 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the reasons for the sustained decline of cocaine use in the United States after 1915 concludes that legal prohibition was only partly responsible.
Abstract
The use of cocaine began in the United States during the mid-1880's, reached a peak between 1900 and 1915, and then went into a sustained period of decline. Most observers regarded cocaine as a purely historical phenomenon by the end of the 1920's. Cocaine remained at the margins of the drug scene for more than four decades. The overlap between the decline in use and the shift from a legal, regulated market to an illicit market has supported the assumption that the start of legal prohibition successfully ended cocaine use. The stricter laws regarding distribution did eliminate the legal market and made the remaining cocaine more expensive and harder to find through illicit channels. However, legal prohibition did not change the nature of the cocaine business as dramatically as is often assumed. Instead, prohibition merely accelerated trends that began much earlier as a result of regulation and informal controls. In addition, the apparent success of legal prohibition depended on some unique historical circumstances, including the ready supply of cheap heroin for domestic drug markets and the interest and ability of cocaine manufacturers to expand new legal markets outside the United States. Thus, the conclusion of the first cocaine era resulted from a combination of national and international trends and did not represent either an inevitable end to a cycle of drug use or the outcome of a well-planned set of drug policies. Tables and reference notes (Author abstract modified)