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Treating Addiction or Reducing Crime? Methadone Maintenance and Drug Policy Under the Nixon Administration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 December 2016

Mical Raz
Mical Raz*
Affiliation:
University of Pennsylvania
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , January 2017 , pp. 58 - 86
Copyright
Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2017 

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank Naomi Rogers and Robert Aronowitz for their insightful comments and mentorship. Matthew Gambino and the participants at the Yale School of Medicine’s Psychiatry and Culture from a Historical Perspective working group offered helpful feedback and valuable discussion. David Courtwright generously shared from his vast knowledge and experience in the field of drug history. The author is also grateful to the four anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions.

References

NOTES

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3. Dole and Nyswander, “A Medical Treatment,” 83–84.

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9. Kleber, “Methadone: The Drug,” 150–51. For a history of methadone programs in New York City, see Roberts, Samuel K., “‘Rehabilitation’ as Boundary Object: (Bio)Medicalization, Local Activism, and Narcotics Addiction Policy in New York City, 1951–1962,” Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 26, no. 2 (2012): 147–69.Google Scholar

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18. Roberts, “Rehabilitation as a Boundary Object.”

19. Nolan, Therapeutic State, 112, 123. See also James Nolan, Reinventing Justice: The American Drug Court Movement (Princeton, 2003).

20. See, for instance, Lunbeck, Elizabeth, The Psychiatric Persuasion: Knowledge, Gender, and Power in Modern America (Princeton, 1996)Google Scholar, and Goldstein, Jan, Console and Classify: The French Psychiatric Profession in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1989).Google Scholar

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22. Bourgois, “Disciplining Addictions,” 167. See also Philippe Bourgois and Jeff Schonberg, Righteous Dopefiend (Berkeley, 2009).

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28. “Crime in the National Capital,” Hearings Before the Committee on the District of Columbia, US Senate, 91st Congress, 1969, A-175.

29. Kozel, Nicholas J., DuPont, Robert L., and Brown, Barry S., “Narcotics and Crime: A Study of Narcotic Involvement in an Offender Population,” International Journal of the Addictions 7, no. 3 (1972): 450.Google Scholar

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31. Courtwright, Dark Paradise, 140–44; Schneider, Smack, 122–24, Lang, Irving, “President’s Crime Commission Task Force Report on Narcotics and Drug Abuse: A Critique of the Apologia,” Notre Dame Law Review 43, no. 6 (1968): 847–56Google Scholar; Wolff, Pablo O., “Narcotic Addiction and Criminality,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminality 34, no. 3 (1943): 162–81Google Scholar; Kennedy, Randall, Race, Crime, and the Law (New York, 1997), 351–86.Google Scholar

32. Narcotics Research, Rehabilitation, and Treatment: Hearings Before the Select Committee on Crime, House of Representatives, 92nd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, D.C., 1971), 195–208.

33. Richard Nixon, “Special Message to the Congress on Drug Abuse Prevention and Control,” 17 June 1971. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3048.

34. DuPont, Oral History, 3; Robert L. DuPont, “Heroin Addiction and Crime Reduction,” American Journal of Psychiatry 128, no. 7 (1972): 91.

35. “The Department of Corrections Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Corps,” undated, no author (although presumed to be Robert DuPont). RG 60, Records of the Department of Justice—Office of Criminal Justice Subject Files, 1969–73—Narcotics Treatment Administration, Box 14, Folder NTA, National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Md. (Hereafter cited as NTA, NARA).

36. Ibid., 22.

37. DuPont, “Heroin Addiction and Crime,” 91; DuPont, “Heroin Addiction in the Nation’s Capital, 1966–1973,” in One Hundred Years of Heroin, 69; DuPont, “Urban Crime and the Rapid Development of a Large Heroin Addiction Treatment Program,” Proceedings of the Third National Conference on Methadone Treatment (New York, 1970), 117.

38. “The Department of Corrections Narcotic Addict,” NTA, NARA, 23.

39. See Clark, “‘Chemistry is the New Hope,’” for the developing relations between methadone treatment advocates and therapeutic communities.

40. Ibid., 200. See also Courtwright, David, “A Century of American Narcotic Policy,” Treating Drug Problems: Institute of Medicine Report, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C., 1992), 1–65, esp. 28–33.Google Scholar

41. DuPont, Robert L., “Trying to Treat All the Heroin Addicts in a Community,” in Proceedings of the Fourth National Conference on Methadone Treatment (New York, 1972).Google Scholar

42. “Proposal for a Methadone Maintenance Program for the District of Columbia,” D.C. Health Department, 30 September 1969, NTA, NARA, 4.

43. DuPont, “Heroin Addiction in the Nation’s Capital,” 70; DuPont, Robert L., “Coming to Grips with an Urban Heroin Addiction Epidemic,” Journal of the American Medical Association 223, no. 1 (1973): 46.Google Scholar

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46. At that point, 55 percent of individuals treated by the NTA were receiving methadone maintenance therapy, 20 percent were in outpatient methadone-based detoxification, and an additional 25 percent were abstinent. DuPont, “Heroin Addiction and Crime,” 92.

47. DuPont, Robert L., “Profile of a Heroin-Addiction Epidemic,” New England Journal of Medicine 285, no. 6 (1971): 322–24Google Scholar; DuPont and Richard N. Katon, “Development of a Heroin-Addiction Treatment Program: Effect on Urban Crime,” Journal of the American Medical Association 216, no. 8 (1971): 1323–24; DuPont, “Heroin Addiction and Crime,” 93.

48. DuPont, “Heroin Addiction and Crime,” 92; DuPont, “Profile of an Epidemic,” 324; DuPont and Katon, “Development of a Program,” 1323.

49. Massing, The Fix, 100–101.

50. Egil Krogh, Memorandum for Domestic Affairs Council Staff, 17 July 1970, reproduced in CD-ROM of White House documents, enclosed with book: David Musto and Pamela Korsmeyer, The Quest for Drug Control (New Haven, 2002) (hereafter referred to as CD–ROM).

51. Letter, Vincent Dole to Senator Joseph Tydings, 12 June 1970, reproduced in CD-ROM.

52. Robert L. DuPont’s Statement, Narcotics Research, Rehabilitation, and Treatment: Hearings Before the Select Committee on Crime, House of Representatives, 92nd Cong., 1st sess. (Washington, D.C., 1971), 143.

53. Ibid., 144.

54. Ibid., 145.

55. Ibid., 150.

56. Ibid., 151.

57. For an analysis of the spatial and social dimensions of heroin abuse in inner cities, see Schneider, Smack. For DuPont’s use of the epidemic metaphor, see, for instance, DuPont, “Coming to Grips,” and DuPont, “Profile of an Epidemic.”

58. Jaffe, Jerome H., Zaks, Misha S., and Washington, Edward N., “Experience with the Use of Methadone in a Multi-Modality Program for the Treatment of Narcotics Users,” International Journal of the Addictions 4, no. 3 (1969): 484–84Google Scholar, Jerome Jaffe, interview by Nancy D. Campbell, Oral History of Substance Abuse Research, January 2007, 69–72.

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62. David Courtwright, Herman Joseph, and Don Des Jarlais, Addicts Who Survived: An Oral History of Narcotic Use in America, 1923–1965 (Knoxville, 1989), 217.

63. DuPont, “Coming to Grips,” 47.

64. “Narcotic Addiction Treatment and Rehabilitation Programs,” 11.

65. Rosen, Daniel M., Dope: A History of Performance Enhancement in Sports from the Nineteenth Century to Today (Westport, Conn., 2008), 40–57.Google Scholar

66. Campbell, “Technologies of Suspicion,” 78–92.

67. Massing, The Fix, 97–101.

68. Jaffe, Zaks, and Washington, “Multi-Modality,” 481–90.

69. Jeffery Donfeld, “Memorandum for Bud Krogh: Different Strokes for Different Folkes,” 19 June 1970, reproduced in CD-ROM. See also David Musto and Pamela Korsmeyer, The Quest for Drug Control (New Haven, 2002), 77; Epstein, Agency of Fear, 127–28.

70. Chappel, John N., “Methadone and Chemotherapy in Drug Addiction: Genocidal or Life Saving?” Journal of the American Medical Association 228, no. 6 (1974): 725–28Google Scholar; Bourgeois, “Disciplining Addictions,” 174–75; Hansen and Roberts, “Two Tiers,” 87–92.

71. Courtwright, Dark Paradise, 172.

72. William Raspberry, “Methadone Use: Another Blunder,” Washington Post, 11 May 1971, A19.

73. Musto and Korsmeyer, Quest for Drug Control, 81.

74. “Report of an Ad Hoc White House Committee on the Treatment and Prevention of Drug Addiction and Drug Abuse,” 23 December 1970, reproduced in CD-ROM.

75. Approaches to a National Policy and Program on Narcotics and Drug Abuse, 23 December 1970, reproduced in CD-ROM.

76. Husak, Douglas N., Drugs and Rights (Cambridge, 1992), 9–10Google Scholar; Weimer, Daniel, “Drugs-as-Disease: Heroin, Metaphors, and Identity in Nixon’s Drug War,” Janus Head 6, no. 2 (2004): 260–81.Google Scholar

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78. Nixon, “Special Message.”

79. Kuzmarov, Jeremy, The Myth of the Addicted Army: Vietnam and the Modern War on Drugs (Amherst, Mass., 2009)Google Scholar; Peter Goldberg, “The Federal Government’s Response to Illicit Drugs, 1969–1978,” in Drug Abuse Council, The Facts about Drug Abuse (New York, 1980), 35–36; Musto and Korsmeyer, Quest for Drug Control, 98–101.

80. Nixon, “Special Message.”

81. Sharp, Elaine B., The Dilemma of Drug Policy in the United States (New York, 1994), 29Google Scholar; Musto and Korsmeyer, Quest for Drug Control, 97–98; Goldberg, “Federal Government’s Response,” 44–45.

82. Jerome Jaffe, “One Bite of the Apple: Establishing the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention,” in Musto, One Hundred Years of Heroin, 44.

83. Ibid., 46.

84. Goldberg, “Federal Government’s Response,” 35–36.

85. Courtwright, Dark Paradise, 172.

86. Ibid., 171; Egil Krogh, “Heroin Politics and Policy under President Nixon,” in Musto, One Hundred Years of Heroin, 42.

87. Courtwright et al., Addicts Who Survived, 145.

88. Epstein, Agency of Fear, 137.

89. Ibid., 212–20; Musto and Korsmeyer, Quest for Drug Control, 107–23; Kuzmarov, Myth of the Addicted Army, 112–14; Milton Heumann and Lance Cassak, Good Cop, Bad Cop: Racial Profiling and Competing Views of Justice in America (New York, 2003), 24–27.

See also Dennis Montgomery, “The Night of Terror: ‘We Made a Mistake,’” Washington Post, 30 April 1973, A6; Paul Galloway, “Trying the Drug Raiders: 10 Agents Found Innocent in Botched Collinsville Entries,” Washington Post, 7 April 1974, B7.

90. Musto and Korsmeyer, Quest for Drug Control, 124; Goldberg, “Federal Government’s Response,” 42; “Richard Nixon: Remarks at the First National Treatment Alternatives to Street Crime Conference,” 11 September 1973. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=3958.

91. Kirk Scharfenberg, “Methadone Overdose Kills Youth: Methadone Overdose Kills D.C. Youth, 18,” Washington Post, 18 August 1973.

92. Greene, Mark H., Brown, Barry S., and DuPont, Robert L., “Controlling the Abuse of Illicit Methadone in Washington, DC,” Archives of General Psychiatry 32 (1975): 222.Google Scholar

93. William L. Claiborne, “Child Dies; Methadone Plan Revised: Tot’s Death Forces Methadone Change,” Washington Post, 4 March 1971.

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96. Ibid., 129.

97. Ibid., 131.

98. Ibid., 132.

99. This was later challenged by a lawsuit brought by the American Pharmaceutical Association, which enabled pharmacies to sell methadone indicated for treating pain, but not as a maintenance treatment for heroin addiction. Rettig and Yarmolinsky, Federal Regulation of Methadone Treatment, 133.

100. Ibid., 133–35.

101. AMA Council on Mental Health, “Narcotics and Medical Practice: Medical Use of Morphine and Morphine-like Drugs and Management of Persons Dependent on Them,” Journal of the American Medical Association 214, no. 4 (1971): 583.

102. Ibid.

103. Bourgois and Schonberg, Righteous Dopefiend, 287.

104. Courtwright, Dark Paradise, 173.

105. Epstein, Agency of Fear, 249; Goldberg, “Federal Government’s Response,” 45–46.

106. Massing, The Fix, 126–30; Musto and Korsmeyer, Quest for Drug Control, 123–24; Jaffe, Oral History, 144; Jack Nelson, “Top Antidrug Aide Will Be Replaced: He Wrote Memo Severely Critical of Nixon Proposal,” Los Angeles Times, 24 May 1973.

107. Frydl, The Drug Wars, 342–43; Joe Ritchie, “City Drug Unit Fears Budget Cuts: Number of Addicts Treated Is Rising, NTA Officials Say,” Washington Post, 17 February 1976, B2.

108. Massing, The Fix, 134, Goldberg, “Federal Government’s Response,” 46–47.

109. Musto, David, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control, 3rd ed. (New York, 1999), 265.Google Scholar

110. DuPont, Oral History, 14; Courtwright, Dark Paradise, 175; Emily Dufton, “Parents, Peers, and Pot: The Rise of the Drug Culture and the Birth of the Parent Movement, 1976–1980,” Trans-Scripts 3 (2013): 211–36.

111. See, for instance, DuPont, Robert L., Getting Tough on Gateway Drugs: A Guide for the Family (Washington, D.C., 1984).Google Scholar

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114. Frydl, The Drug Wars, 339.

115. Quoted in Musto and Korsmeyer, Quest for Drug Control, 82.

116. Health Policy Advisory Center Bulletin, March 1970, 4.

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118. Nolan, Therapeutic State, 112, 123.