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.
Stories From the Collection is a new video series produced by the DEA Museum. According to Emma Miller, the host of the show, the video series aims to take viewers “into the collection and share stories of some of the most fascinating objects.”
Miller describes in the video that the set contains a photocopy signed by Nixon of the Comprehensive Drug Prevention and Control Act and a pen he used to enact the act. It commemorates an important moment in federal 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.
He said that a “new all-out offensive” was needed to defeat the enemy. “I have asked Congress for the necessary legislative authority, as well the money to fund this offensive.”
Nixon gave Jack Ingersoll the pen used for the signing of the federal drug laws, in October of that year. Ingersoll was then the Director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (later DEA), at the time.
Miller stated in the video that “this framed set commemorates a law which is still used by DEA.” He added that “only 45,000 artifacts and other documents, photos, videos, etc. are in the DEA museum’s collection.” The DEA Museum’s collection includes over 45,000 artifacts, photographs, videos and documents. Each one illuminates key moments in the history DEA.
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.”
Redmond concluded in an op ed that “the fiction permeating the museum is the DEA somehow winning a justified drug war.”
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.
Around five months into Donald Trump’s second tenure, there is still no progress on the ongoing plan to reschedule Cannabis, which has left advocates and stakeholder frustrated at both the present inaction, as well the Biden Administration’s failure.
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’s position on cannabis reform has been quiet since his election, and the White House didn’t mention rescheduling when it released a list of the drug policy priorities the White House will be pursuing.
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 was pardoned by Trump for a conviction related to marijuana during his first term, visited the White House and discussed future options of clemency.
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.
The poll found that although most Marijuana consumers are opposed to Trump’s actions on cannabis, a rescheduling of the drug or its legalization may increase support.
MEDCAN24 would not be possible without the support of readers. Please consider making a Patreon monthly pledge if you depend on our cannabis journalism for information.
