the developing drug war. It is human understanding to want to avoid the nullification of a failing plan after devoting many resources as had our government. Another effect of human nature is to lead oneself to believe that increased effort and direction will always enhance a situation in which previous effort was not sufficient. Finally, our government unquestionably experienced some political groupthink. Surely all of our government’s officials had our people’s “good intentions” in mind as they increased and increased legislation. What would have been the personal repercussions had one official suggested that his government’s entire logic was faulted, and that years of spending and devotion of resources be undone. Surely the thought crossed someone’s mind. As the century turned, and social problems began to arise as a seemingly unrelated result of our government’s actions, public devotion to and reliance on the campaign grew. Just into the new century, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed. This motion was probably the best act of regulation this far, had it been left alone. However, likely because of the aforementioned reasoning, and the fact that this act didn’t directly discourage the use of opiate containing drugs, our government felt the need to apply further restriction in the years following with the Harrison Narcotic Act. The Harrison Act was as blatant attempt as any at increasing revenues, as one had to register with Internal Revenue Collectors in order to legally use opiate based products. In the case of the Philippine issue of drug legislation, race and nationality were quite obviously a significant factor, as the policy was different for Philippino citizens compared to non-citizens of the Philippines. By this time, our government was practically waging a war against drugs. This is how extreme the situation quickly escalated to be. Realizing that their increased ...
