Adolescent Drug Use, Treatment and Criminalization: Two U.S. House Select Committee on Crime Hearing Volumes, 1971 and 1972

U S. House Select Committee on Crime

Book

Federal drug policy hearing volumes from 1971 and 1972, documenting a decisive moment when addiction, youth drug use, public education, and urban crisis became central subjects of national policy. Issued as the Nixon administration declared drug abuse a national emergency, the hearings record Congress deciding whether narcotics use would be treated principally through medicine, rehabilitation, education, policing, or criminal enforcement. Testimony on heroin deaths, adolescent addiction, school drug markets, treatment programs, and law enforcement captures the formation of policies that helped define the modern War on Drugs and continue to shape debates over incarceration, overdose, public health, and the criminalization of addiction. Both copies were used by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, an organization engaged with correctional policy and alternatives to punitive criminal justice practices.

Two U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Crime hearing volumes. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971 and 1972. Printed wrappers, each approximately 9 x 6 x .5 inches.
[1] Narcotics Research, Rehabilitation, and Treatment. 1971. Part 1 of 2 Parts. Serial No. 92-1. 337 pages. Hearings held April 26 through 28, 1971, addressing addiction research, treatment programs, rehabilitation, federal administration, and the relation between narcotics dependence and criminal justice policy.
[2] Drugs in Our Schools. 1972. 514 pages. Hearings held June 19 and 20 in New York and June 21 and 27 in Washington, D.C., examining drug use and distribution among students, school policy, prevention programs, law enforcement, treatment, and the responsibilities of educators and public agencies. The volume includes statistical exhibits, a chart of New York City narcotics deaths from 1918 to 1970, and the clinical caption “Typical scars on thigh of subcutaneous heroin addict.”

The hearings belong to a period when the federal government was building parallel therapeutic and enforcement systems around drug use. On June 17, 1971, President Nixon called drug abuse “public enemy number one” while requesting expanded funding for treatment, education, rehabilitation, research, and enforcement; the Drug Abuse Office and Treatment Act of 1972 subsequently placed federal prevention and treatment programs under coordinated administration. The school hearings extended that framework into educational institutions, gathering testimony from teachers, administrators, students, former users, police officers, prosecutors, and treatment personnel, and recording how conduct once handled through families, schools, or medical care increasingly entered systems of surveillance and criminal enforcement. Pen and pencil notes appear on the front wrappers, with scattered annotations throughout; National Council on Crime and Delinquency library stamps and accession markings identify institutional use in Hackensack and Paramus, New Jersey. Both volumes remain firmly bound with wrappers intact; contents complete and legible, with light handling wear and institutional markings. Overall very good condition.

Item #23672

Price: $285.00