>> kathleen frydl is next on booktv. she reports that contrary to common perception, the war on drugs did not begin with president nixon's pronouncement in 1971 but was a further development of pre-existing initiatives. it's about an hour. [applause] >> thank you. thanks, michelle. i want to begin by thanking michelle sellers, mlk library and the staff especially. i want to thank you maurice

jackson who is not here and william branch who i hope is here. everybody has an explanation for why we have a drug war. some agree with the reasoning that the government offers every day in multiple ways. we have a drug war because of drug use. neither i, nor any scholar i know of will argue that the drug war incarcerates substantial numbers of sober tee totals with no involvement in the drug trade. obviously, the drug war is in some way tied to drug use. but one need only a pair of eyes to see that there are tremendous discrepancies between who is in jail and who is feeling the brunt of the drug war versus the numbers and diversity of those engaged in illicit drug use. if white suburban teenagers snorting cocaine filled our jails, the government's explanation would have more credibility. in attempting to account for the

origins of the drug war then, we are in effect attempting to explain this discrepancy. if we find the government's explanation to be woefully incomplete, then the story of how and why the drug war came about would restore what is missing. in my book i argue that the drug war's particular shape, its scope and its function resulted from certain dilemmas of governance in an age of vastly expanding state power. the story is impossible to tell without the district of columbia. tonight i will focus largely on the one way street, that is the imposition that the federal government made on washington d.c. but i want to make it clear that in reality and in my book there is much more pushback and activism within the city. each at its most politically impotent stage, residents challenged the federal government's plans for it by failing to comply, by insisting

on home rule and by offering a different account or explanation of events than the government's version. but this evening i will focus on the ways the federal government used the district to craft the modern drug war. first, let me give some science of existing scholarship on the origins of the drug war and where my own work fits in with that literature. most scholars who have looked at this issue emphasize two things. first, the classification of certain drugs aznar cottics -- heroin, morphine, cocaine and later marijuana. and, second, their removal from general circulation all of which took place in the early party of the 20th century and was deeply tied to the reputation these drugs had acquired for recreational use amongst minorities. i try to emphasize the many steps between these events and the regime of punishment and prohibition erected in the early 1970s that provides the legislative and institutional basis for the modern drug war. i think it is important to look at this interval of time,

because to say something cannot circulate freely is not the same as saying it is criminally prohibited. for a period between post-world war i and 1970, these drugs were used as medicines, and various countries had different regulatory approaches to handle them. in the united states, the harrison narcotic act of 1914 used tariffs and taxes to track and regulate opiate production, importation and dispensation down to the fraction of the gram, as one official boasted. after international controls were put in place in the 1930s, illicit users were supplied not only birdie version from licit channels of drug production but also from subversion, the clandestine production and sale of drugs in knowing violation of the law. as the heroin market went underground, the u.s. government chased it with a vigor embodied in the first bureau of far

narcotics. answer linger was knowns for -- known for his depictions of illicit drug trafficking and use. over the course of his service from 1930 to 1961, the commissioner nominated different racial stereotypes depending upon the setting and the situation as the culprit behind narcotics traffic, variously designating asian, african-american, latino or italian ethnics as the guiding force behind the narcotics conspiracy. echoing other witch hunts popular in his day, anslinger's script was familiar, but his tactics and targets changed over time. before world war i, the commissioner spent much of his time and energy facing off against doctors, challenging their professional authority and integrity in an attempt to stymy the flow of narcotics diverted from their offices. after the war, he continued to send his agents to check up on medical narcotic prescriptions throughout the 1950s.

but a bureaucratic review found he devoted only 20% of his manpower to doing so. the rest pursued illicit deals supplied through subversion. as he turned his attention and resources to the underground market, anslingerer or clamored for more severe penalties for possession of opiates without the appropriate tax stamp, and members of congress -- especially members of the powerful southern delegation -- were quick to oblige. but only on the assurance that certain drug deals would be subject to his aggressive tactics and not others. thus began a collaborative relationship between the bureau of narcotics and congress that was intended to construct, enhance but also to delimit the boundaries of the nation's drug war. southerners who were well aware of their own local problems with narcotic diversion received assurances from anslinger that, in fact, illicit use was limited to the major cities with little of it in small cities and rural areas. as the commissioner mapped the

geography of his intentions, the district became the special focus of his efforts. in my book i pay special attention to washington d.c. because i am obliged to. throughout the 20th century, the congress tested the tactics of the drug war in d.c., drafting legislation, shaping the evolution of policing and invoking the racially-charged specter of drug-induced criminality in the city to help justify the modern drug war. more than anything else this was a consequence of the district's lack of political autonomy. the constitution of the united states grants the congress exclusive jurisdiction over washington, and for most of its history, the city has had little say in the conduct of its business. between 1800 and 1964, d.c. residents could not even vote for president. since reconstruction d.c. was governed by a board of commissioners appointed by the president which served in coordination with the congressional committee from each chamber assigned to oversee

district affairs. as a result, what would other places be considered a state crime was in d.c. a federal offense. felony cases were heard before a federal court and were prosecuted by a u.s. attorney appointed to the district. deprived of basic electoral rights, district residents lived according to laws that they had no ability to make or to change. d.c.'s powerlessness took on greater significance when the city became the first in the northeast corridor to approach mostly black status by the late 1950s. southern congressmen made a concerted effort to depict these in a menacing light as the forces supporting segregation and social control slackened. because of this and other similar marks, many scholars of the drug war assume that the link between prohibition and punishment and race was --

[inaudible] coded into law and order rhetoric designed to appeal to white ethnics who could be enticed from the democratic fold. although valid, this argument nevertheless neglects the obvious; that is, that the link between the drug war and race was explicit, even mechanical, and it was initially forge inside a symbiotic fashion between the committees in the district of columbia and those dedicated to the regulation of narcotics. the first and still most significant example of this special relationship was the enactment of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug offenses in the 1950s. when it was first proposed, the idea was a startling departure from common practice. mandatory minimums ran contrary to common law, and it celebrated tradition of judicial autonomy n. the place of judicial discretion, james davis -- the district subcommittee chairman from georgia -- proposed in 1953 that mandatory minimum sentences be attached to a series of offenses that would require a

presiding judge to give a predetermined sentence no matter what the judge happened to think. davis drew heavily on his views of the district to justify the move. we've reached the point where it is risky for women and girls to be on the streets after dusk, congressman davis concluded, at a time when d.c.'s crime rate was one of the lowest of any major city in the country. despite the crime panic, some congressmen voiced reservations and urged caution. pennsylvania democrat herman -- [inaudible] the most outspoken critic of the bill -- pointed out that congress was proposing something to the residents of district of columbia that is not required in any state of the union adding: we are attempting, in effect, to use the district of columbia as a guinea pig on which to try out a radical departure of new principles. but his colleagues were unperturbed by the proposal. mostly because they just did not care. because d.c. had no power and no representation in congress, there was no possibility of a backlash and, hence, no account

given to the desires of residents who lived in the city. only weeks after the bill passed the house the same chamber found itself considering mandatory minimums once again, this time to apply it to a second conviction for a narcotics possession without the appropriate tax stamp. if any legislator had reservations over a broader application of this untested proposal, then supporters were there to remind them of the district crime bill. in case there should be any doubt as to the actual position of those who oppose the bill, one congressman chided critics, i ask the house to jog its memory and remember the position that was taken by some when the district of columbia bill was before this body not long ago dealing with the question of mandatory sentences. the bill passed easily in both houses. in this way the district functioned to lower the threshold of consent when it came to the tactics and tools of the drug war. innovations imposed upon it supplied a precedent, one that

congressmen were quick to establish, cite and repurpose at their convenience. the district also served to suggest the targets of counternarcotic efforts. but the urban blacks who purchased illicit drugs supplied via subversion were by no means alone in their behavior. this point was a surprising addendum to the first high-profile application of mandatory minimums in the district, the 1954 prosecution of catfish turner and his associates all of whom were african-american. three of turner's co-conspirators had no prior convictions. as a result, they were now subject to mandatory minimum sentences. with an unprecedented courtroom victory, the two u.s. attorneys who prosecuted might have rested on their laurels. instead, they aired doubts regarding the ultimate benefits of their labor. as it turns out, this group consisted primarily of negroes here, they told "the washington post." but he added: the narcotic

traffic knows no racial or geographic boundaries. we have found addiction and ped being among various groups and in many parts of washington. by 1970 the federal government stood poised to knit its various drug laws into one regime and affect a criminal prohibition of certain narcotics using the powers granted to it under the commerce clause. president nixon was particularly keen to put law and order issues at the center of his agenda. in making the district the special focus of his attention, he and his allies encountered new leaders of a city now embarked on a path towards self-governance. still, a familiar pattern emerged. no-knock authority, or the ability of police to enter a premise without warning if they believed issuing one would result in the direction of evidence, was, according to d.c. police, unnecessary for the district. yet officials in the nixon administration insisted on putting it in the district's anti-crime legislation of 1970. months later the same authority

appeared in nixon's overhaul of the country's drug regime, the controlled substances act of 1970, the legislative foundation of the modern drug war. as it proved somewhat controversial, proponents were quick to cite the precedent set in the district bill. congressman springer dismissed opposition to no-knock by reminding his colleagues that they had already consented to it. we had it in the district of columbia crime bill, he prompted his colleagues. we voted for it then. d.c. served as more than the legislative proving grounds for the modern drug war. the city's evolution in the culture and practices of modern policing was emblematic and in many ways constructive. as commissioner anslinger ratcheted up the punishment, powerful forces changed the metropolitan police department to an agency which largely defined its policing mission through narcotics enforcement.

i argue that this transformation enabled police to retain vestiges of traditional law enforcement, be it discretion, use of force or even corruption while in the midst of profound changes wrought by the professionalization movement within law enforcement and civil rights outside of it. as police redefined their presence in the ghetto, drug enforcement became both their preoccupation and their methodology. not just something to police, but a way to police. initially, the fact that law enforcement did not bother to offer services in poor black neighborhoods was something that was both widely known and widely ignored. in 1947 "the washington post" reported results of an investigation that showed police pocketing crimes to be prevalent throughout the metropolitan police department. pocketing meant the failure to report a crime in an official tally, and this in turn meant that no effort was made towards solving it. the post revealed that in the

calendar year already more than 300 robbery complaints had been placed in secret files in the detective bureau, and an additional 300 others recorded in police precinct record books were marked "hold." the d.c. commissioner charged with overseeing the police, john russell young, noted that it was shared by the public and most of the press. police superintendent robert bare et refused to -- [inaudible] before the senate hearing held in response to the newspaper's report. this instead admitting that confidential files had been used since 1941 and prior to that other methods were used. that his statement could be made without any elaboration suggests that his audience understood him well. what barrett meant was that before 1941 the police employed other methods to deny black residents of police services. police operations remain largely untouched after the post's

expose of pocketing. the story may have raised some skepticism regarding leadership and oversight since neither of them seemed particularly corps be sized that the mpd disguarded roughly half the crime reported to it. but they remained in office. also touched was the reliance upon tools of social control, namely the hundreds upon hundreds of arrests of african-americans made each year under the city's disorderly statutes, especially those made when an officer ordered a civilian to move on. and if he did not do so at the pace or in the fashion which the officer desired, he was subject to arrest. these discretionary tools empowered the police to such a degree that in some neighborhoods officers could arrest whom they wanted when they wanted. yet only a few years later in 1952, the mpd came under scrutiny once again, this time as the result of coinciding senate and department of justice

informations, both -- investigations. both focused on narcotics enforcement and quickly narrowed focus to h.h. carper, head of the narcotics squad. on march 17th, the day of carper's appearance before the senate, finally arrived. the lieutenant's ill health and recent hospitalization. two local television stations carried the program live and radio station wmal agreed to rebroadcast the interview in prime time evening hours. as with the legendary hearings on organized crime, an air of anticipation buzzed around the committee room. senators confronted carper with his own financial records and asked him to explain the more than $4,000 in deposits to one of his checking accounts. carper claimed he could not recollect making them. senator neely remarked he found it highly suspicious and then blurted: lieutenant, i'm going to probably break the injunction of secrecy, but i think i should tell you that in executive

session, this committee will hear evidence of payment after payment of cash that was made to you by dope peddlers for protection. this astonishing accusation shocked some viewers but not others. for many black d.c. residents, the remarkable thing about the carper testimony was not police corruption, but the willingness to discuss it publicly. one african-american lawyer interviewed along with a dozen fellow d.c. residents admitted that the hearings had brought to light what a large segment of the population has known all along. senator neely's charges against carper were vindicated the very next day when imprisoned dope peddler james roberts appeared before the senators. the calm demeanor of roberts presented senate investigators and the public with the picture of a thoughtful, if not remorseful man. as he quietly told his story of dealing in illicit drugs and his interaction with d.c.'s narcotics squad during that time.

from 1947 to 1949, lieutenant carper received 18,000-$20,000 in payoffs in roberts, always tendered in small bills and always paid on the first of the month often by wrapping cash in a newspaper and dropping anytime a squad car. dropping it in a squad car. those these revelations prompted personnel changes at the top, little about policing in the district changed during subsequent years even as law enforcement itself underwent a professionalization movement that demanded more training from recruits, new performance measures from officers and new methods of bureaucratic oversight. a decade later president lyndon johnson was still smarting from criticisms he had received from republican challenger barry goldwater that johnson had let the district descend into a chaos of crime. despite his triumphant election returns, the president was keen to appoint a special committee on crime in the district of columbia in july 1965. the task force spent a good part

of its time assessing the work of the d.c.'s metropolitan police department, and he concluded its analysis with a stark admonition. no one in the district of columbia should underestimate the gulf of experience and misunderstanding which separates police from negro citizens. to form the base of its police recommendations, the commission recruited the international association of chiefs of police or iacp to recommend structural changes to the mpd. and the professional association was by now well accustomed to its role as experts consulted to speed the transition to a more professional police culture. the organizational trend that most jumped out at the iacp when it looked at d.c.'s police was the fact that it had one of the highest resignation rates in the city -- excuse me, in the country. the reasons for this police exodus became the subject of contentious debate as well as a kind of rorschach test of police and race relations in the city. for its part, the iacp focused

on those internal failures that would foster this contempt. the mpd's building was old, its equipment inadequate, its patrol cars antiquated. even uniforms varied in shade and were haphazardly worn. officers even had to purchase handcuffs at their own expense. while the president's commission took the iacp findings to heart, it also made some remarks independent of that group. for a city that was now most hi black, d.c.'s mostly-white police force struck the commission as anachronistic at best and antagonistic at worst. frequent instances of arrest have been issued under the failure to move on provision of the disorderly statute. and each stoked resentment in the city's expanding black neighborhoods. moreover, the commission noted that the majority of complaints regarding excessive force filed with the trial board found some type of transgression. aggressive and unjustified use

of force whether it was arrest, physical brutality or both led black residents in impoverished areas to view police in the words of the commission, not as protecters, but as part of an oppressive social order. there is a psychological setting to brutality as one d.c. activist observed, a charged atmosphere that meant even routine interactions could escalate into a standoff between police and local residents. the commission concluded that it was common sense and perhaps even necessary to preserve the peace, to hire on and promote more african-americans to the mpd. congressional response to the president's commission and its findings was quick and 'emmatic -- emphatic. not content to rely on the iacp, congress employed its own expert analyst, a longtime assistant to harry anslinger in the bureau of narcotics. through the figure, the bureau's racialized views on particular

brand of moral panic was projected onto the district of columbia, a welcome and illuminating lens for the southern democrats in congress including basil whitman, the north carolina congressman placed in charge of the essential subcommittee on the metropolitan police department. in hearings held by witmer to review the commission's report, efforts were dismissed as a contribution from outsiders of varying expertise in the police field. disagreeing with the commission, he insisted that recruiting blacks to the force was not the answer, for such efforts amounted to little more than speculation in numbers or playing with color. for harney, morale in the mpd was low was washington streets were crawling with felons. for this reason, the committee should watch very closely any attempts made to weaken the move-on provisions. sometimes applications can be abrasive, but the alternative to nonenforcement may well be a curfew with soldiers and

bayonets on every block. this depiction of the district as teetering on the precipice of chaos sustained southern congressmen in their view that nothing needed to change in the metropolitan police department. presiding members of the congressional committee found no basis for, nor did it see any probability of expectation that police reorganization can bring about any substantial improvement to d.c. indeed, reforms were regarded as an effort to soften the department's approach to law enforcement. leaving criminals, in the words of malachi harney, unwhipped of justice. some members of congress objected, characterizing harney's intervention as one of defensiveness that encouraged the unfortunate feelings of isolation and fear that already haunted the mpd. congressman adams pointed out that the reforms suggested by the commission were akin to efforts elsewhere, all part and parcel of a recognizable drive to bring down the time and modernize these departments in

the less than 25 years, as he put it. through the use of money and techniques, he said, this was precisely what we are trying to do in d.c. the congressman then went on to make a crucial observation. the courts in d.c. were overcrowded, and the judicial system was literally at the point where it is burning out from the overload. instead, congress endorsed the contention that d.c. police command, including its new chief john layton, that the department's structure and methods were fine. this is not a real estate problem, witmer responded to congressman adams, it was the streets of d.c. that were the problem. the officer originally brought in to clean up a corrupt narcotics unit in the early 1950s had subsequently gone on to lead the internal investigation unit. widely viewed as beyond reproach, he was a comfortable sense as police chief in the sense that he had not turned the department upside down vetting out corruption either.

when president johnson heard layton was selected to run the mpd just days after the president's election triumph, he was irate, no doubt because he had not been consulted. layton seemed content to run the department just as his predecessor had done, and johnson -- who had some clear ambition to exert more authority over the mpd -- finally resorted to circumventing the new chief. in 1967, johnson appointed walter washington, the last presidential appointment to the d.c. commission and the first one to be designated mayor commissioner. and later under home rule, the city's first elected mayor. upon appointment as mayor commissioner, washington brought in patrick murphy, former chief of police in syracuse, new york, as director of public safety. murphy launched an aggressive recruitment drive to hire blacks to the mpd and worked to implement the various recommendations of johnson's crime commission. in 1968 he orchestrated a leadership change selecting a technocrat with progressive

leanings, jerry wilson, to replace layton as mpd police chief with or without the help of congress, johnson showed real determination in his efforts to professionalize d.c.'s police force. the resulting drive to recruit more blacks to the mpd and, of course, the fact that african-americans comprised more and more of the employment pool for the agency converged to produce a number of tragic episodes that initially only served to emphasize the racism that prefer saided the department. pervaded the d.. a good number of african-americans who joined the mpd before the commission's report either quit the force or retired early as a result of frustrations encountered on the job. one such retired officer, charles dixson, was ordered to move along by two white officers who, when dissatisfied with dixson's respondent, arrested him and beat him. this galvanized blacks on the force. as washington police columnist william raspberry reported in

1966, black officers once shrugged off such abuse, but now that it is happening to other officers, they want action. african-american cops working undercover felt particularly aggrieved. frequently mistaken for fleeing criminals or street cornermen, they worked in grave danger. one was shot and killed by a uniform police officer in 1968. shortly thereafter, the mpd adopted the practice of rotating a universal cap that all undercover cops would wear on the street so as to alert other police to their covert identity. these tragic encounters helped to make manifest the necessity of change in the organization and culture of the mpd. southerners had delayed this transformation, but they could not halt it. bit by bit, activists and courts affected change. in 1968 the d.c. circuit court declared the city's vagrancy violations unconstitutionally vague. hence, arrests under that charge dropped off precipitously, and

by 1972 they were virtually nonexistent according to police reports n. the summer of 1968, the mpd also issued a clarification on its police rules on arrest you should the guy dance of the -- under the guidance of the department of justice. this particular version modified the criteria stating explicitly that the mere refusal to move on at the order of a police officer was not sufficient to constitute a breach of peace. so there would be no confusion, the next year the mpd decided that disorder arrests should be subject to a pretrial hearing, essentially a bureaucratic review, meant to discouraging officers from relying on disorder arrests except in specific instances like a riot. ..

the department of corrections sentenced an average of 50 addicts to jail per year.

this grew at a gradual pace that by 1966 the figure was roughly 150 annually. however as the historian points out by 1969 only three years later the average was 1400. likewise in february, 1969, the addict is comprised 15% of the jail population. by august they were 45% of the same. our guests could be made for distribution but thanks to the congressional federal quote, arrests could also be made against anyone deemed to be in the vicinity were the same as drug activity. by the early 1970's and was clear that the federal drug laws apply this with some of the discussion that had been afforded to them. i had been discarded to the order in the statutes. for the order the transition to the drug enforcement regime was halting. narcotics arrests had been the exclusive province of the narcotics squad through what most of the 1960's they assign

only 21 men to the squad and an impressive force further augmented in 1969 to 31. as a rule patrol officers were expected to refer drug cases to the narcotics squad something they rarely did. over time like other urban police departments, the npt came under pressure to train more of its officers to identify the drugs and make arrests. when the maryland senator open hearings to survey the narcotics problems in 1970, he learned from that district police chief that both patrol units and the narcotics squad increased the number of their arrests, and in addition more and more officers completed training with the bureau of dangerous drugs and the later renamed the enforcement agencies so that they would be better equipped to enforce that the drug walls. washington d.c. joined other big city police chiefs in signing the pact in the 1970 that

formalized the division of labor. the bureau would concentrate on international trafficking and in kirstie violators and any other designated local police force would address the local dealers. another source of pressure to adopt more robust enforcement approach was the important fact that illicit drugs on the streets of a district putting chief wilson noted a proportionate rise in both drug arrests in the 1960's as it increased they stole more to supply their habit. robbery accounted for 3% of all offenders in 1966. 13% and 69 and 25% in 1973. likewise narcotics five leaders constitute 3% in 1956, 6% and 69 and 10% in 1973. the trend was all the more interesting given wilson's own

estimate that heroin use dropped off sharply after 1969 after he himself suggested the a rest for the drug violators reflected upon the police enforcement tactics at least as much as it did upon the incidence of drug use. to be sure the transition to narcotics it unfolded in a turbulent time nevertheless it was clear that where the congress established the principal of severe criminal penalties for the narcotics in the 1950's and was only by the end of the 1960's that local law enforcement stood ready to arrest and enforce the statutes to any appreciable degree and that despite the surge in drug use across the spectrum of users mainly african-americans who've lived in the inner city and consumed heroin supply would be subject to the enforcement. narcotics supply from diversion like our own crisis of look-see code of news or other illicit drug use a good use of

amphetamines presented similar kinds of problems but by and large they were not the subject of the concerted law enforcement. the demographics of the drug market remain diverse but the targets of the counternarcotics effort did not. once established as an acceptable tactic, drug enforcement altered the operations of criminal justice, it overwhelm them. overflowing jail forced the district hand and almost by necessity the city set up one of the first and most successful methods despite good results support for the clinics declined precipitously in the 1970's. in my book i argue that the reason for this is the treatment offered none of the blog utility to the exercise of state power as a punishment. indeed the different components of the modern drug war have resolved certain dye let us whether it be the inner city or justifying the u.s. intervention in the developing world and these everyday tasks sustain the

state project which should otherwise by every reasonable indicator be designed as a failure. with drugs as a prop, d.c. often served as the federal government stage. this pattern should travel every american. i argue in my book that the drug war has been seized upon to advance other agendas with at home and abroad. a propensity to use a drug war as the means to achieve other in this cheats citizens out of an honest tally of modern u.s. power. in this way the district of columbia served not only as the proven ground for much of the drug war that it foreshadowed its governing equation. citizens of the nation's capital watched as congressional advanced punishment for forest upon them without recourse to the ballot box. similarly as a country, the united states now supports the workings of an international drug war, the dimensions of which cannot be fully known only

covered. in some sense when it comes to the drug for all americans live in d.c.. as an author, it was important to need a talk in this library which through its great work helps to tell the story and others. by having this discussion here, i believe we are saying something about who we are coming and for all that has been lost for the sacrifices and the struggles, acknowledged here today and for the great more that went unmentioned but still shape our lives and our world, i want to say that this is still a community that has the compassion, the courage and hunger for justice such that it is able to ask the question who do we want to be. when we clean our right for self-government and voting representation in congress we are simultaneously helping to end the injustice called the drug war. conversely and by the same logic when we insist on methods other than punishment to deal with

substance used in the direction we are reclaiming their rights. dignity and freedom, justice and power, historical redress and future aspirations, advanced together or not at all. i want to thank you for coming this evening. [applause] is their anyone who has any questions? when marion berry was arrested -- put that a little closer to you. >> i think it's for television. i don't think it's for the room. i will repeat the question. >> when marion berry was arrested on a drug charge, what

appeared in the headlines of course is well known and mostly in terms of the reaction to it to senior figures. in your work did you come across any indication of how the rank and file and the police department and the washington bureaucracy felt about the fact that marion berry was arrested and the possibilities of how that came about? >> it was a set up. i think we all know that. [laughter] you know, i did it because the book ends in 1973 but i would recommend to you a documentary on marion berry which runs through several lives if maybe i can call it that. you know, he does appear in my book has the head of washington, d.c. and as one of the most vocal critics of the npt during

a very important time and that is kind of one life that he had. in his first kind of term as mayor in the downtown that we see every day now is a crowded to his leadership and his kind of entrepreneurial spirit and then of course there are the of their lives of marion berry, the ones we hear about all the time and the ones that were used to deride him coming and very often he makes comments himself that i think expos him to that. i got the sense from watching the documentary that rank-and-file people were extremely disappointed and almost heartbroken because this is a man that commanded tremendous respect throughout the city and still does and i still of respect for many of the things he has done. so that was my own sense of someone else's work. i didn't go that late in my own book.

>> what is the time frame that you picked and why you chose and the second question is why you chose the subject in general how did you become exposed to it and go on the path that you did? >> thank you. it's not an obvious choice for a subject for me. i chose it when i was working on my first book, the world war ii bill and i was in the truman archive sterling research and i read an oral history of an important official in the truman administration and in his previous professional life, he had been a lawyer for the industry here in the united states and i was waiting for records and reading his oral history, and he said something which i thought was amazing. he said in the 1930's the united states had the most revered system of narcotics control in the world. and i thought to myself that certainly not the case now.

so that set up the chronology for me. what had happened such that we could go to the league of nations with some swagger and say this is how we do it and now in fact in the u.n. where the object of much weld search qassam how do we go from this system to that is seen worldwide as perpetuating a massive injustice, so that set terms of the chronology for me as well. >> i have a question about your research. how easy was it to do research on this topic? >> of course it was easy. the bureau of narcotics record are not classified for the most part, they are also not available for research so i had

to file a special access request. there is a weird interval of time. the book is not just about d.c. but there's a weird interval long time where the food and drug administration is in charge of abuse at the next that involve amphetamines and barbiturates so i had to file a special access request for those records as well. once i got a hold of the records, it was easier from that point on. they told a real story. you have to go through them that they told the story, and the narration of the drug war throughout this time period to deal with the bureau of narcotics had a lot to do with kind of the international schemes that they had concocted always supporting anti-communist and all these kind of things, so i thought to myself know, the day-to-day administrative work of the bureau of narcotics with

the date on a day-to-day basis and detected illicit narcotics use has a lot more to say why we have a drug war today than any given conspiracy. so i'm just going to go through those kinds of more prosaic records just thinking that would yield more. so once i had their records, i thought the administrative records in particular told a story and was easy from that point on. and i'm joking about some of it a little bit but i did work in the washington room to recover a lot of the policing story because the "washington post" covered it and that columnists who died recently many of you probably know also occasionally covered it, but nothing like the consistency of the washington daily which are no longer in print and i could no longer access up there so that was extremely helpful.

>> when you say washington daily, what did you mean? >> i honestly cannot. it's like "washington post" star. >> the big papers. >> historians like myself loved a particular research tool called historical newspapers on line. we love it and weep for july but a lot of the smaller papers are not on net so i just went through the clippings and found a lot right upstairs in the washington room that i wouldn't find elsewhere unless somebody else happened to have a relevant collection of clippings like that. >> what kind of challenges to the metropolitan police face as there was an effort or movement to professionalize the police

force? >> first of all there was a mass exodus and the suburban police departments picked up a lot of the police force. so a lot of the challenge was faced by the rank and file by just leaving and joining prince george. i know it sounds familiar, joining other surrounding areas. and there was another issue. i didn't mention it in my talk with a was another issue that the crime commission struggled which that had a cap that the officer was leading. you know, it was an extremely tense time. i try to be more nuanced in the book. d.c. police felt that when they entered into the black neighborhoods for the first time to actually offer services and not to pick up a bible or harass somebody or call on somebody that have actually committed a crime against a middle class black person so when they first

entered in these neighborhoods for the first time, they patted themselves on the back as being more progressive than that which had come to a flush them. and you can see where they are coming from where they are offering police services for the first time but at the very same moment they are doing that the beating with such discretionary authority and brutality that they respond in the local community so it really was a disconnect and you almost get this sense throughout the 1960's that you have two groups of people speaking in different language they inhabit the same place they are speaking a different language and the rank-and-file police officers felt what are you complaining about? we are here comparing to what happened before, so it was difficult for them to reconcile the communities conversation with their own perception.

>> i didn't just here history or politics. so what other research do you hope that your book will spur that others what to? >> i hope someone takes an even closer look at the district because i spent time on the district and there's lots of material i didn't even speak about today, but i think that the story merits and even closer inspection. so just for starters within the discipline of history, i hope that people take the district much more seriously. there is already great work. they've written a great book called an example land which is about washington, d.c. during the civil war in the construction years and it isn't commonly known that we have our own radical reconstruction here in washington, d.c. and that radical reconstruction was gradually attacked by other washington, d.c. presidents such

that we kind of presaged the fall of the reconstruction right here in washington, d.c.. that is an example of the kind of book i think people could be writing about almost every decade of district history. district history is relevant for all of us here in the region but for the whole country in terms of how the federal government justifies its power and what kind of innovation it is trying to impose. so i hope people take district history even more seriously and of course there is already great for keeping it in other disciplines, i guess i am hoping that across the broad sweep of disciplines that currently are interested in the drug war max it would be legal, sociological the specially, criminology, helping people come to me, come with me and live in this land of talking about power in the state because i noticed as i talk

about this book and i have interviews about this book people are talking about culture and cultural discourse, and that's all important and all of those things are in my book but first and foremost the drug war is a state project. so i want people to have a dialogue with me and my work and other works similar to it. >> you trace the congress heavily southern influence and policies so that would apply to almost anything depending on the balance of power and what is the agenda because this could be read as discrimination, take when you will to be the point of attack and you could probably trace that trajectory from one specific period of time defending with the problem would be but i was interested to know

what was the balance of power with other representatives in congress and the north? you talked a lot about the southern representatives and their policy and their power. >> we are dealing with an age of democratic power. in a collision in both houses of congress, the southerners sustain an incredible leadership street and the reason they get reelected over and over again said they are able to build their seniority and make a claim. the most serious congressional leaders almost all of them, all of the people who are part of my story are southerners and they are the most powerful men in congress because they are able to accrue such seniority as they are elected what looks like on

paper in landslides but is an artifact of widespread voter suppression in the south, so that's why southerner's appear so consistently in the story. i mentioned him quickly, but senator tidings deserves a much longer discussion than what i gave him today. he is from maryland which some people in maryland will remind you portions are below the line, so he's from maryland, but he's the biggest supporter of the methadone clinics and it's actually an interesting episode where tidings tries to offer the methadone clinics as a counter to the southern in possession of counternarcotics law enforcement and it's kind of a battle between north and south if you will in terms of vision for the district but of course the missing piece matter who it is is the district itself and the

district's own representation and its own voice. >> not sure i can ask this clearly, but you make such a strong point about the district being without self-government at the state level. and so all other major cities where there are big drug problems that have evolved in the same period of time do have state governments, but you're point or the one i'm thinking of is we are the clearest kind of example of the state of the federal power because we don't have the state -- to questions, number one, suppose we get the state government i suppose we

have such a history we've only had self-government since 1974, so we have such a history of devolving in the last 30 years so what if we had state -- if we got self-government what would be different? but then other cities have had the same problem with state government how have they done better? >> let me take the second question first. throughout much of the time period of my book, so up until 1970 when the police chiefs signed the pact with the bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs the bureau of narcotics is the main man on the scene when it comes to narcotics enforcement. various big city departments have narcotics squads and in

some cases they outnumber the bureau of narcotics presence in that city which is true for new york. i can't think of another example but both parties are equally corrupt. so you are dealing with a very weird and warped atmosphere. also important -- that is the enforcement side. also important is the federal government when it wrote its drug regime so whether there was a narcotic act or leader in 1970 in the controlled substances act it would encourage him if not prompt individual states to write their code in conformance pizza that is another way in which federal initiatives and federal desires or insinuated into the various states and locales. let me take the first question now. i think it what it would look like is it the city were trying to build right now we have a city that has legalized medical

marijuana. we legalize it in the late 1990's by an overwhelming majority, but the congress basically for ten years of aid the district of columbia for implementing the vote and only very recently has that been lifted. internally very recently have we developed a framework for medical marijuana dispensaries, and i am on my local dispensaries feed and if that is to be believed then they are going to open within weeks so that is one way in which things are changing and then of course many of you know that council members, the talk about the desire to introduce marijuana. that is what the world would look like.

ic still in my book in the conclusion but i also want to draw attention to other kinds of drug reform because for me the drug war itself has had so much by yes written into it that i would hate for the joy of reform to make it and have a similar sort of class bias written into it so i am trying to talk about and emphasize other things like decriminalization of narcotics, more treatment, less enforcement , other things. we have a radical of the way of dealing with narcotics. we can do it again. we can go back to a regulatory framework. and i hope -- that is the answer to the question. i really do hope that the book just by putting these tools in front of people and seeing how they work and putting them in motion i hope it expands not just the historical imagination but the political imagination for the present day.

that looks like that's it. i want to thank you all again for coming. [applause] interactive book tv guests and viewers, watch videos and get up-to-date information. facebook.com/book tv. >> i don't need to put you on the spot, but representative, what is on your summer reading list? >> welcome i am reading the wonderful book the hopkins touch. about halfway through that now on the legendary aid for fdr and a grinnell graduate. we probably don't have the same politics but i admire the political style and it is a compelling life. probably next for me -- i haven't had a chance to read the book act of congress but the reviews have been pretty compelling. and i think that's great be

interesting case study. when you are reading a book you know all the characters you know some of the legislators it is interesting to get that perspective and some of the staffers. then there is a book that i just ordered on james byrnes who was a legendary south carolina public too chollet john jonathan martin put this on the radar and said you are going to love this book coming and he very nearly was vice president instead of truman and 44 and continued to play an extraordinary role in politics and became one of the architects of nixon's success in the self and 60 and 72 and is actually interestingly enough just popped up working with henry on the 1940 and this book i'm reading on the 1940 nomination of fdr in the third term which was pretty neat political work. so, look i like to read abu