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Drug abuse has been an ongoing problem that has plagued America. The ramped use of illegal drugs impacts our society in many ways. Drug abuse attributes to increases in violent crime, poverty, domestic violence, HIV, school drop out rate, homelessness, teen pregnancy, and increasing health costs due to health related problems. Since the beginning of the 19th century America has had a problem with drug abuse. During this time, morphine, cocaine, and heroin, were commonly used like aspirin is today. By the time the twentieth century cam along our nation was dealing with its first problem of increasing drug use. The use of opium became ramped in the United States as well. Eventually the government began to recognize the problem and put laws in place to regulate drug use (Carroll, 2002). By the time of World War II was in existence, drug abuse had basically come to a halt, and was not an issue as it was previously. That all changed with the onset of the 1960's. Marijuana and psychedelics were popular in the 1960's and was more widely accepted. Because of this newly, wide spread use, the government began to create federal agencies to aggressively enforce the federal laws that were in existence. These laws were put in place to regulate illegal drug use. Soon after the 1970's were here and so was cocaine. During the 1970's cocaine use was considered the drug of choice, it also brought along with it a new surge of violent crimes and increased addiction. There are many different factors in our society that have contributed to the support of drug abuse and drug use. One such reason is the need to satisfy our want of mental stimulation audio/ visually. People are surrounded, by items meant to grasp, or stimulate their attention.
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