History of Legal and Illegal Drugs from 1955 to 1965 A.D.

About the history of legal and illegal drugs from 1955 to 1965 A.D. in particular Government Acts, wine in Italy, Tobacco sales and government, start of Weight Watchers.

1956 The [U.S.] Narcotic Drug Control Act is enacted; it provides the death penalty, if recommended by the jury, for the sale of heroin to a person under 18 by one over 18.

1958 Ten percent of the arable land in Italy is under viticulture; 2 million people earn their living wholly or partly from the production or sale of wine.

1961 The UN's "Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 10 March 1961" is ratified. Among the obligations of the signatory states are the following: "Art. 42. Known users of drugs and persons charged with an offense under this Law may be committed by examining magistrate to a nursing home. . . . Rules shall be also laid down for the treatment in such nursing homes of unconvicted drug addicts and dangerous alcoholics."

1962 Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas declares: "The addict is under compulsion not capable of management without outside help. . . . If addicts can be punished for their addiction, then the insane can also be punished for their insanity. Each has a disease and each must be treated as a sick person."

1963 Mrs. Jean Nidetch, a formerly overweight housewife, incorporates Weight Watchers, an organization of diet clubs. By 1968, approximately 750,000 persons join Weight Watchers.

1963 Tobacco sales total $8.08 billion, of which $3.3 billion go to Federal, State, and local governments in excise taxes. A news release from the tobacco industry proudly states: "Tobacco products pass across sales counters more frequently than anything else--except money."

1964 The British Medical Association, in a Memorandum of Evidence to the Standing Medical Advisory Committee's Special Subcommittee on Alcoholism, declares: "We feel that in some very bad cases, compulsory detention in hospital offers the only hope of successful treatment. . . . We believe that some alcoholics would welcome compulsory removal and detention in hospital until treatment is completed."

1964 An editorial in The New York Times calls attention to the fact that "the Government continues to be the tobacco industry's biggest booster. The Dept. of Agriculture lost $16 million in supporting the price of tobacco in the last fiscal year, and stands to lose even more because it has just raised the subsidy that tobacco growers will get on their 1964 crop. At the same time, the Food for Peace program is getting rid of surplus stocks of tobacco abroad."

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