Historical Timeline Paper: Prior To The 1906 Enactment Of The Act

Historical Timeline Paper
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The Pure Food and Drug Act (PFDA) was initiated in the 20th century as a consumer protection law by the Congress. The Act as passed by the Senate and the House focused on eliminating the mislabeled drug products and food. In drug labels, the Act recognized the potentially addictive and harmful substances such as opium, alcohol, cannabis, morphine among others. The Act was specifically for drugs and foods within interstate and foreign commerce with strict misbranding or adulteration penalties. The Chemistry Bureau was mandated to inspect products with clearly labeled ingredients on product packaging. Initially, the emphasis was on drugs with poor recognition of food safety. Hence, the initiation and implementation of a food and drug act.
Prior to the 1906 enactment of the Act, drugs in U.S were patented with high secrecy to ingredients used in making the medicines. The exposure by the Muckrake journalists on the patent medicines dealings led the government to interdict the manufacturing, transportation, and sale of poisonous drugs. The patented industries were found to use high alcoholic content substances and opium in syrups without proper documentation thus, posing a risk to the users CITATION FDA15 \l 1033 (FDA, 2015). The PFDA paved way for consecutive legislative regulations such as the Food and Drug Administrative (FDA), Federal Meat Inspection Act and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).
The existence of many legislative acts in an attempt to curb the drug menace is an indicator of how prevalent drug abuse has taken root in our society. NIDA employed both supply and demand reduction mechanism that focused on law enforcement and prevention. NIDA arose from a collaboration between the Division of Narcotic Abuse and Drug Addiction (DNADA) and (SAODAP) the Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention in the White House. This exhibits the historical existence of drug abuse and the presence of a legislative response to that societal evil CITATION Rob09 \l 1033 (DuPont, 2009). Several factors such as supply, poverty, addiction hence high demand amongst others catalyze the ineffectiveness of the legislative attempts to wipe off illicit drugs. Nonetheless, the legality of drug usage has led to advanced societal effects through instrumental use. Drug-taking has become a means to an end factor in communities with well-formulated justification. However, this has resulted in addiction and harmful body effects as the user become dependent on the substances. For instance, farmers in Myanmar have long grown opium poppy plant both for medicinal and income generating purposes. Growing up in such a society, abusing the readily availab...