DEA History 1980-1985

During the early 1980s, international drug trafficking organizations reorganized and began operating on an unprecedented scale. The rise of the Medellin cartel, the influx of cocaine into the United States, and the violence associated with drug trafficking and drug use complicated the task of law enforcement at all levels. Violent crime rates rose dramatically during this period and continued to rise until the early 1990s. The “normalization” of drug use during the previous two decades continued as the U.S. population rediscovered cocaine. Many saw cocaine as a benign, recreational drug. In 1981, Time magazine ran a cover story entitled, “High on Cocaine” with cover art of an elegant martini glass filled with cocaine. The article reported that cocaine’s use was spreading quickly into America’s middle class: “Today...coke is the drug of choice for perhaps millions of solid, conventional and often upwardly mobile citizens.” Drug abuse among U.S. citizens in the early 1980s remained at dangerously high levels.

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http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/history/1980-1985.pdf