History
In 1953, the Oklahoma Legislature created the agency specifically to enforce drug laws. Designated the Division of Narcotics Enforcement, the agency operated under the Attorney General of Oklahoma for the next decade. Then in 1964, the Division of Narcotics Enforcement became a casualty of political conflict between the Attorney General and the Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives. The Division was abolished and created under the name of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. This new Bureau was placed under the direct command of the Governor of Oklahoma. This new arrangement would last for four years.
Beginning in the late 1960s, narcotics operations and drug-related crimes accelerated at a frightening pace. Despite a merger into the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) in 1968, only one full-time narcotics agent was employed by the state. Recognizing this problem, the Legislature granted OSBI funds to establish a full-time narcotics unit, but by the early 1970s. the unit had been proven a failure. In response, the Legislature passed the Uniform Control Dangerous Substances Act of 1971. The Act established the Commissioner of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control under the direction of the Attorney General. The Commissioner was responsible for the state's general interest in controlled drugs but actual enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act was left to the OSBI.
It soon became apparent that this arrangement failed to actively respond to controlling the surging drug trade. Therefore, in 1975, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics was reconstituted, this time more adequately staffed and equipped, and given the necessary autonomy to operate as an effective weapon in the war on drugs. The Bureau has original jurisdiction statewide on all violations of the Uniform Control Dangerous Substances Act.
Read more about this topic: Oklahoma Bureau Of Narcotics And Dangerous Drugs Control
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The steps toward the emancipation of women are first intellectual, then industrial, lastly legal and political. Great strides in the first two of these stages already have been made of millions of women who do not yet perceive that it is surely carrying them towards the last.”
—Ellen Battelle Dietrick, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.... It is not “history” which uses men as a means of achieving—as if it were an individual person—its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)