Urban Exacerbation: The Ineffectiveness of Drug Treatment and Law Enforcement in 1970’s Detroit

Abstract

After a brief summary of federal War on Drugs initiatives, this paper will examine drug treatment, specifically methadone clinics, and heroin and crime policing in Detroit in the first half of the 1970’s. Detroit will serve as a case study in what is in fact a greater argument about the inadequacy of drug treatment and aggressive policing in curbing heroin addiction, trafficking, and related crime, in the absence of addressing the larger social problems of which they are symptomatic.