As early as 1920, Levi Nutt, national director of the Narcotics Division, noted that the drug "traffic is worse in this district than elsewhere in the country." Eighty years later there is still no light at the end of the tunnel. Arizona today has a dubious rating as one of the premier drug corridors for the rest of the nation, despite the earnest and hard-fought efforts of a nexus of local, state, and federal drug enforcement officials.

My research into Arizona’s early relationship to drugs started with this question: how did the drug war in Arizona evolve? Who fought against drugs and how? Beyond the moral issues of drug use, what were the consequences of the application of punitive measures in Arizona?

"Offenses Against Good Morals": Arizona’s first state drug laws (1913) made the operation, sale, or use of opium and cocaine a misdemeanor crime. Without state law enforcement in place, this law was very rarely applied.

Harrison Narcotic Act (1914): the Federal Government passed the Harrison Act that effectively made opium (along with its derivatives) and cocaine illegal. From 1915 until 1931, federal agents and local police arrested drug violators in Arizona under federal laws. By 1922, Congress extended the maximum prison sentence to ten years.

Marijuana: Arizona had no state laws against marijuana until 1931. Some cities and towns, Phoenix, Mesa, Yuma, had local marijuana ordinances while Tucson did not.

Thus, from 1912 to 1931, drug violators in Arizona were prosecuted under federal laws (cocaine, morphine, and opium) or local ordinances (marijuana)

By 1931, Arizona passed a uniform statewide narcotic law, which extended state drug laws to include marijuana.

(Phoenix Ordinances 99, 187):

Running an opium den or possessing opium

(Misdemeanor) $100

Marijuana cultivation, possession, selling

 $300

Local or state ordinances

Ten days to six months

Federal offenses

One to ten years

Violators of local ordinances

City or County Jail

Violators of Federal Laws

McNeil Federal Penitentiary,

McNeil Island, Washington

County Jails

Narcotics Agents: assigned throughout state,

U.S. Customs: handled border crossing smugglers

Border Patrol: assisted Customs

FBI: investigated connection between drug smugglers and corruption.

Sheriffs: alerted federal narcotics agents and made arrests

City Police: mostly enforced local drug ordinances and raided drug dens

By the early 1920s in Arizona, federal narcotics agents began to use undercover informants to entrap street dealers and addicts.

Federal narcotics agents sent paid informants, described as people of "bad moral character and …drug addict[s]," to make $2.00 purchases of drugs, usually morphine. Informant B.F. Gibbs, in 1927 and 1931, participated in several statewide busts.

Federal prosecutors, in at least a few cases, presented the testimony from witnesses who were part of an illicit drug economy. One such successful case, Ike Jacks, a federal witness in an opium possession case, explained his ability to spot the drug. He testified "I am an opium cook. Get it ready for [the] smoker."