Time to Abolish the DEA: Evaluating the Agency’s Failures and Calling for Community Investments

The Fordham Law Review originally published this piece in October 2024.

For centuries, humans have used plants and other substances to alter one’s consciousness for spiritual or pleasurable purposes.

Today, humans derive most illicit drugs from plants. But who decides when a plant transforms to a drug?

The entity with the authority to determine when a substance or plant becomes an illicit drug has varied historically.

Drug criminalization, with  roots in the early 1900s, is a relatively new phenomenon in the eyes of history. CONTINUE

a red booklet of Ifetayo Harvey’s essay, It’s Time to Abolish the DEA