Counter-Narcotics Enforcement Act

The Counter-Narcotics Enforcement Act of 1982, also referred to as CNEA, was a high-profile and controversial War on Drugs and drug control bill that passed the Imperial Senate in October 1982 with President Julian Settas's backing which introduced stiffer minimum mandatory sentences, including the death penalty, and so-called "three-strikes laws" (named after an euphemism from Emmerian baseball).

The Act was widely viewed as supplementing the earlier anti-drug controls bill the Intoxicant Control Act of 1966, which introduced uniform and standardized prohibitions, controls, and offenses on categories of intoxicants and drugs.

Background

Main article: Watermelon era

Enforcement of anti-drug controls imposed in the mid-1960s slacked in the early 1970s under Presidents Vern Callan and Berel Levine, who created a sociopolitical climate that encouraged free lifestyle choices, including limited experimentation with intoxicants considered "less harmful" than harder drugs or alcohol. In reaction to this, the Settas Revolution was swept into power with the election of Julian Settas as President and a new Conservative-dominated Senate in 1980. After spending most of 1981 and 1982 pushing fiscal reforms such as the 1981 income tax cuts, in late 1982 domestic policy advisors and socially conservative political and religious groups encouraged Settas to strengthen Imperial criminal statutes in the War on Drugs.

Legislation

Lobbying and campaign

In late July 1982, Concerned Mothers Against Illegal Drugs organized a peaceful march in Provisa that was planned for 1,000 protestors but grew by the date of the march to over 90,000. In mid-August, the Imperial Police For Drug Controls organized a mass meeting of senior police officials from across the Empire to the Capitol Building, inundating Senators' offices with group meetings encouraging new standards and tougher laws to fight the drug trade. This was followed up by an ad campaign in the Provisa Times urging action by the Rabbinical Council of Belhavia, a powerful Orthodox Jewish interest group.

A sympathetic bipartisan contingent of law-and-order senators in the Senate Domestic and Urban Affairs Committee, led by Liberal Democrat-turned-Conservative Senator Benjamin Goldwater, posted a draft bill in the committee. After several weeks of anti-drug advocates testifying and law-and-order scholars supporting the bill, it was marked up and passed the committee on a close 5-4 vote where law-and-order Tories and conservative Lib Dems voted as a bloc to overcome pro-drug Lib Dems and a liberal Tory ally.

In early October, it was scheduled for a floor vote. However, the bill picked up increasing opposition from opponents of stiffer criminal laws and anti-drug operations. Most Lib Dems declared their opposition, along with all 4 Libertarians, and a handful of liberal Tories. Anti-Drug War groups such as Belhavians For Drug Choice and Students Opposed To Drug Controls protested in their own counter-marches. A pro-bill march by the Rodarion-based Union for a Just Society organized a famous "pray-in", where they invoked "G-d's fury to save this land from the blight of evil narcotics twisting the minds of the youth."

The bill progressively became a party-line issue, and the opposition Lib Dems had enough defectors to cause there doubt in the final vote. Pro-law-and-order groups and President Julias Settas worked the phones trying to sway swing votes or persuade back party defectors as the bill's opponents grew increasingly confident of victory. On a floor vote on October 6th, 1982, the measure failed 37-33, with 24 Lib Dems, 4 Libertarians, and 9 Tories voting against compared to 31 Tories and 2 Lib Dems in favor.

Bill passage

With the bill's defeat, it looked to stay dead. However, two Lib Dem swing votes that swung "no" expressed a willingness to switch if Settas agreed to several minor policy changes that favored their constituents and donors on unrelated issues. The Senate Major Leader called a second floor vote the next day. The bill's opponents were furious, and attempted to find out who the defectors were.

That morning, the defectors showed up, protected by walking with a contingent of Tory senators as obscenities and crude gestures were cast towards them, necessitating the Senate sergeant-at-arms to call for order.

The Act narrowly passed, by a 36-35 margin with Vice-President stepping in to cast the tie vote.

Overview of provisions

• Controlled substance analogs were criminalized.
• Minimum mandatory sentences were introduced for the use, possession, trafficking, or other related actions regarding illegal or restricted drugs under the ICA's Schedules.
• Mandatory death penalty imposed for possession or trafficking of set high amounts of controlled hard drugs.

Aftermath

CNEA escalated the Alsvintermark Drug War, with the black market striking back at Imperial law enforcement in more violent and bloody confrontations. This sparked the so-called "Urban Enclave Crisis", in which violent crime and homicides skyrocketed in a select group of northern Belhavian cities in relation to drug crimes between late 1982 and 1987, when the cities became largely pacified of black market drug cartels until the 1990s.

See also

• Alsvintermark Drug War
• Urban Enclave Crisis