U.S Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) - Essay Example

By the early 1970s, the problems being created by drug use were severe enough to need more attention, time, and labor to try to sort them out. Therefore, President Richard Nixon created the Drug Enforcement Administration in July 1973 by Executive Order so that a solitary united command to fight the drugs war could be established (DEA, 2008). At its origin, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had in total two thousand, seven hundred and seventy five employees, this includes a support staff of one thousand, three hundred and five, and the budget was a mere sixty five million dollars in 1972.

By 1975, there were four thousand and seventy five employees, with two thousand, two hundred and thirty one special agents. They had an annual budget of one hundred and sixteen million dollars. By the turn of the century in 2000, the administration had nine thousand, one hundred and forty one employees, four thousand, five hundred and sixty six were special agents, and they had a budget of 1,586.6 million dollars. However, by 2007, the Drug Enforcement Agency had an amazing ten thousand, seven hundred and fifty nine employees, five thousand, two hundred and thirty five special agents, with an annual budget of 2.

3 million dollars, and have eighty-seven offices in sixty-three countries (DEA, 2008). By 2008 the DEA had eleven thousand employees all together (The Associated Press, 2008). In 2002, more that twenty-six thousand United States citizens died from drug related causes. To put this in perspective, that is seven times larger number of people than those who died in the 9/11 attacks. The money spent on direct drug related costs is enormous, and includes costs for health care and drug treatment programs, costs of services and goods lost to drug related crimes, law enforcement, costs for jails and prisons, and the judicial system costs.

Additionally, there are the indirect costs of drug related use and crime are loss of productivity due to ill health or