The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) was established in 1989 by the Anti-Drug Abuse act of 1988. This was also right in the middle of the War on Drugs. It's purpose was to create policies and goals to stop the use, distribution and trafficking of narcotics and improve on eliminating health related issues due to narcotics. The ONDCP is the main operation that helps the elimination of any narcotic that has and will try to get legal or re-legalized.

It is a commonly known around the world, that in Amsterdam you can just enter a coffee and buy drugs, mainly Marijuana; even more. You will be handed a menu with "catches" of the day, and there might even be a "soup of the day" on the menu. For four joints you will pay the same amount as for twenty cigarettes (A pack). You will not be arrested, because it's all legal. Soft drugs as cannabis in all its forms (marijuana, hashish, hash oil) and hallucinogenic mushrooms (so called magic mushrooms or paddos – from Dutch: paddestoel - mushroom) are legal under condition of so called “personal use”. As a result smoking of cannabis even in public, is not prosecuted as well as selling it although technically illegal under still valid Opium Act (dating from 1919, cannabis added as drug in 1950), is widely tolerated provided that it happens in a limited, controlled way.