Anslinger took charge of the Bureau of Narcotics in September 1930, at the age of thirty-eight. He was given a broad international mandate to pursue, at their sources, the drug smuggling rings that had proliferated in the 1920s. He was also told to work with state and local narcotic bureaus to disrupt interstate trafficking and eliminate corruption. As the record shows, Anslinger performed his job with flair. For thirty-two years, until his retirement in 1962, his personality, policies, and appointments defined both the Narcotics Bureau and the nation’s war on drugs.
