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According to popular mythology, we start with a group of
dedicated scientists who examine various substances in the
laboratory. After running exhaustive experiments, they
issue a recommendation to a legislative body, along the
line of Substance A is not harmful to society, but
Substance B is,
and the appropriate legislation is
enacted so as to remove Substance B from public access.
That's the idea you get from schoolbooks. The truth is that the legislative decision is made more along these lines: Group C (a racial, ethnic, or economic category not in the mainstream) is fond of Substance D, and if we outlaw Substance D, then we diminish Group C's political and economic power.
The latest confirmation of this explanation comes from Human Rights Watch, which last week issued a report which demonstrates that the American War on Drugs is really a war on minority populations. The report focused on African-Americans, but a quick examination of the history of drug laws in this country shows that other minorities also suffer.
We can start with one of the oldest known drugs -- opium. Through the Civil War, it was quite legal for ordinary citizens to possess -- Mary Lee, wife of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, once wrote to her husband that times were so tight in Richmond that they were running out of opium tablets at home and there weren't any to be had in the shops, at any price.
After the war, construction of the Central Pacific began in earnest, working east from California. Labor was in short supply, so the railroad barons imported Chinese workers, who often relaxed after work with a pipe or two of opium.
That was fine, as long as the workers were needed. But after the railroad was completed in 1869, what to do with the surplus labor?
Simple. Denounce their preferred drug as a monstrous and threatening evil, outlaw it, and use the laws to drive the Chinese out of American discourse.
As the noted Western historian Richard Wright points
out, those who attacked drugs ... took a significant
second step. They did not just define and attack
'immorality'; they associated immoral activities with
particular ethnic and racial groups.... attacks on drugs
and prostitution became attacks on Chinese, who were
supposedly drug addicts ... Such efforts were far more
successful at punishing or driving off minority groups than
in eradicating the evils under attack.
Similar analysis applies to other American drug
crusades. The first laws against cocaine were passed
because, as the New York Tribune observed in 1903, the
substance was the cause of horrible crimes committed in
the southern states by colored people.
Colorado was among the first states to outlaw marijuana,
and the law was aimed squarely at Hispanics who might
otherwise be tempted to emulate Pancho Villa's rebellion
against peonage. As one history points out, With the
excuse of marijuana the whites could now use force and
rationalize their violent acts of repression.
That was when America went to war with Germany, and most brewers were of German extraction, and soon the pleasure of a cold beer on a hot day became a violation of the federal constitution.
Most recently, we've seen the tobacco settlement.
Smokers tend to be poorer and less educated than
non-smokers, so we see class warfare in action before our
very eyes. Elevate tobacco prices so that the state takes
money from lower-class addicts (like me) and uses it for
subsidizing other groups who enjoy more political and
economic clout.
We haven't quite gotten around to putting smokers in prison yet, but that's because the politicians want the money so they can reward their cronies and contributors from the public till.
No matter how you slice our drug laws, you don't find
science. You find politics at its worst -- the exercise of
power by one group to inflict harm on another group.
That's bad enough, but then come the lies about how it's
based on science,
as well as the continued assault
on the Bill of Rights.
You'd think that some day people would figure out that
some botanic and chemical substances may be bad -- but the
cure
that our political system produces is much
worse.
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