Retired Judge Reveals the Surprising Rationale for America's Extremist Drug Laws
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/retired-judge-reveals-surprising-rationale-americas-extremist-drug-laws
What follows is an excerpt from " Disrobed: An Inside Look at the Life and Work of a Federal Trial Judge" (Thomson Reuters Westlaw 2012), a book where the author tries to explain life on the bench and the unknown parts of our legal system.
The first anti-drug law in our country was a local law in San Francisco passed in 1875. It outlawed the smoking of opium and was directed at the Chinese because opium smoking was a peculiarly Chinese habit. It was believed that Chinese men were luring white women to have sex in opium dens. In 1909 Congress made opium smoking a federal offense by enacting the Anti-Opium Act. It reinforced Chinese racism by carving out an exception for drinking and injecting tinctures of opiates that were popular among whites.
Cocaine regulations also were triggered by racial prejudice. Cocaine use was associated with blacks just as opium use was associated with the Chinese. Newspaper articles bore racially charged headlines linking cocaine with violent, anti-social behavior by blacks. A 1914 New York Times article proclaimed: " Negro Cocaine 'Fiends' Are a New Southern Menace: Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower Class Blacks Because They Have Taken to 'Sniffing.'" A Literary Digest article from the same year claimed that "most of the attacks upon women in the South are the direct result of the cocaine-crazed Negro brain." It comes as no surprise that 1914 was also the year Congress passed the Harrison Tax Act, effectively outlawing opium and cocaine.
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It's a documented well known fact that the USA's war on drugs was started because of racism.
The History channel for starters has been airing a history on drugs for decades and the very first thing the series talks about is how and why each drug became illegal. And it was always to protect white women from nonwhite males. Despite the fact that white men usually have always caused the most harm to white women.
The racism element of our war on drugs is probably the biggest reason why it will take a long time to do the common sense thing with drugs such as marijuana. The second biggest factor is money and its not lack of money for groups trying to legalize it but rather the money that is made on keeping it illegal.
The racism about drugs has changed since the beginning of this war. Just look at cocaine, if you have it as a powder because of the weight you do less time in jail as compared to in a rock form (crack). Crack weighs more so more time in jail. Coke costs more then crack so peeps with more money (generally white) buy coke and nonwhites buy crack. We look down on the crack user but try to help the coke user. We should be helping both equally.
Also pills, we need look no further then the most famous not in jail walking poster boy for hate Rush "my balls are Limper then a neutered dog." His drugs of choice come in a pill bottle and he is a he and is white and has money. So he is not in jail and is out spewing hate. While if he had not been white or not had money his fat ass would have been in prison and have a criminal record making employment difficult as well as obtaining basic needs like food and a place to sleep as most people can't get government help if they have a record that includes a drug charge.
Of course the powers that be would rather the masses think the war on drugs is because drugs are bad and its only for your own good, blah blah more bull shite blah blah. But it is racism that started it. And its racism that helps get it going.
The headwinds on legalization of at least marijuana are from;
Corporations that sell beer. 
I did/could not drink alcohol when high and knew few who did.
Mellowness is not beer's intent or outcome.
On the other hand, the maker's of Screaming Yellow Zonkers should be giving millions to promote the legalization!!!!!!!!!!
