this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
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Most of the drug laws are due to back door racism, at least here in the US. They couldn't make laws that directly targeted minorities and so they made laws that targeted things that were part of the targeted minorities culture. Opium and heroin laws seemed to target Asians and the weed laws seemed more to target "beatniks" and Native Americans. It's an interesting (if depressing) research topic of you've a mind.
Chasing the Scream by Johann Hari gives a good run down of the history of the drug war and how/why it came to be. Shocking and depressing.
Also the Behind the Bastards podcast episode on the US Crack Cocaine Epidemic is a good look at that end of things.
I cant find it now, but there's a great quote from someone in Nixon's FDA that basically amounts to "We were lying about the drugs to target the minorities. We knew we were lying.", some real Legion of Doom shit.