February 11, 2009
War On Drugs Department
100 Years of FAIL
The War On Drugs, at least as the federal level, arguable started 100 years ago this week:
On February 9, 1909, Congress passed the Opium Exclusion Act, barring the importation of opium for smoking as of April 1. Thus began a hundred-year crusade that has unleashed unprecedented crime, violence and corruption around the world--a war with no victory in sight.
Long accustomed to federal drug control, most Americans are unaware that there was once a time when people were free to buy any drug, including opium, cocaine, and cannabis, at the pharmacy. In that bygone era, drug-related crime and violence were largely unknown, and drug use was not a major public concern.
The Opium Exclusion Act applied only to the opium processed for smoking that was favored by Chinese immigrants--not the medicinal opium that white Americans commonly kept in their household medicine cabinets.
Read the whole thing.
(Hat tip: Radley Balko)
.
Leave a comment