Myth About Cartels

and drugs were banned long before "black musicians" used them...........

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2008/07/25/two-takes-drugs-are-a-major-social-problem-we-cannot-legalize-them

Thanks for the source from a Clinton appointee that simply reinforces what millions of us already know: that Billary is part of the problem, not the solution. Experiences around the world prove the article's author entirely wrong.

As to your claim that "drugs were banned long before black musicians used them", I believe historical references prove otherwise.

From Wikipedia:

History of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act - the first comprehensive U.S. federal law banning popular intoxicating substances based not on medical arguments but on racist fears.

In 1900, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an editorial stating, "Negroes in the South are reported as being addicted to a new form of vice – that of 'cocaine sniffing' or the 'coke habit.'" Some newspapers later claimed cocaine use caused blacks to rape white women and was improving their pistol marksmanship. Chinese immigrants were blamed for importing the opium-smoking habit to the U.S. The 1903 blue-ribbon citizens' panel, the Committee on the Acquirement of the Drug Habit, concluded, "If the Chinaman cannot get along without his dope we can get along without him."

Theodore Roosevelt appointed Dr. Hamilton Wright as the first Opium Commissioner of the United States in 1908. In 1909, Wright attended the International Opium Commission in Shanghai as the American delegates. He was accompanied by Charles Henry Brent, the Episcopal Bishop. On March 12, 1911, Dr. Wright was quoted in as follows in an article in the New York Times: "Of all the nations of the world, the United States consumes most habit-forming drugs per capita. Opium, the most pernicious drug known to humanity, is surrounded, in this country, with far fewer safeguards than any other nation in Europe fences it with."[8] Wright further claimed that "it has been authoritatively stated that cocaine is often the direct incentive to the crime of rape by the negroes of the South and other sections of the country," though he failed to mention specifically which authorities had stated that, and did not provide any evidence for his claim.[9] Wright also stated that "one of the most unfortunate phases of smoking opium in this country is the large number of women who have become involved and were living as common-law wives or cohabitating with Chinese in the Chinatowns of our various cities".

Opium usage had begun to decline by 1914 after rising dramatically in the post Civil War Era, peaking at around one-half million pounds per year in 1896.[12] Demand gradually declined thereafter in response to mounting public concern, local and state regulations, and the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, which required labeling of patent medicines that contained opiates, cocaine, alcohol, cannabis and other intoxicants.[13] As of 1911, an estimated one U.S. citizen in 400 (0.25%) was addicted to some form of opium.[8] The opium addicts were mostly women who were prescribed and dispensed legal opiates by physicians and pharmacist for “female problems” (probably pain at menstruation) or white men and Chinese at the Opium dens. Between two-thirds and three-quarters of these addicts were women.[14] By 1914, forty-six states had regulations on cocaine and twenty-nine states had laws against opium, morphine, and heroin.

Several authors have argued that the debate was merely to regulate trade and collect a tax. However, the committee report[17] prior to the debate on the house floor and the debate itself, discussed the rise of opiate use in the United States. Harrison stated that "The purpose of this Bill can hardly be said to raise revenue, because it prohibits the importation of something upon which we have hitherto collected revenue." Later Harrison stated, "We are not attempting to collect revenue, but regulate commerce." House representative Thomas Sisson stated, "The purpose of this bill—and we are all in sympathy with it—is to prevent the use of opium in the United States, destructive as it is to human happiness and human life."

The drafters played on fears of “drug-crazed, sex-mad negroes” and made references to Negroes under the influence of drugs murdering whites, degenerate Mexicans smoking marijuana, and “Chinamen” seducing white women with drugs.[19][20] Dr. Hamilton Wright, testified at a hearing for the Harrison Act. Wright alleged that drugs made blacks uncontrollable, gave them superhuman powers and caused them to rebel against white authority. Dr. Christopher Koch of the State Pharmacy Board of Pennsylvania testified that "Most of the attacks upon the white women of the South are the direct result of a cocaine-crazed Negro brain".

Before the Act was passed, on February 8, 1914, The New York Times published an article entitled "Negro Cocaine 'Fiends' Are New Southern Menace: Murder and Insanity Increasing Among Lower-Class Blacks" by Edward Huntington Williams, which reported that Southern sheriffs had increased the caliber of their weapons from .32 to .38 to bring down Negroes under the effect of cocaine.

Despite the extreme racialization of the issue that took place in the buildup to the Act's passage, the contemporary research on the subject indicated that black Americans were in fact using cocaine and opium at much lower rates than white Americans.

I stand by my previous comments.