History Of The American Drug War

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opiates or
cocaine. The law contains a provision that nothing in the law would
prohibit doctors from prescribing these drugs in the legitimate
practice of medicine. The people who wrote the Harrison Act and
Marijuana Tax Act in 1937, agreed that a prohibition on what people
could put into their bodies was an unconstitutional infringement on
personal liberties.


Marijuana was outlawed in 1937. The reason for it being
outlawed was that the plant had a violent effect on the degenerate
races. The American Medical Association testified that they were
opposed to the law. The law would never have passed without the
endorsement from the AMA, but when the supporters of the law were
asked about the AMA's view on the floor of congress, they had stated
that the AMA was all for it. When the law had passed, the AMA ...

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population had been relatively stable from about 1926 to about 1970.
From that point, Nixon's war against drugs, then the Reagan and Bush
war against drugs, caused a dramatic increase in the number of
prisoners. The estimated 30 - 40 million people who have used an
illegal drug in the past year, would fill a prison holding the
populations of California, Arizona and New Mexico altogether. The cost
of holding a single one of these persons would be about $450,000. The
cost for the arrest and the conviction is about $150,000. The cost for
an additional bed would be anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000, ...

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