h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"let's drink to excess."

"Might as well. I've drunk to everything else."

thanks - yes, I'm aware of the reasons for the Opium wars in the wider context of relations with China back then.

The racial element of drug prohibition is really interesting, a path I'm dithering about going down for the purposes of my essay. It will be that or terrorism but not both.

Racial elements in anti-drug propaganda historically have been generally ill-founded and made with defamatory intent.

A fundamental of prejudice building, its the most ill behaved of any population or community that tends to make its reputation to the larger world.

That obtains with drug users as much as with anyone else.

Complicating the question with superficial associations of race is misleading.

When I get home I'll find the ref to one of Nixon's aides who categorically stated that it was definitely, at least in part, racially motivated.

Drug prohibition laws well predate Nixon. But Nixon declared the "war on drugs" and instituted the Drug Enforcement Agency, which currently has a $2 billion budget. (I'm surprised it's that low.)



A nasty side effect of this war on drugs is civil forfeiture laws. These were expanded during the Reagan era. These laws allow law enforcement agencies to seize money and property they merely suspect are involved in criminal activity, most commonly, drug transportation or sales. They do not need to charge anyone with a crime. The property is assumed guilty until proven innocent. The federal government allows the local agency to keep a portion of the seizure to spend pretty much as they wish. There have been strong accusations of racial profiling involved with these property seizures.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken

http://youtu.be/3kEpZWGgJks

I just started reading a sociology textbook (light reading of an evening) and one of the topics was about Mephedrone that was legal (or rather, not illegal) and was then made illegal relatively recently. Is that something you have come across in your reading?

I've been concentrating on the international aspect of the war against drugs (cooperation or going it alone) rather than the actual illegality of drugs.

Ah, I see. I wondered if the topic might give you insight into your question about why drugs are illegal or not, but admittedly the paper I read is UK-centric and didn't indicate how well known the drug is around the world.