Opium Dens

In order to understand this complicated web of drug policy in America, there must be quite a bit of backstory provided. This can be traced as far back as 3,400 BC with the usage of opiates in China. Fast forward a couple thousand years to the 1820s in America, and we can see that opiates came along with the migration of Chinese men. These men were coming for better opportunities, work, and freedom. By 1898, opium usage had become an integral part of society wherein people smoked opium in opium dens. White men were not allowed to the Chinese opium dens and vice versa. Then came along the development of heroin, to help curb morphine addiction, synthesized from the opium poppy, by Bayer. This plan backfired and had extensive unfavorable consequences.

This contributed toward the fear campaign being run, instilling that Chinese men were not only stealing their jobs, but their women as well. This contributed toward the oppression of Chinese immigrants which ultimately led to the Harrison Tax Act of 1914 that provided a dramatic resolution to the campaign by outlawing opium nationwide. This was a direct attack aimed at the ‘crippling’ of the Chinese community to satisfy the feelings of the powerful white population within America. This feeling cannot be backed by facts, as they were false rumors spread that induced callous stereotypes striving to prevent Chinese immigrants from becoming productive citizens in society. This first Act sets the tone of how the American government would deal with drugs and enforcing policies around them. As smoking opium was now a criminal offense, people searched for other uses of the opium poppy, this came in the form of Heroin. Heroin was supposed to be an alternative to morphine for the purpose of numbing people for surgical prep and help with post surgery pain. The seemingly golden fact about heroin is that morphine addicts could use it. Instead of becoming a productive pharmaceutical medicine,

This was a movement meant to lead to a large decline in drug consumption, usage, and distribution among Americans. Thus, effectively driving the crime rate down and promoting a more productive, clean society. Evidently, this “war on drugs” has produced no real results, and has resulted in a boom in the incarceration rates of minorities while the problem becomes ostensibly worse. The war on drugs has no notable positive consequences because they are trying to play whack a mole with 20,000 moles and 1 hammer. When put into that perspective it seems almost foolish to try and solve the issue in that manner yet they keep trying. The war on drugs, within American borders, started with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. This act was meant to reign in drugs because of the heavy abuse during the sixties and to prevent excessive consumption of drugs/controlled substances. The reason this came about was because of the exporting of cocaine to American soil. When cocaine was introduced to America, by Pablo Escobar, no one imagined it would become as big of an operation as it was. He was able to accrue billions of dollars of wealth efficiently siphoning a tremendous amount of money from American society. Nixon decided that he must take action in response to what was occurring. Thus, he passed the act in 1970, and created the DEA in 1973. This marks a huge turning point in how America dealt with illegal