Over the past two decades, we have waged war on drugs. Yet it is not likely to be news to any reader of this Symposium on race and criminal justice that the primary casualties of that war have been African Americans and other individuals of color. The debate over the racial complexion of the war against drugs often devolves into a clash of fundamental assumptions that are difficult to either validate or refute. Do we wage the war against drugs in African-American communities because "that is where the drugs are?" Or do we find most illegal drug users and sellers in African-American communities because that is where we spend most of our time looking? Do we punish the sale of crack cocaine so severely because of the effects of the drug or because of the race of those using it most openly? (Adler, Susan (2004))
Marijuana, morphine, and cocaine came into widespread use in the United States during the nineteenth century. Opium consumption in the United States was proportionately higher than in Russia and the major countries of Western Europe. The principal cause of opiate addiction was the prescription by doctors of narcotics in a process known as iatrogenic addiction. Although opium and morphine were used by doctors to treat everything from violent hiccups to masturbation, addiction was most common in those suffering from chronic conditions such as neuralgia, chronic respiratory disorders such as asthma and bronchitis, infectious diseases, rheumatism, chronic diarrhea and various postoperative syndromes.( Adler, Susan (2004))
Because this had no discernible, lasting success, a second initiative aimed to improve the efficiency of border interdiction of drug shipments that had escaped control at the source. There, too, success was elusive....................
