 In the beginning
A preamble:
For anything to be judged we must look at past performance.
In the 16th century Egypt banned coffee, its use increased.
In the 17th century the Tsar gave Russian citizens who used tobacco the death penalty, tobacco use increase.
China in 1792 also imposed the death penalty for the keepers if Opium, opium use increase.
In America imposed a tax on whiskey distillation protests and armed rebellion ensued. The tax was repealed in 1803.
American efforts against Opium use from 1875-1914 was followed by a seven fold increase in opium consumption(1 ).
An early attempt to regulate drug use by western powers came in 1782. A regional British commander in Burma implemented a multitude of narcotics laws and regulations prohibiting the Burmese from producing, selling, and consuming alcoholic drinks, opium, and other intoxicants. These policies were not effective. In fact Opium addiction increased. The British soon abandoned this prohibition for the same local governments did. Although drug consumption was discovered to produce highly undesirable social outcomes, prohibition appeared to have little impact on demand (2 ).
The early American government did very little to regulate drugs.
America's first drug law was in San Francisco, it prohibited whites from going into Opium dens. This law was enacted in the 1870's(3 ).
Then in 1906 the government passed, the Pure Food and Drug Act, this required all manufacturers to accurately list all ingredients and give the proportions of opiates, alcohol, cocaine, and other habit-forming drugs in their products(4 ).
A 1908 paper bemoaned a perceived problem with blacks and cocaine. It said, it was making them do crazy stuff, this "example" is from Virginia, "For instance, a few days ago in Richmond, a wild cocaine crazed negro imagined the police were after him and he shot eight Men and women on the streets before he could be caught." (5 ).
As you will read here this wasn't last media account with questionable integrity. I will cite more later on, still I could never cite them all.
In 1909 an "opium expert", Dr. Hamilton Wright, from the US Department of State drafted federal legislation to strengthen regulations on the trafficking of drugs in the US and importation of drugs into the United States (6 ).
In the US an act to ban smoking Opium was passed and enacted in 1909(7 ).
In 1910 Dr Wright was leading the US charge towards worldwide prohibition. At an international conference he called for the prohibition of opium (8 ).
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