RACE HAS ALWAYS BEEN A PART OF DRUG WAR

While I wholeheartedly agree with Robert Sharpe's point of view in "U.S.
drug war has become a race war" (CHN, Dec. 2), I need to point out that the
drug war has always been a race war, and furthermore, that this is the
original reason these drug laws were enacted.

Opium, originally pushed on the Chinese by the British, became illegal in
the United States as a way to "control" the Chinese population. Cocaine
legislation came about only after Hearst's yellow journals said that it
caused "Negroes" to rape white women. Eventually, he expanded this to
include marijuana. Harry Anslinger, in lobbying for the passage of the
Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, told Congress that most marijuana smokers were
"Negroes and Mexicans, and entertainers."

Consider that it took a Constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol, the
drug of choice for the descendents of white Europeans, whereas drug war
prohibition laws aimed against minority groups completely circumvented this
process. That, above all, should show that we follow two completely
different sets of standards, each based on the presumed race of the ingestors.

Ray Carlson

Redwood City, Calif.