DRUG LAWS SHOW RACIST INTENT

Letter writer Eric Chrestensen's suggestion that we round up people of
colour under the guise of enforcing drug laws is not new. In fact, it is
the reason drug laws were enacted in the first place. Opium was used by the
Chinese, cocaine by blacks, and marijuana by Mexicans and those evil black
jazz musicians.

But alcohol was used by white European descendants, and considered a
sacrament in the Catholic Church. Even during alcohol prohibition, wine was
never banned from Communion.

That it took a constitutional amendment to prohibit alcohol in the U.S.,
whereas drug prohibition could be enacted through a mere executive
loophole, shows the racist nature of drug laws.

Ray Carlson, Redwood City, Calif.