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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.