Since drugs were used for recreation and rebellion, it could not be easily acquired through pharmacies where it needed to be prescribed, so many immigrants found a perfect loophole to provide these drugs from their home countries and sell it at a higher price in the United States. Since many people, especially teens, wanted these drugs, it became a marketing strategy to provide these drugs. Moreover, the laws weren’t severe about the utility of drug use. This marketing strategy was put to an end when in June 1971, President Nixon declared the war on drugs and significantly increased the laws set to regulate drug use. The first anti-opium laws in the 1870s were directed at Chinese immigrants. The first anti-cocaine laws, in the South in the early 1900s, were directed at Black men. The first anti-marijuana laws, in the Midwest and the Southwest in the 1910s and 20s, were directed at Mexican migrants and Mexican Americans (drugpolicy.org). Because of this complicated history of drugs abuse, today, Latino and especially Black communities are still subject to wildly disproportionate drug enforcement and sentencing …show more content…
Worse, if they are caught using it, they are immediately locked in jail. Since they are already prejudiced about African Americans, they are treated even more severely by the law when they are caught using drugs. The principle which was to overcome poverty is completely forgotten when they are caught and they are put in jail, which in returns add on to the prison mass. Alas, Ron Paul exclaimed in Chaney and Robertson’s article “[Black people] are tried and imprisoned disproportionately. They suffer the consequence of the death penalty disproportionately. Rich white people don’t get the death penalty very often. And most of these are victimless crimes. Sometimes people can use drugs and get arrested three times and never committed a violent act and they can go to prison for life. I think there’s discrimination in the system, but you have to address the drug war. I would say the judicial system is probably one of the worst places where prejudice and discrimination still exists in this country.” Moreover, the public seems completely oblivious to the suffering of its