[s|k]

In the US, and across the western world, the prohobition against opium based drugs was because of anti-sino sentiments. In the US opium drugs and marijuana were not illegal until they were associated with migrant Chinese laborers who had emigrated to work on the rail roads and set up communities in cities. It's been a racist thing all along. Drug laws have always been about race. Look at cocaine, it was used predominately by wealthy white people for two or three decades, and nobody raised a big stink about it until a cheaper derivative based on (no pun intended) baking soda became associated with black inner city population. Next thing you know they raise a big MYTHICAL stink about crack whores, crack babies and declare a war on drugs and cocaine. It's always been a race issue, an issue about deviance in general. Alcohol is far more destructive and deadly and addictive and terrible than any of the other drugs that are banned. But because it's a white person's drug, it is not illegal. And most of the problems that are associated with illegal drugs occur because they are illegal.