I counter with this article [0], which I believe to be more historically relevant due to its closeness in time to the discussion in question. Race is not mentioned as a factor here, and cocaine is described as "the American habit".
Having noted my inability to thoroughly research this topic at this time in reply to a sibling post, I'll point to that post for my back of the envelope calculation regarding the number of working class whites versus blacks and suggest that, as poverty and drug abuse seem, to me, linked, that it is just as plausible that widespread abuse of the drug was the catalyst for change in this case.
I am not clear on how an article that does not overtly tie race to drug use or policy is in any way supportive of the notion that the historical record does not contain supportive evidence of a link between race and drug policy in the United States. This article also does not mention escalators but I would not submit it to further a claim that there is no historical evidence of them existing.
I didn't suggest that there is no supportive evidence between race and drug policy, but that fact does not imply that there is a causal relationship in this case. Citing Nixon era documents to describe pre-WWI circumstances is evidence at least as poor as that which I presented.
The article itself cites in the first paragraph this much more detailed analysis of the topic, which may provide the historical context that you felt was lacking.
Thank you for this reference. I had overlooked it.
While this article confirms my assertion that whites were the majority of drug users, the drug of choice is stated to have been racially segregated (with whites preferring opiates).
Based on this, I'll accept (pending further research) that the southern bans on cocaine were racially motivated. I'd still consider the 1914 federal ban on a wider swath of drugs to be less so.
I’m not sure why someone would pick the 1914 ban as being uniquely not racially influenced. That seems arbitrary and could mostly only be backed up by not reading about it.
The main difference between the 1914 ban and previous actions was the degree of added emphasis put on caricatures of Chinese people.
Yes, it is class based, and given the more quantifiable efforts to relegate black populations to an underclass along with everyone else already there, it is always 99% correlated to race when looking at that subset.
But you asked the right question. This article does skip a few steps and assumes you are already subscribed to that causality while not considering anything else or provide supporting evidence, just quips from separate states and cities to reach any conclusion.
Having noted my inability to thoroughly research this topic at this time in reply to a sibling post, I'll point to that post for my back of the envelope calculation regarding the number of working class whites versus blacks and suggest that, as poverty and drug abuse seem, to me, linked, that it is just as plausible that widespread abuse of the drug was the catalyst for change in this case.
[0] https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030272/1914-02-1...