How did we get here?
                   Jul 26th 2001
                   From The Economist print edition

                   History has a habit of repeating itself

                   VOTERS—and
                   governments—change their
                   minds about ways to deal with
                   activities they disapprove of.
                   Governments used to ban
                   gambling; now many run their
                   own lotteries. Prostitution,
                   although still generally illegal, is
                   rarely the target of police
                   campaigns. Attitudes to alcohol
                   have changed in the past
                   century-and-half. So have
                   attitudes to drugs.

                   In 19th-century America,
                   campaigners talked of the
                   demon drink in much the same
                   way that they now talk of
                   drugs. The temperance
                   movement blamed booze for crime, “moral degeneracy”, broken
                   families and business failure. In America, this led to Prohibition,
                   with its accompanying crime and bootlegging. In England,
                   campaigners won restrictions on access, in the shape of the
                   pub-closing hours that have puzzled foreign visitors ever since. It
                   may have been a bore, but it was a less socially costly way of
                   dealing with an undesirable habit than a ban.

                   Today's illegal drugs were patent medicines in the 19th century.
                   Morphine and opium were freely available in both Europe and
                   America. Victorian babies were quietened with Godfrey's Cordial,
                   which contained opium. Cocaine was the basis of remedies for the
                   common cold. When Atlanta prohibited alcohol, John Pemberton,
                   producer of a health drink called French Wine Coca, developed a
                   version that was non-alcoholic but still contained traces of coca,
                   thereby creating the world's best-selling soft drink. As for
                   marijuana, Queen Victoria reputedly used it to soothe the royal
                   period pains.

                   Far from opposing the drugs trade, the British and the Americans
                   notoriously promoted it in the 19th century. In 1800 China's
                   imperial government forbade the import of opium, which had long
                   been used to stop diarrhoea, but had latterly graduated to
                   recreational use. British merchants smuggled opium into China to
                   balance their purchases of tea for export to Britain. When the
                   Chinese authorities confiscated a vast amount of the stuff, the
                   British sent in gunboats, backed by France, Russia and America,
                   and bullied China into legalising opium imports.

                   Initial efforts to stamp out drug use at home had little to do with
                   concerns about health. One of America's first federal laws against
                   opium-smoking, in 1887, was a response to agitation against
                   Chinese “coolies”, brought into California to build railways and dig
                   mines. It banned opium imports by Chinese people, but allowed
                   them by American citizens (the tax on opium imports was a useful
                   source of federal revenue). The drafters of the Harrison Act of
                   1914, the first federal ban on non-medical narcotics, played on
                   fears of “drug-crazed, sex-mad negroes”. And the 1930s campaign
                   against marijuana was coloured by the fact that Harry Anslinger,
                   the first drug tsar, was appointed by Andrew Mellon, his wife's
                   uncle. Mellon, the Treasury Secretary, was banker to DuPont, and
                   sales of hemp threatened that firm's efforts to build a market for
                   synthetic fibres. Spreading scare stories about cannabis was a
                   way to give hemp a bad name. Moral outrage is always more
                   effective if backed by a few vested interests.