9th February,1909

Today in 'Rotten History'

The first US federal law prohibiting the importation of opium was enacted, aimed not at the damage the drug was doing to American society (none: white people weren't using opium), but at the hated and despised Chinese,living mostly on the west coast -
who, of course, were victims of the British Imperial policy on China.
The British 'Opium Wars' were declared in order to swamp Chinese society and administration with cheap Afghan opium.

A little later, marijuana and other forms of cannabis were outlawed in the US - mainly because it was making the despised and hated underdog African-Americans happier than they ought to have been.