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From: doug@terak.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Re: Legal drugs
Message-ID: <1175@terak.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-May-86 20:08:53 EDT
Article-I.D.: terak.1175
Posted: Thu May  8 20:08:53 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 14-May-86 01:06:20 EDT
References: <402@bu-cs.UUCP> <108@gumby.UUCP> <1239@dual.UUCP> <287@gumby.UUCP> <632@tekig5.UUCP> <1448@udenva.UUCP>
Reply-To: doug@terak.UUCP (Doug Pardee)
Organization: Calcomp Display Products Division, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Lines: 18

> Alcohol, caffeine, and tobacco are legal 
> because they are older drugs that people were taking long before anyone got 
> the idea to outlaw certain substances.

An almost more believable story is that those drugs are legal because
many good clean white folks use them.

Marijuana, cocaine, etc. were once the nearly exclusive domain of people
whose skin color made them the object of wide-spread persecution
(especially in "The South").  By passing laws making use of such drugs
illegal, "legitimate" grounds were provided for persecution by the local
constabulary.

I have also heard that the police departments around the country all
switched from .32's to .38's following a widely-circulated rumor/report
that "a .32 bullet won't kill a cocaine-crazed [black man]."
-- 
Doug Pardee -- CalComp -- {elrond,seismo,decvax,ihnp4}!terak!doug