The DEA's MUSEUM doesn't have a single exhibit that show how Racial hatred and hysteria were the 2 leading causes of our century old failed war on drugs. They are in denial despite all the evidence in 2002 then DEA head Asa Hutchinson made the outlandish claim that our nations first anti drug law which in 1875 banned Opium smoking in San Francisco's CHINATOWN had been a success. I personally have in my own personal files hundreds of newspaper articles that easily disprove the DEA's claims of success. I also have several hundred files that easily link the trillion dollarfailed war on drugs to racism. Then the 3 minute video included with this diary which features our nations top drug war historians confirm that racism is the true cause of the drug war. They used cocaine laws in south to target African American's, they used opium laws in the west to target Chinese American's and then they used Marijuana laws to target Mexican American's. This diary concentrates on the Chinese immigrants experience.
Brilliant Chang the "Yellow Spider"
MAY 10, 1924
THE BEE
DANVILLE , VIRGINIA
TRAP "YELLOW SPIDER" IN WEB OF OWN MAKING
Like a vicious yellow spider for seven long prosperous years Brilliant Chang, alias Chan Num, sat in on obscure room in Limehouse Causeway and spun his webs baited with cocaine to catch the poor white flies of London's fashionable West End.
"White Fly" caught in "Yellow Spiders" Cocaine Web
April 18, 1886
DALLAS MORNING NEWS
THE PIGTAIL'S OWN HOME
GREAT TOLERANCE OF AN UNMIXED EVIL.
Chinatown and They that Inhabit It Sodom and Gomorrah Better Merited Tolerance
Oriental Practices
Special To The News.
Washington , April 17.- "No other city in the United States would tolerate 'Chinatown' for twenty-four hours. If Chinatown were dropped down on Boston Commons the people would hold their noses and run." Such is the emphatic language in which Representative Milliken, of Maine puts his conclusions after a visit to the celebrated Chinese quarters in San Francisco.
"We went down into the Chinese dens three stories underground. In these dives which are reached through narrow dark filthy passages, we found crowds of Chinamen smoking Opium. The stench was almost unbearable to American nostrils. I believe Chinatown would cause a pestilence in almost any American city except San Francisco, where the winds from the ocean sweep across the city every day at certain hours and clears out the poisonous atmosphere."
OPIUM PIPE GENIE
June 5, 1887
Galveston Daily News
The El Paso Inter-Republics gives a long account of the fifteen high joints of the Chinese Opium smokers in that city:
There are fifteen public Opium joints in El Paso, patronized by all classes, men and women, young and old, from the veteran who walks in at the front door to the timid clerk contracting the habit on the sly. There is no pretence at concealment. People passing by on the streets can see the half stupefied Chinamen lolling on their bunks, their slant eyes fixed on vacancy and a bamboo pipe between their lips.
It is a great mistake to suppose that "sports" and fallen women alone visit these resorts. Married women, young girls, clerks and business men meet there on the same plane. The favorite hours for smokers are either early in the evening or from midnight to 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. At both of these times the places are so crowded that smokers have to frequently wait for a room. The average price paid at a single visit is 50 cents.
Laws banning Drugs in this nation have always been inspired by racists and still are today. These laws were specifically created to target minorities in fact the very first drug law enacted in the USA was passed in 1875 by the City of San Francisco which only banned the Smoking of Opium and not the use of the drug. Opium Smoking was a Chinese practice. This act didn't apply to the whites who used the drug. The majority of white opium users drank it in a very popular Opium-Alcohol tonic called Laudanum. Other laws were passed by San Francisco also targeting Chinese one such law banned the carrying of water in two buckets suspended by a bamboo pole which was a Chinese custom.
The Gentle, Inoffensive Chinese
1871
Mark Twain
Of course there was a large Chinese population in Virginia City - it is the case with every town and city on the Pacific coast. They are a harmless race when white men either let them alone or treat them no worse than dogs; in fact, they are almost entirely harmless anyhow, for they seldom think of resenting the vilest insults or the cruelest injuries. They are quiet, peaceable, tractable, free from drunkenness, and they are as industrious as the day is long. A disorderly Chinaman is rare, and a lazy one does not exist. So long as a Chinaman has strength to use his hands he needs no support from anybody; white men often complain of want of work, but a Chinaman offers no such complaint; he always manages to find something to do. He is a great convenience to everybody - even to the worst class of white men, for he bears the most of their sins, suffering fines for their petty thefts, imprisonment for their robberies, and death for their murders. Any white man can swear a Chinaman's life away in the courts, but no Chinaman can testify against a white man. Ours is the "land of the free" - nobody denies that - nobody challenges it. [Maybe it is because we won't let other people testify.] As I write, news comes that in broad daylight in San Francisco, some boys have stoned an inoffensive Chinaman to death, and that although a large crowd witnessed the shameful deed, no one interfered.
DECEMBER 19, 1883
BUTTE DAILY MINER
Butte, Montana
"Oh, we kill Chinamenall the year round when they're fat," I explained. But then there is lately some sort of an ordinance making it a misdemeanor to shoot a pigtail unless he is on the shady side of the street or gets in your way. Folks are getting too infernally particular over that, for a fact."
George B. Blank
San Francisco, California
Initially the Chinese were welcomed as reliable and cheap labor when they first arrived in California in the late 1840's. Then during the 1850s and 1860s, anti-Chinese actions were enacted these were discriminatory laws, ordinances, and taxes in California and its neighboring states. In the 1870s, however, anti Chinese sentiments intensified and spread like an epidemic. Both major political parties adopted anti-Chinese platforms. Negative stereotypes saturated the media. Violence was frequently committed upon Chinese persons and properties, and federal restrictions on Chinese immigration gained widespread support. This trend toward exclusion ultimately led to Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The explicit prohibition on Chinese naturalization was the worst feature in the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act because it barred the entire Chinese race from naturalization "regardless of qualifications or earnest desire on their part to become citizens".
The Chinese immigrants were quiet, peaceable and industrious yet they were viciously attacked both physically and mentally by other Americans. This included the particularly evil practice of cutting off their pigtails which led many Chinese men to committ suicide.
Religious differences were a major argument against Chinese immigration. US citizens prejudice against Chinese was largely fueled by American Christian missionaries in China who painted false pictures of Chinese degradation, immorality, and idolatry in order to wring more money from American donors. They were called "heathens," "pagans," "celestials," and "idolaters." While another common American negative stereotype was the notion that all Chinese ate rats and puppies. One preposterous claim was that all the Chinese had been sent to the United States to convert every American to Buddhism. Perhaps the absurdist rumor of all was the wild tales of Chinese men running white slavery harems with kidnapped European - American girls.
November 15, 1908
Syracuse Herald
A VISIT to SYRACUSE'S CHINATOWN
A narrow, rickety stairway leading upward toward a little patch of blue sky at the top; the gleam of a 'yellow face'. From a dusky little room midway of the stairs. Slant eyes closed in dreamy revery over an Opium pipe; the pungent smell of curious Oriental tobacco brought in ships across far seas; the rustle of silken pantaloons and the patter-patter of shuffling slippered feet across the floor.
Drug users in America are victims of a destruction process. I believe drug use is normal and that most harm associated with illicit drug use comes from law rather than the drugs themselves. Police power and resources can never eliminate drug use. Such a goal is impossible.I believe authoritarians are manufacturing and manipulating public fears about drug use in order to create a police state where a much broader agenda of social control can be implemented. I believe the war on drug users masks a war on democracy. What is the vision of a Drug-Free America? Is it worth Millions in prison performing slave labor ? Is it worth the shattered families ? Is it worth another trillion dollars being flushed down the toilet? I don't think so.