Cocaine in the United States
[5] Before this, various factors and groups acted (primarily at the state level) on influencing a move towards prohibition and away from a laissez-faire attitude.
[6] Cocaine consumption had grown in 1903 to about five times that of 1890, predominately by non-medical users outside the middle-aged, American, professional class.
[8] African American workers were believed by employers to be better at physical work and it was thought that it provided added strength to their constitution which, according to the Medical News, made black people "impervious to the extremes of heat and cold".
[10] In some instances, cocaine use supplemented or replaced caffeine as the drug of choice to keep workers awake and working overtime.
Similar anxiety-ridden reports appeared throughout cities in the South, leading some to declare that "the cocaine habit has assumed the proportions of an epidemic among the colored people".
"[15] To complete the characterization, a judge in Mississippi declared that supplying a "negro" with cocaine was more dangerous than injecting a dog with rabies.
In 1906, a major race riot led by whites erupted; it was sparked by reports of crimes committed by black "cocaine fiends".
[17] Police in the South widely adopted the use of heavier caliber handguns so as to better stop a cocaine-crazed black person – believed to be empowered with superhuman strength.
A 1907 California law limiting sale of cocaine to only those with a physician's prescription resulted in the arrest of over 50 store owners and clerks in the first year.
[24] Eventually the federal government stepped in and instituted a national labeling requirement for cocaine and cocaine-containing products through the Food and Drug Act of 1906.
[5] The Harrison Act did not recognize addiction as a treatable condition and therefore the therapeutic use of cocaine, heroin, or morphine to such individuals was outlawed – leading the Journal of American Medicine to remark that an addict "is denied the medical care he urgently needs, open, above-board sources from which he formerly obtained his drug supply are closed to him, and he is driven to the underworld where he can get his drug, but of course, surreptitiously and in violation of the law".
[25] The Harrison Act left manufacturers of cocaine untouched so long as they met certain purity and labeling standards.
Estimates of the current number of those who use cocaine regularly (at least once per month) vary, but 1.5 million is a widely accepted figure within the research community.
The 1999 Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey found the proportion of American students reporting use of powdered cocaine rose during the 1990s.
[32] The measure was adopted by referendum 3 November 2020, and introduced a Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act,[33] effective 3 December 2020.
[34] The Act[35] introduced changes to Oregon law (ORS), effective 1 February 2021,[36] including reclassification of most possession offences.
