19
Jun
Jun
Most citizens knew of [cocaine’s] general harmful effects, but its identification with the Negro had not received due attention. Why [United States Opium Commissioner Hamilton Wright] thought this identification had not been sufficiently publicized is unclear, but he warned of cocaine’s “encouragement…among the humbler ranks of the Negro population in the South.” In the South the cocaine problem among Negroes greatly troubled law enforcement officers, he stated.
- David F. Musto, The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control
