38 caliber pistols because it was believed that the superhuman "Negro Cocaine Fiend" could not be killed with the smaller gun. (Main Findings 1992).
Dr. Hamilton Wright is sometimes referred to as the "Father of American Drug Laws". Dr. Wright was the Opium Commissioner at the time and had previously become famous because he had "scientifically proved" that beriberi was a communicable disease. Beriberi is a vitamin deficiency. .
In fact the Harrison Act (1914) imposed a system of taxes on opium and coca products with registration and record-keeping requirements in an effort to control their sale or distribution. (Olmar, pg. 222)However, it did not prohibit the legal supply of certain drugs, especially opiates. In fact, even the people who wrote the Harrison Act and the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937 agreed that a general prohibition on what people could put into their own bodies was plainly an unconstitutional infringement on personal liberties. For a comparison, see the history of the constitutional amendment, which was required to prohibit alcohol. There is no fundamental reason why a constitutional amendment should be required to prohibit one chemical and not another. (Olmar, pg. 232).
The trick was that the bureaucrats who were authorized to issue licenses never did so, and there was a heavy penalty for not having a license. This heavy penalty required that the enforcing bureaucrats needed more staff and, therefore, more power, which, in turn required tougher laws. Over the years, through a series of court rulings, they gradually got the courts to change what had been well-established constitutional law. Specifically, they got the courts to accept the notion that it really was a tax violation when people got arrested for drugs, and that the fact that the government would not issue any licenses was not a defense. (Whitebread, Speech, pg.