At the beginning of the 20th century, cocaine began to be linked to crime. In 1900, the
Journal of the American Medical Association published an editorial stating, "Negroes in the South are reported as being addicted to a new form of vice – that of 'cocaine sniffing' or the 'coke habit.'" Some newspapers later claimed cocaine use caused blacks to rape white women and was improving their pistol marksmanship.
[8] Chinese immigrants were blamed for importing the opium-smoking habit to the U.S. The 1903 blue-ribbon citizens' panel, the Committee on the Acquirement of the Drug Habit, concluded, "If the Chinaman cannot get along without his dope we can get along without him."
Theodore Roosevelt appointed Dr.
Hamilton Wright as the first Opium Commissioner of the United States in 1908. In 1909, Wright attended the International Opium Commission in Shanghai as the American delegate. He was accompanied by Charles Henry Brent, the Episcopal Bishop. On March 12, 1911, Dr. Wright was quoted as follows in an article in
The New York Times: "Of all the nations of the world, the United States consumes most habit-forming drugs per capita. Opium, the most pernicious drug known to humanity, is surrounded, in this country, with far fewer safeguards than any other nation in Europe fences it with."
[9] Wright further claimed that "it has been authoritatively stated that cocaine is often the direct incentive to the crime of rape by the negroes of the South and other sections of the country," though he failed to mention specifically
which authorities had stated that, and did not provide any evidence for his claim.
[10] Wright also stated that "one of the most unfortunate phases of smoking opium in this country is the large number of women who have become involved and were living as common-law wives or cohabitating with Chinese in the Chinatowns of our various cities".