Actually, the ATF needed something to do and politicians needed a morality issue after Prohibition was repealed. Marijuana was a little-noticed drug that could be demonized because most people weren't familiar with it, and those who knew about it didn't care much for it. My grandfather recalled that it grew wild when he was a boy and he and his friends tried smoking it, but it wasn't any good. I suspect propaganda like Reefer Madness not only convinced a lot of people that pot was evil but also created a demand for it that hadn't existed before. Which of course suited the ATF and the demagogues just fine.

and if you don't think black people are oppressed by the Man, watch this Minister get his legs broken by D.C. cops:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiradcejA6o
Rev. Lennox Yearwood attacked, arrested, and hospitalized

the only reason pot was put on schedule one in 1970 was because Nixon hated those damn hippies.

now it's all about phoney drug wars to feed the prison-industrial complex to keep black people down and struggling, and to fund CIA dark-ops, as well as funnel drug war money to Mexico and Colombia to fight left-wing rebels.

Milton Friedman practically cried when he talked about how disgraceful the War on Drugs was on the Charlie Rose show.