Doctors in general are generally cautious. The problem can be traced to a small number of corrupt doctors who decided to abandon their medical scruples so they could make very lucrative livings as semi-legal dealers of high-grade narcotics.<p>The Feds eventually cracked down on this racket, but not before it had spawned a tremendous number of white, middle-class addicts who found themselves turning to the black market in heroin for their fixes. These people, in turn, are running headlong into the insanely punitive legal structures developed to terrorize, brutalize, and demonize black users when crack became a thing in the 80s.<p>Given a choice between accepting the punishments they were happy to dole out to others or abandoning this particular vector for racism, bigoted white people are deciding they can find other ways to keep the spirit of Jim Crow alive and well. For them, the Drug War has failed not because it failed to get rid of drugs (that was never the point) but because it&#x27;s no longer as discriminatory as it used to be.