Origins. Gateway to the war on drugs : marijuana, 1975 ; Black lives matter : gun control, 1975 ; Representatives of their race : the rise of African American police, 1948-78 -- Consequences. "Locking up thugs is not vindictive" : sentencing, 1981-82 ; "The worst thing to hit us since slavery" : crack and the advent of warrior policing, 1988-92 ; What would Martin Luther King, Jr., say? : stop and search, 1995 -- The reach of our mercy, 2014-16.