What is prohibition?
Prohibition – in relation to drugs – is a globalised legal system (under the UN drug treaties 1961, 1971, and 1988 signed into domestic law of around 150 states) that mandates criminal sanctions for the production, supply and use of certain psychoactive drugs. Principally these are heroin, cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and synthesised hallucinogens such as LSD. The popular public understanding of ‘prohibition’ is in reference to the alcohol prohibition era from 1920 to 1932 in the US, popularised by gangster films about characters such as Al Capone. This was a drug prohibition that failed in dramatic style and was eventually repealed, with alcohol being re-legalised and regulated.
