The idea that certain drugs should be prohibited by law is often viewed as simple common sense, but it is actually a recent social phenomenon. The first international laws prohibiting drugs only appeared at the start of the twentieth century, and it wasn’t until the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs in 1961 that banning the non-medicinal trade in drugs like cannabis, cocaine and opiates was accepted across the world.
Since then, the War on Drugs has become a huge driver of the world’s ever-growing prison population. In the UK, more than 1 in 8 of all prisoners currently incarcerated in British prisons are serving their sentences for drug offences. Furthermore, in the UK black people are over-represented in cannabis prosecutions, with over 20% of those convicted for cannabis offences being black, even though they comprise less than 4% of the UK’s total population.
However, the 21st century seems to be showing signs of a change in direction. In December 2013, Uruguay became the first nation-sate to legalise cannabis. Uruguay was soon followed by Canada in 2018, with countries such as New Zealand and Mexico currently working on legislation to allow a recreational market to be implemented over the coming year. Furthermore, in the USA, the country that drove the War on Drugs for most of the twentieth century, a host of states from California and Alaska have also legalised recreational cannabis markets.
