Editing Drug prohibition (section)

===Prohibition===
In the UK the [[Defence of the Realm Act 1914]], passed at the onset of the [[First World War]], gave the government wide-ranging powers to requisition the property and to criminalize specific activities. A [[moral panic]] was whipped up by the press in 1916 over the alleged sale of drugs to the troops of the [[British Indian Army]]. With the temporary powers of DORA, the [[British Army|Army Council]] quickly banned the sale of all psychoactive drugs to troops, unless required for medical reasons. However, shifts in the public attitude towards drugs—they were beginning to be associated with [[prostitution]], [[vice]] and [[immorality]]—led the government to pass further unprecedented laws, banning and criminalising the possession and dispensation of all narcotics, including opium and cocaine. After the war, this legislation was maintained and strengthened with the passing of the [[Dangerous Drugs Act 1920]] ([[10 & 11 Geo. 5]]. c. 46). [[Home Office]] control was extended to include [[raw opium]], [[morphine]], [[cocaine]], [[ecogonine]] and [[heroin]].<ref>''[[The Manchester Guardian]]''; "Sale Of " Dope " Drugs: New Control Regulations"; January 8, 1921</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ww1centenary.oucs.ox.ac.uk/body-and-mind/drugs-and-dora-2/|title=Drugs and DORA|access-date=December 17, 2012}}</ref>

Hardening of Canadian attitudes toward [[Chinese Canadians|Chinese-Canadian]] opium users and fear of a spread of the drug into the white population led to the effective criminalization of opium for nonmedical use in Canada between 1908 and the mid-1920s.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.projectcork.org/bibliographies/data/Bibliography_Historical.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030125153032/http://www.projectcork.org/bibliographies/data/Bibliography_Historical.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2003-01-25|author=Carstairs, C.|title=Jailed for Possession: Illegal Drug Use, Regulation, and Power in Canada, 1920–61|year=2006}}</ref>

The [[Mao Zedong]] government nearly eradicated both consumption and production of opium during the 1950s using social control and isolation.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Kurlantzick|first1=Joshua|title=China's Drug Problem and Looming HIV Epidemic|journal=World Policy Journal|date=2002|volume=19|issue=2|pages=70–75|jstor=40209806|doi=10.1215/07402775-2002-3003}}</ref> Ten million addicts were forced into compulsory treatment, dealers were executed, and opium-producing regions were planted with new crops. Remaining opium production shifted south of the Chinese border into the [[Golden Triangle (Southeast Asia)|Golden Triangle]] region.<ref name="McCoy opium">{{cite web|url=http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/opi010.htm |title=Opium History, 1858 to 1940 |author=Alfred W. McCoy |access-date=May 4, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070404134938/http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/opi010.htm |archive-date=April 4, 2007 }}</ref> The remnant opium trade primarily served Southeast Asia, but spread to American soldiers during the [[Vietnam War]], with 20 percent of soldiers regarding themselves as addicted during the peak of the epidemic in 1971. In 2003, China was estimated to have four million regular drug users and one million registered drug addicts.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FD29Ad01.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040610075853/http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/FD29Ad01.html|url-status=unfit|archive-date=June 10, 2004|title=Banned in China for sex, drugs, disaffection|author=Michael Mackey|date=April 29, 2004|access-date=June 8, 2007}}</ref>

In the US, the [[Harrison Act]] was passed in 1914, and required sellers of [[opiate]]s and cocaine to get a license. While originally intended to regulate the trade, it soon became a prohibitive law, eventually becoming [[legal precedent]] that any prescription for a narcotic given by a physician or pharmacist – even in the course of medical treatment for [[Substance use disorder|addiction]] – constituted conspiracy to violate the Harrison Act. In 1919, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|Supreme Court]] ruled in ''Doremus'' that the Harrison Act was constitutional and in ''Webb'' that physicians could not prescribe narcotics solely for maintenance.<ref name="kand">{{cite book |author=Kandall, Stephen R. |title=Substance and Shadow: Women and Addiction in the United States |url=https://archive.org/details/substanceshadoww00kand |access-date=May 25, 2012 |year=1999 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-85361-4 |df=mdy-all |url-access=registration }}</ref> In ''Jin Fuey Moy v. United States'',<ref>''Jin Fuey Moy v. United States'' 254 U.S. 189 (1920)</ref> the court upheld that it was a violation of the Harrison Act even if a physician provided prescription of a narcotic for an addict, and thus subject to criminal [[prosecution]].<ref>Brecher, Edward M. [http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu8.html Chapter 8. "The Harrison Narcotic Act (1914)"] in ''The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Drugs''. Consumer Reports Magazine. Druglibrary.org. Retrieved May 25, 2012.</ref> This is also true of the later [[Marijuana Tax Act]] in 1937. Soon, however, licensing bodies did not issue licenses, effectively banning the drugs.<ref>[https://www.history.com/topics/crime/the-war-on-drugs The War on Drugs Begins]</ref>

The American judicial system did not initially accept drug prohibition. Prosecutors argued that possessing drugs was a tax violation, as no legal licenses to sell drugs were in existence; hence, a person possessing drugs must have purchased them from an unlicensed source. After some wrangling, this was accepted as federal jurisdiction under the [[interstate commerce]] clause of the [[U.S. Constitution]].

====Alcohol prohibition====
{{Main|Prohibition}}
The prohibition of alcohol commenced in Finland in 1919 and in the United States in 1920. Because alcohol was the most popular recreational drug in these countries, reactions to its prohibition were far more negative than to the prohibition of other drugs, which were commonly associated with ethnic minorities, prostitution, and vice. Public pressure led to the repeal of alcohol prohibition in Finland in 1932, and in the United States in 1933. Residents of many provinces of [[Prohibition in Canada|Canada]] also experienced alcohol prohibition for similar periods in the first half of the 20th century.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/prohibition-alcohol-interdict prohibition,alcohol interdict]</ref>

In Sweden, [[1922 Swedish prohibition referendum|a referendum]] in 1922 decided against an alcohol prohibition law (with 51% of the votes against and 49% for prohibition), but starting in 1914 (nationwide from 1917) and until 1955 Sweden employed an alcohol rationing system with personal liquor ration books ("[[motbok]]").