Drugs: consumption, prohibition and its history

The first prohibition known in history with respect to drugs occurs in S. II D.C. in Rome. This prohibition relates to the Dionysian cult, which is outlawed, justified this measure by the excesses that occur during their rituals. The followers of this cult of mystery nature are given to wild orgies in which the wine, one of the gifts of God, run without restrictions.It is in full expansion of Christianity when this circumstance, are markedly antiorgiastricos monotheism, which is derived from a clear influence of the pagan cults that ban, by contrast, have great potential for community relations and transcendent through consumption of consciousness-altering substances.Subsequently, the Middle Ages called a resurgence of Bacchic rites, which are mixed with magic rituals in which consumption takes place psychotropics. Triggered at this time the famous "witch hunt" in Central Europe, repression of such activities which are mixed motives of religious and political. On the one hand it is possible to eliminate a competitive threat to the official religion, Christianity, on the other, is an oblique way to quell peasant revolts caused by hunger. For one, the servants live in fear of superstition on the other, suffering the fear of being accused of witchcraft themselves.It is in this period, on the other hand, when you start the arrival in Europe of new drugs - hashish, opium - Entry facilitated by the opening of the Silk Road first, and the opening of the maritime trade route to the east. This type of consumption is related to the practice of medicine used these particular substances as painkillers.During S. XIX reemerges among intellectual elites vision of drugs as a useful tool in the way of knowledge, as a replica of the Greek tradition, silenced for two millennia. Promethean is a proposal that will allow reaching the thinkers of this century new lights.In Baudelaire he can be considered the first intellectual justifies the prohibition in modern times. This author believes that the achievement of these "artificial paradises" would cause the population to abandon the work and therefore would not be produced, which would mean the ruin of the system.Other writers, however, are thrown to the consumption of drugs to achieve states or visions that serve as sources of inspiration to develop their literature. In this regard include the work of Thomas de Quincey Confessions of an English Opium Eater.What happens in the twentieth century we all know. New synthetic drugs appear born of experiments which often are promoted by the same institutions that prohibit other substances. This brings up the heroin, a military experiment that was to provide the substance to soldiers during World War intoxicated to lose the fear, hence the name, although the results obtained should not be very good. Cocaine was a product commonly prescribed by doctors to combat depression and other diseases, was also forbidden to check side effects. The lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was a substance that was initially investigated in order to treat kidney ailments, imagine the results in patients. And so, many compounds have emerged from respectable labs have been spent on the street as reinforcement playful, and were subsequently banned by the authorities, more costly adulerándose price and its content, with the disastrous consequences this entails.The question of whether to ban drugs or not, I think it is made explicit by the above paragraphs: If from s.II drugs have been banned, and have continued to use, consumption or perhaps consumption does not have as much to do with legality issues the structures of society and the psychological characteristics of each individual who composes.

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