El sustrato étnico de la política de drogas. Fundamentos interculturales y consecuencias sociales de una discriminación médico/jurídica

Abstract

From an anthropological perspective focused on the incidence of cultural
diversity in the definition of laws in modern states, we consider that the historical
fact of the prohibition of psychoactive drugs is based on the opinion that qualifies
as a vice certain habits belonging to members of different cultures. Drugs which are
considered unlawful are precisely the ones associated in its moment of spreading in
the U.S.A. -epicentre of the standard policy- with foreign minorities: the opium with
the chinese, the cocaine with the african-americans and the marihuana with the
hispanics -as well as mushrooms and cactus with the aborigines. As a conclusion we
observe that, carried out at an international level as an instrument for
neocolonization, the global policies on drugs justify a repressive attitude that,
criminalizing behaviour considered socially "deviated" -which turns into an "illness"
due to the judgment of medical authorities-, eventually perpetuates a way of
undercover ethnical discrimination.