Stephen Davies discusses drug prohibition and some of the arguments that have been used to support it.

Stephen Davies is a program officer at the Institute for Humane Studies and the education director at the Institute for Economic Affairs in London.

Dr. Stephen Davies discusses what he feels are the three most strange and bizarre reasons for banning drugs. The first of these reasons for prohibiting drugs was to stop respectable white girls from using drugs and reproducing with men of other races. This argument was used in the United States in the 1890s to ban opiates and was used again to ban cannabis in the 1930s. The second bizarre reason for prohibiting drugs revolved around the claim that the drug trade was part of an international conspiracy run by nefarious interests. These theories ranged anywhere from conspiracies about communism to conspiracies about lizards and aliens. The third and final reason provided was to stop people from becoming unproductive members of society who only want to have a good time.

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