The dissertation discusses how the prohibition of psychoactive substances escalated into a social conflict, causing two global prohibition crises. The first part develops a theoretical frame-work and provides an overview of the research methods. Prohibition is defined by applying a prototypical understanding to it. This means that a phenomenon is defined by its most typical real occurrence, not by abstract characteristics. Most typically, prohibition manifests as conflict, its principal means being violence, as understood by Galtung and Žižek. The research methods are principally historical and comparative, especially by establishing the vectors of historical development. In the second, historical part a detailed analysis identifies two such vectors as being puritanical religion and eugenics. Both efforts resulted in three great waves of prohibition in 1920: of alcohol in the US, opium in China, and cannabis in Mexico. None of them worked and they spurned a global prohibition crisis. The unintended consequences of American prohibition were especially pernicious, signifying a precedent which kept on repeating. Organised crime played a very important part in this precedent. Due to prohibition, it became so powerful and influential that it became an important factor inside the capitalist system: the large landowners, the bourgeoisie, and political power had to make way for another interest group, which we can simply dub “Big Crime”. This is a crisis phenomenom. A side effect of prohibition, its criminological, military, and ideological aspects are discussed in the third part. The analysis of Big Crime then makes way for necropolitics and the fertile ground of failed and fragile states. Historical examples of Big Crime are presented. Special attention is then given to Latin American Big Crime and with it the notorious criminal cartels. Their main characteristics can be seen in the criminal personality cult, caudillismo, as well as in excessive, extreme violence. Colombian and Mexican cartels are particularly harmful manifestations of Big Crime. The case study in the last chapter presents the Gulf Cartel, the oldest and, by virtue of its recent transformation into a paramilitary force, also the most destructive Mexican criminal organization. To face these problems, a thorough paradigm shift is needed, one that potentially takes a different attitude to psychoactive substances.
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