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The League of Nations and the Debate over Cannabis Prohibition
Author(s) -
Kozma Liat
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
history compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1478-0542
DOI - 10.1111/j.1478-0542.2010.00740.x
Subject(s) - league , cannabis , psychology , political science , psychiatry , physics , astronomy
In the years 1934–1939, a League of Nations’ sub‐committee was founded to review the international prohibition on traffic in cannabis. Most of the experts invited to testify were medical officers stationed in the Middle East and North Africa. This article examines the deliberations of this sub‐committee in light of recent scholarship on drugs, empire, colonial medicine and the League of Nations, and argues that international discussions of the cannabis prohibition were informed by colonial assumptions about Arabs and/or Muslims.