Disenchanting Drugs. Science, Cultural Paradigm Switch and Prohibition (1900-1920)
Disenchanting Drugs. Science, Cultural Paradigm Switch and Prohibition (1900-1920)

Summary/Abstract: The transgression in the field of drugs from religion to science took place during the 19th century (especially after the 1850s) and culminated within the first two decades of the 20th century. This process was therefore in a way “delayed” in comparison to other transfers of the sort, which had taken place in the western world. The present study uses as a point of depart the matrix of the process known as the “disenchantment of the world”, in Max Weber’s and Marcel Gauchet’s terms: the idea of reconfiguration of the universe on scientific (and therefore opposed to religious) bases. The “new” world (dominated by the scientific prescription – a sort of “medical imperialism”, see Gossop, 47) represents a totally different environment, where religious belief or magical structure cannot longer function as the ultimate authority, but lose precisely their “power” and gradually enter in a sort of incongruence to the new reality. The first laws concerning drugs (issued around 1914-1916) have been influenced by the pressure of scientific discoveries and have also contributed to the recognition and consolidation of the medical authority, which in terms of dominance has become the “new religion”.

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