The above is a quote from a member of parliament of a small progressive island nation. He was about to vote on whether or not to legalise a drug that had for seventy-four years been consumed illegally only by the most deviant of citizens. The main argument for keeping it illegal was that the drug posed ‘a threat to society, especially to young people and manual workers’.

That drug is beer, and that island nation is Iceland. The year is 1989. The MP in question was outvoted, and beer was eventually legalised in Iceland. Society continued to function.

It is reasonable to assume that drug legislation is carefully considered, with decisions made on solid scientific grounds. So, what did Icelandic lawmakers see in beer that we missed? Why was it such a threat to them? And why 31 years later we can see the same attitude towards cannabis?

Both alcohol and cannabis have been consumed for millennia, legally or otherwise. The health impacts of both drugs have been thoroughly studied, and according to the Global Commission on Drugs Policy, alcohol is the more dangerous of the two. Scientifically speaking, Iceland had more reason to be concerned about legalising beer than we do about cannabis.

But when it comes to justifying prohibitions, science must be excused to give way to something much more unscientific: culture. Prohibition is more of an outcome of conflict between different societal groups than a way to shelter the public from the harms of drug consumption.

In Iceland, drinking alcohol was associated with a Danish lifestyle. Prohibition started at a time that Icelanders were struggling to gain their independence from Denmark, and banning alcohol served a symbolic role in the movement for self-determination.

‘Indian Hemp’ - that’s early 20th century for cannabis- had been regulated in New Zealand since 1927. However, it wasn’t until 1964 that it was made illegal following the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The Convention was rooted in U.S. prohibition policies, which led to the ‘War on Drugs’ in 1971. Later, John Ehrlichman, one of President Nixon’s lead domestic affairs advisors, revealed these policies had nothing to do with drugs:

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