ABSTRACT
Global drug commerce arose in the early modern world in tandem with European transoceanic empires. It was a perpetual-motion machine. Medical researchers, using the statistical techniques pioneered by the French physician Pierre-Charles-Alexandre Louis, became increasingly adept at documenting the health risks of drug use, particularly of alcohol and narcotics. Ethnic and racial prejudices also influenced the increasing regulation of the drug market. Legal drug commerce laid the foundations of the modern world system by serving as the fiscal cornerstone of the nation-state, the basis of Europe's trading empires, and the means to finance western expansion. During the 1980's and 1990's American drug policy got caught in the current of competitive moral politics and then shot over the falls of legislative reaction. This was the opposite of what happened in Europe, where the increase in drug use and the AIDS crisis together pushed drug policy toward more pragmatic public-health approaches.
