The effect of cannabis prohibition on health

Abstract

Selective drug prohibition, such as marijuana prohibition policy, is a strategy to prevent drug abuse problems by reducing availability and demand. It involves a series of actions that range from law enforcement, reinforcement of cultural standards and a focus on risk perception. Prohibition is believed to be neutral to the health of individual users and having no interaction with drug effect per se. Here we discuss and review data that prohibition policies may have a negative, additive and transforming influence over drug use outcome. The stressful role of social and criminal stigma of using cannabis under prohibition policies may underlie many of the negative outcomes usually considered as the result of the plant alone.