Abstract

AUTRIQUE ESCOBAR, Cecilia. The American Protestant Reformers and the Pharmaceutical Industry, and Global Drug Prohibition. Secuencia [online]. 2023, n.117, e2082.  Epub July 21, 2023. ISSN 2395-8464.  https://doi.org/10.18234/secuencia.v0i117.2082.

The article analyzes the role of Protestant moral reformers and pharmaceutical entrepreneurs in the United States in defining drug control policies in the early 20th century from the perspective of global history. It focusses on the reformer Richmond Hobson and the businessman Josiah K. Lilly, to study the influence of both sectors and characters on the construction of the international drug prohibitionist system, in which semantics was key.

The author concludes that the division of the drug market into legal and illegal drugs after the Great War yielded enormous benefits for the pharmaceutical sector in developed countries, to the detriment of the well-being and human rights of most of the world’s population.

Keywords : drug prohibition; protestant reformers; pharmaceutical industry; Josiah K. Lilly; Richmond Hobson.