Abstract

In 1985 in his work The Drugs/Violence Nexus: A Tripartite Conceptual Framework Paul J. Goldstein showed how the connection between crime and drug use and trafficking is more complex than it may appear. The line of thought that wanted at all costs to identify drug as the root of all evil has proven itself wrong and ideological. Prohibition, far from promoting public health and security, is one of the main factors of the current social and economic disaster related to drug use. In Italy, as in many other countries, 33 years later, Goldstein's theory is still true, and unheard. Until the legislator will keep ignoring the etiology of drug use and trafficking and will refuse to adapt its policies to the Best practices we already know, it will be hard even to hope that the situation will change for the better.