Published 2 June 201111 March 2014 · Politics / Culture Thanks for 50 years of prohibition … SJ Finn This year marks 50 years of drug prohibition. 50 years since the United Nations adopted the first international treaty to prohibit certain drugs. And, in the spirit of cordiality and a large amount of tongue and cheek, there are those who would like to send their thanks. From Igor, Russian heroin trader. From Azlan, Taliban Leader. There are some, with just as much cordiality but no tongue and cheek, asking – it would seem – trickier questions: But back to the thanks. From Marika, girlfriend of a drug kingpin. And from Pablo, cartel owner in Mexico City. SJ Finn SJ Finn is an Australian writer whose fiction and poetry has been widely published in literary magazines and Australian newspapers. Her latest novel is Down to the River. She can be found at sjfinn.com. More by SJ Finn › Overland is a not-for-profit magazine with a proud history of supporting writers, and publishing ideas and voices often excluded from other places. If you like this piece, or support Overland’s work in general, please subscribe or donate. Related articles & Essays 7 November 20247 November 2024 · colonisation After the pale Josie/Jocelyn Suzanne The violence the colony must use to naturalise itself, to vampirise its vitality in acts of dispossession/accumulation, is one that — when it is not converting land into material — must frame violent resistance as a fundamental break in its monopoly over life and death, over the land. 2 November 20242 November 2024 · Politics Donald Trump, or the Republican takeover of the Democratic Party Jeff Sparrow Since 2016, Trump has successfully remade the GOP in his own image, and, by so doing, pushed the centre of American politics further to the right, even to the extent of achieving the repeal of Roe v Wade (a long-held conservative dream). The current election illustrates that success.
