Introduction

Poland began work on the legal regu¬lations for the opium poppy plantations, the main raw material for home production of opiates in 1981. In the following years, the optimal legal solutions were prepared. The aim of this article is to present the legal process of regulating poppy cultivation – from the first assumptions introducing these regulations until 1985, when the Act on the Prevention of Drug Addiction was passed, allowing limited poppy cultivation.

Material and methods

The method typical for historical research was used, with focus on analysis of sources (normative acts, archival, press and statistical materials) and specialist literature.

Results

In 1983, the first temporary restrictions were introduced regulating poppy cultivation. During the work on the Act on the Prevention of Drug Addiction, different visions of new regulations clashed. In 1985, the Polish parliament passed an Act introducing moderate restrictions for farmers and began the gradual liquidation of poppy plantations. Ineffective information activities and a too-brief vacatio legis generated problems with enforcement the new regulations. Until the mid-1990s, the vast majority of prohibition-related crimes concerned violations of the legal regulations on poppy cultivation.

Discussion

In 1981, the media began to take a great interest in drug addiction, which initiated the restriction of poppy cultivation. I intend to identify this phenomenon as a moral panic, an impulse that caused society to pay attention to the problem of drug addiction, mobilising the authorities to apply state measures to address the spread of drug addiction.

Conclusions

Since the adoption of the 1985 Act, the regulation of opium poppy cultivation has become a pillar of Polish drug policy. One of the elements of the change in society’s thinking was the perception of drug addiction as primarily a social problem, and not just a repressive one.