The Radical Anti-Prohibitionist Organization was set up in Italy in 1987 as a continuation of the activity within the Radical Party and various civil rights movements that had, since the end of the 60s, protested that using criminal punishment to further a moral campaign was both unjust and pointless. It's an open association that counts political exponents of varying beliefs and intellectuals from all fields among its members.

Art. 1 of the Organization's Statute states:

"It is the aim of the Radical Anti-Prohibitionist Organization to reform the current drugs policy applied in laws based on prohibitionism. Laws such as these have not only proved inefficient in preventing drug-abuse from spreading, but have also created, and continue to create, serious institutional, political, economic, social, medical and legal problems. Problems which disrupt public order, threaten the rule of law, and even democracy itself, in every country throughout the world."

In Italy, candidates on the Anti-Prohitionist list took part in the European elections in 1989 (obtaining 429,000 votes, with Marco Taradash being elected as a member of the European Parliament) and in local government elections in 1990 (with six regional, four provincial and six city councillors being elected). This has ensured continued opposition at all levels to the new law on drugs brought in by the Italian Government in June 1990, a dangerous compromise between American prohibitionism and Italian-style solidarity!