This dissertation aims to discuss the policies of drug control that are currently being applied taking as a departure point the experiences of the city of Santos. The research first investigates the multilateral development of prohibitionism. We find in much of the literature analyzed an understanding that positions the United States as the main promoters of policies to prohibit certain psychoactive substances and little explores the performance of other agencies in the operation of prohibitionism. Then, a discussion is held around the production of knowledge about the policies of drugs and the gaps left by the analyzed researches. From this reflection is presented an investigative proposal that dialogues with the prohibitionism in its diverse applications, finding in the debates on the urban question and the politics of scale an important theoretical framework. Thus, we investigate how different discourses and practices related to drugs have been articulated with the dynamics of spatial production of Santos, contrasting the coffee promotion policies initiated in the early twentieth century with those of cocaine interdiction - strengthened mainly after the 1960s. Considering how various factors are articulated by the city, we then question how do drug control policies authorize the production of differentiated spaces from the experience of Santos? Exploring this particular question promotes interesting reflections about how questions of race, class, and gender overlap with repressive practices and authorize a violent and asymmetrical application of prohibitionism.