Razor gang

Razor gangs were criminal gangs that dominated the Sydney crime scene in the 1920s. With the passage of the Pistol Licensing Act (NSW) 1927, the New South Wales State Parliament imposed severe penalties for carrying concealed firearms and handguns. Sydney gangland figures then chose razors as preferred weapons, for their capacity to inflict disfiguring scars.

Causes of the Razor gang phenomenon

The upsurge in organised crime was caused by the prohibition of sale of cocaine by chemists (under the Dangerous Drugs (Amendment) Act 1927), the prohibition of street prostitution (under the Vagrancy Act NSW 1905), the criminalisation of off-course race track betting (under the Betting and Gaming Act 1906) and the introduction of six o'clock closing for public bars after passage of the Licensing Act 1916 (NSW).

Cocaine distribution in Sydney: 1927–1939

By the early 1920s, almost sixty years had passed since German chemists Friedrich Gaedcke and Friedrich Wohler and Wohler's doctoral chemistry student Albert Niemann had isolated the first pure cocaine in 1855 and 1859, and since Italian doctor Paolo Mantegazza had discovered its euphoriant and stimulant effects as a recreational drug.