5 Lire Struggle against Drug Abuse

San Marino's annual coinage program in the 1980s used its tiny mintage runs as a vehicle for UN-aligned social campaigns, with drug abuse awareness among the themes rotated through the five-lire denomination during this period. By 1985 the aluminium five-lire piece had essentially no purchasing power within San Marino itself — the denomination survived purely as a collectible artifact, struck in quantities low enough that circulation wear is almost never the reason a specimen degrades.