NCJ Number
184591
Editor(s)
Ross Coomber
Date Published
1998
Length
293 pages
Annotation
These 13 papers review past and current drug policies in the United Kingdom and the United States and explore the rationality of the reasoning that produced the initial controls, the continuing relevance of those currently used, and alternative scenarios for future policies.
Abstract
Individual chapters explore the influences of morality, xenophobia, racism, sectional interests, and international politics on drug policies; the history of how the specific qualities attributed to opium, its derivatives, and drug users influenced drug controls; and the development and implementation of the 1914 Harrison Act. Additional chapters examine the power relationships involved in drug treatment, the concepts of moral panic and media representation, problems experienced in current drug law enforcement in the United Kingdom, and the impact of enforcement and other strategies in the War on Drugs in the United States. Further chapters analyze policy changes in treatment and rehabilitation from the 1970’s to the present, argue that drug prohibition is hypocritical and a contravention of basic human rights, examine the potential role of alternative development in poor countries that produce drugs, outline the therapeutic potential of currently illicit drugs, and question the validity of the belief that reducing current restrictions would make illicit drug use more compulsive and excessive. The final chapter examines international trends in drug policy and considers whether reason based on scientific data can have a larger role than it currently has on a topic dominated by unthinking reaction based on moralistic rhetoric. Table, chapter notes and reference lists, and index