NCJ Number
129566
Editor(s)
A S Trebach,
K B Zeese
Date Published
1990
Length
250 pages
Annotation
A series of papers challenge the Federal Government's policy of a "war on drugs," using the criminal justice system and the military and present alternative policies.
Abstract
The first four papers present the Bush administration's rhetoric and policy on the "war on drugs." These are followed by papers that criticize the drug war as being fundamentally unsound. Three papers then describe the Netherland's pragmatic drug strategy that emphasizes demand reduction. A series of papers focus on the crack threat, including the extent of women's use of crack and the "crack" babies they have produced. One paper advises that prohibition of crack may be more "toxic" than crack itself. Another group of papers focuses on the battle to make the medicinal benefits of marijuana available to persons with illnesses that are relieved by marijuana. Other papers focus on the irrationality of punishing narcotics addicts for what is either a sickness or a manageable behavioral problem not sufficiently injurious to others to warrant criminalization. The impact of drug-use criminalization on the AIDS epidemic is also discussed. The extremes of using the military to fight the drug war and to provide capital punishment for drug dealers are also addressed. Concluding papers present the views of a growing number of influential dissenters who oppose the drug-war policy. 47 references