Neither Prohibition Nor Legalization: Grudging Toleration in Drug Control Policy (From Drug Use and Drug Policy, P 179-209, 1997, Marilyn McShane, Frank P. Williams, III, eds. - See NCJ-168395)

• NCJ Number: 168406
• Author(s): M A R Kleiman
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 31 pages
• Sale Source: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC

Annotation

This chapter argues for a drug policy in between prohibition and legalization.

Abstract

The article explores society's grudging toleration of vice and drugs, the definition of vice, and the problems of attempting to control vice and drugs through policy. After discussing the alcohol regulation model and describing possibilities of taxation and restrictions on buyers and sellers (components of grudging toleration), the article proposes models for the grudging toleration of marijuana and cocaine. Grudging toleration does not hold out the prospect of a "solution" to the drug problem. Even for those substances to which it could be successfully applied, it would involve a mix of abuse costs and control costs. It is not the best regime for all drugs. The article claims that it would not be effective with regard to cocaine, and suggests instead several improvements in current policies: shifting resources from high-level to retail-level enforcement, with an emphasis on low-arrest strategies; abolition of long mandatory minimum sentences except for true "kingpins" and those who engage in violence in connection with dealing; and a program of coerced abstinence, backed by random testing and sanctions, for cocaine and heroin users who are also drug dealers, muggers, burglars, or assailants. Notes