The Politics of Drug Control

The Politics of Drug Control
Author: M. Bentham
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 255
Release: 1998-10-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0230376592

The Global Politics of Drug Control sets the drug problem into a theoretical framework which aids understanding of the phenomenon by focusing on changing international values and norms. In the early literature on drug use, drugs were considered primarily as a social problem and the focus was on seeking a national policy. However, in the 80s the problem was increasing, requiring international cooperation and action, bringing the concerned to the arena of international relations scholars. The book focuses on changing values and norms in the international community that allow the discipline of international relations to add something new to the current debate on the subject. This book should appeal to all those interested in the current discussions on the drug phenomenon as well as to students and academics in the area of international relations and related disciplines.

The Politics of Drug Control

The Politics of Drug Control
Author: Mandy Bentham
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Total Pages: 243
Release: 1998
Genre: Self-Help
ISBN: 9780312211882

In addition to clarifying what is meant by a global issue using regime analysis, this book discusses the drug problem as an amalgamation of different global issues - illegal drug use, the spread of AIDS, money laundering and government corruption.

Drug War Politics

Drug War Politics
Author: Eva Bertram
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 1996-07-15
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0520205987

"An important and timely book. The authors capture the dynamics of drug debate with uncanny accuracy. Too often, treatment and prevention get the short end of the stick in Congress, and this book explains why. Drug War Politics makes a compelling case for bringing public health principles to bear on the drug epidemic, and is essential reading for serious students of the drug issue."—Senator Edward M. Kennedy "A thoughtful analysis of the most fundamental and troublesome social problem in America. It reaches behind rhetoric and starts making sense about how we can go about saving ourselves from two addictions: the terrible affliction of drugs and the easy talk that makes the rest of us feel good but does not deal with the problem."—Kurt Schmoke, Mayor, City of Baltimore "This well-informed book shows how political expediency and a punitive conventional wisdom have combined over the past decades to support a national drug policy that fills our prisons, depletes our budget, and destroys our poor. This is a wonderfully sane analysis of what has become a major form of national insanity."—Frances Fox Piven, City University of New York "We've needed a new way of thinking about the drug problem for a long time. Now we have it. Drug War Politics is one of the best efforts to reconceptualize a major aspect of crime, especially victimless crime, that I have seen since Morris and Hawkins' The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control of nearly 30 years ago."—Theodore J. Lowi, Cornell University "A compelling analysis of our failure. The provocative public health solutions it proposes to the drug-related crime, violence, and despair that ravage many of our inner cities show that we can give people a chance—a chance to fight addiction and build better lives."—Congressman John Lewis "We will never be able to arrest, prosecute, or jail our way out of the drug problem. To understand why, read this book. The evidence is overwhelming: we need a radical change in the mission and mandate of drug control."—Nicholas Pastore, Chief of Police, New Haven "This is the smart citizens' guide to the drug policy debate—to why we spend so much time and money on things that don't work, and to where we can look for guidance for things that do."—Barbara Geller, Director, Fighting Back, New Haven

Drugs, Victims and Race

Drugs, Victims and Race
Author: Anita Kalunta-Crumpton
Publisher: Waterside Press
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2006
Genre: Drug abuse
ISBN: 1904380182

The author explores common but frequently misleading themes concerning race and drug control, providing an outline of UK drugs strategy from its class-oriented beginnings in the nineteenth century to the present day, identifying the real victims of drugs, drug trafficking and drug supply. She looks at the full range of drugs issues from the supply end of the drugs chain through enforcement and court proceedings to treatment approaches re addicts and other drug users.

Drugs and Drug Policy

Drugs and Drug Policy
Author: Mark A.R. Kleiman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2011-07-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0199831386

While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know®. They begin, by defining "drugs," examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.

Treating Drug Problems:

Treating Drug Problems:
Author: Committee for the Substance Abuse Coverage Study
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 332
Release: 1992-01-01
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 9780309043960

Treating Drug Problems, Volume 2 presents a wealth of incisive and accessible information on the issue of drug abuse and treatment in America. Several papers lay bare the relationship between drug treatment and other aspects of drug policy, including a powerful overview of twentieth century narcotics use in America and a unique account of how the federal government has built and managed the drug treatment system from the 1960s to the present. Two papers focus on the criminal justice system. The remaining papers focus on Employer policies and practices toward illegal drugs. Patterns and cycles of cocaine use in subcultures and the popular culture. Drug treatment from a marketing, supply-and-demand perspective, including an analysis of policy options. Treating Drug Problems, Volume 2 provides important information to policy makers and administrators, drug treatment specialists, and researchers.

Drugs Politics

Drugs Politics
Author: Maziyar Ghiabi
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2019-06-20
Genre: History
ISBN: 1108475450

Offers new and cutting-edge research on the role of drugs in Iranian society and government. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Drug War Politics

Drug War Politics
Author: Eva Bertram
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 368
Release: 1996-07-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780520918047

Why have our drug wars failed and how might we turn things around? Ask the authors of this hardhitting exposè of U.S. efforts to fight drug trafficking and abuse. In a bold analysis of a century's worth of policy failure, Drug War Politics turns on its head many familiar bromides about drug politics. It demonstrates how, instead of learning from our failures, we duplicate and reinforce them in the same flawed policies. The authors examine the "politics of denial" that has led to this catastrophic predicament and propose a basis for a realistic and desperately needed solution. Domestic and foreign drug wars have consistently fallen short because they are based on a flawed model of force and punishment, the authors show. The failure of these misguided solutions has led to harsher get-tough policies, debilitating cycles of more force and punishment, and a drug problem that continues to escalate. On the foreign policy front, billions of dollars have been wasted, corruption has mushroomed, and human rights undermined in Latin America and across the globe. Yet cheap drugs still flow abundantly across our borders. At home, more money than ever is spent on law enforcement, and an unprecedented number of people—disproportionately minorities—are incarcerated. But drug abuse and addiction persist. The authors outline the political struggles that help create and sustain the current punitive approach. They probe the workings of Washington politics, demonstrating how presidential and congressional "out-toughing" tactics create a logic of escalation while the criticisms and alternatives of reformers are sidelined or silenced. Critical of both the punitive model and the legalization approach, Drug War Politics calls for a bold new public health approach, one that frames the drug problem as a public health—not a criminal—concern. The authors argue that only by situating drug issues in the context of our fundamental institutions—the family, neighborhoods, and schools—can we hope to provide viable treatment, prevention, and law enforcement. In its comprehensive investigation of our long, futile battle with drugs and its original argument for fundamental change, this book is essential for every concerned citizen.

Drug Policy

Drug Policy
Author: Alison Ritter
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2021-11-29
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000488632

Taking a multidisciplinary perspective (including public health, sociology, criminology, and political science amongst others) and using examples from across the globe, this book provides a detailed understanding of the complex and highly contested nature of drug policy, drug policy making, and the theoretical perspectives that inform the study of drug policy. It draws on four different theoretical perspectives: evidence-informed policy, policy process theories, democratic theory, and post-structural policy analysis. The use and trade in illegal drugs is a global phenomenon. It is viewed by governments as a significant social, legal, and health problem that shows no signs of abating. The key questions explored throughout this book are what governments and other bodies of social regulation should do about illicit drugs, including drug policies aimed at improving health and reducing harm, drug laws and regulation, and the role of research and values in policy development. Seeing policy formation as dynamic iterative interactions between actors, ideas, institutions, and networks of policy advocates, the book explores how policy problems are constructed and policy solutions selected, and how these processes intersect with research evidence and values. This then animates the call to democratise drug policy and bring about inclusive meaningful participation in policy development in order to provide the opportunity for better, more effective, and value-aligned drug policies. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of drug policy from a number of disciplines, including public health, sociology, criminology, and political science.

The Quest for Drug Control

The Quest for Drug Control
Author: David F. Musto
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2008-10-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0300137842

Between 1960 and 1980 various administrations attempted to deal with a rising tide of illicit drug use that was unprecedented in U.S. history. This valuable book provides a close look at the politics and bureaucracy of drug control policy during those years, showing how they changed during the presidencies of Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter and how much current federal drug-control policies owe to those earlier efforts. David F. Musto, M.D., and Pamela Korsmeyer base their analysis on a unique collection of 5,000 pages of White House documents from the period, all of which are included on a searchable CD-ROM that accompanies the book. These documents reveal the intense debates that took place over drug policy. They show, for example, that staffers and cabinet officers who were charged with narcotics policy were often influenced by the cultural currents of their times, and when the public reacted in an extreme fashion to rising drug use, officials were disinclined to adopt modified policies that might have been more realistic. Musto and Korsmeyer’s investigation into the decision-making processes that shaped past drug control efforts in the United States provides essential background as creative approaches to the drug problem are sought for the future.