Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part One The drug problem
- Part Two The drug control policy process
- Introduction
- 5 The universal proposition: Children and drug control policy
- 6 Drug control policy and street crime
- 7 The federal role in a national drug strategy
- 8 Memorandum to a new drug czar
- Appendix: Estimates of illicit drug use - a survey of methods
- References
- Index
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of tables and figures
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Part One The drug problem
- Part Two The drug control policy process
- Introduction
- 5 The universal proposition: Children and drug control policy
- 6 Drug control policy and street crime
- 7 The federal role in a national drug strategy
- 8 Memorandum to a new drug czar
- Appendix: Estimates of illicit drug use - a survey of methods
- References
- Index
Summary
What we call trickle-down processes of determining drug policy are unsatisfactory, for two reasons. First, any policy position that can be deduced from sweeping principles is probably itself too broad to serve the public interest efficiently. Second, policy choices usually cannot be inferred at all from broad attitudes toward illicit drugs. Policy choice in drug control is a matter of providing answers to questions like: How many government resources should we devote to drug control rather than other pressing societal problems? Which drugs should be the priority focus of government programs? What specific deleterious consequences of drug use should treatment and prevention programs regard as special priorities for prevention and treatment? What mechanisms should we choose to reduce the supply of illicit drugs? These are questions of means as well as ends, specific choices that force us to identify those aspects of drug use that we regard as particularly problematic.
The right kind of drug policies should be built from the ground up, based on a determination of priority problems. The materials presented in this part of the book have been organized in accordance with this view of the policy process. Chapters 5 and 6 address what are regarded as the two most important problems associated with illicit drug taking: child endangerment and predatory crime. Each chapter assesses what is known about the nature of the problem and the implications of current knowledge for specific patterns of drug policy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Search for Rational Drug Control , pp. 113 - 114Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992