Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T08:12:45.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Heroin Decriminalization and the Ideology of Tolerance: A Critical View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 1978

Ronald Bayer
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Proposals for the decriminalization of heroin are examined and then analyzed in terms of the ideology of tolerance which informs anti-psychiatry, labeling sociology, and the concept of the victimless crime. Marcuse's discussion of repressive tolerance is brought to bear on this issue in order to suggest that tolerance for deviance may have consequences not immediately expected by those who advance reformist proposals regarding narcotics policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Winter 1978 , pp. 301 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 Law and Society Association.

Footnotes

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Fourth National Drug Abuse Conference, San Francisco, California, May 6, 1977 and the Conference of the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, July 24, 1977.

References

ABRAMS, Arnold et al. (1968) “Psychosocial Aspects of Addiction,” 63 Journal of Public Health 2142.Google Scholar
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION (1971) “Policy Recommendations on the Use, Possession and Sale of Narcotics.” Biennial Conference (September 15).Google Scholar
ARNOLD, Mark R. (1976) “Should Heroin Be Legal?” National Observer 1 (October 23).Google Scholar
BARBARA, John and June, MORRISON (1975) “If Addiction Is Incurable Why Do We Try To Cure it?” 21 Crime and Delinquency 28 (June).Google Scholar
BAYER, Ronald (1975a) “Liberal Opinion and the Problem of Heroin Addiction,” 4 Contemporary Drug Problems 93.Google Scholar
BAYER, Ronald (1975b) “Heroin Maintenance, The Vera Proposal and Narcotics Reform: An Analysis of the Debate 1971-1973,” 4 Contemporary Drug Problems 297.Google Scholar
BAYER, Ronald (1975c) “Drug Stores, Liquor Stores and Heroin: An Analysis of the Libertarian Debate,” 4 Contemporary Drug Problems 459.Google Scholar
BAYER, Ronald (1976) “Heroin Maintenance: An Historical Perspective on the Exhaustion of Liberal Narcotics Reform,” 8 Journal of Psychedelic Drugs 157.Google Scholar
BAZELON, David (1961) “Equal Justice for the Unequal,” Lecture III, Isaac Ray Lectures of the American Psychiatric Association University of Chicago (April 4).Google Scholar
BECCARIA, Cesare (1975) On Crime and Punishment. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
BECKER, Howard (1963) The Outsiders. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
CASTELLI, Jim (1972) “Crimes Without Victims,” 37(4) U.S. Catholic 19 (April).Google Scholar
CLOWARD, Richard A. and Lloyd, OHLIN (1960) Delinquency and Opportunity. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
COOPER, Christie Godsil (1975) “Drug Abuse: A Review of Some Current Literature,” 24 De Paul Law Review 973.Google Scholar
DEININGER, Mark A. (1976) “The Economics of Heroin: Key to Optimizing the Legal Response,” 10 Georgia Law Review 565.Google Scholar
DOLE, Vincent P. and Marie, NYSWANDER (1965) “A Medical Treatment of Diacetyl-Morphine (Heroin) Addiction,” 193 Journal of the American Medical Association 646.Google Scholar
DOLE, Vincent P. (1967) “Heroin Addiction: A Metabolic Disorder,” 20Archives of Internal Medicine 21 (July);.Google Scholar
DURKHEIM, Émile (1951) Suicide. Translated by Spaulding, John A. and Simpson, George. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
DUSTER, Troy (1970) The Legislation of Morality: Law, Drugs and Moral Judgment. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
FRITCHEY, Clayton (1976) “New Look at an Old Devil,” New York Post 27 (November 7).Google Scholar
GRINSPOON, Lester and James B., BAKALAR (1976) Cocaine. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
GUSFIELD, Joseph (1969) Symbolic Crusade: Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
HAWKS, David (1974) “The Epidemiology of Narcotic Addiction in the United Kingdom,” In Josephson, E. and Carroll, E. (eds.) Drug Use: Epidemiological and Sociological Approaches. Washington, D.C.: Hemisphere Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
HUNT, Leon Gibson and Carl D., CHAMBERS (1976) The Heroin Epidemics: A Study of Heroin Use in the United States. New York: Spectrum Publications.Google Scholar
HUNT, Leon Gibson and Norman E., ZINBERG (1976) Heroin Use: A New Look. Washington, D.C.: Drug Abuse Council.Google Scholar
ISRAEL, Stuart M. and Kenneth M., MOGILL (1975) “Decriminalizing Heroin,” 54 Michigan State Bar Journal 283.Google Scholar
JACOBSON, Richard and Norman, ZINBERG (1975) The Social Basis of Drug Abuse Prevention. Washington, D.C.: Drug Abuse Council.Google Scholar
JACOBY, Russell (1973) “Laing, Cooper and the Tension in Theory and Therapy,” 17 Telos 41.Google Scholar
KADISH, Sanford (1968) “The Crisis of Over-Criminalization,” 7 American Criminal Law Quarterly 18.Google Scholar
KAPLAN, John (1975) “A Primer on Heroin,” 27 Stanford Law Review 801.Google Scholar
KITSUSE, John (1962) “Societal Reactions to Human Deviance,” 9 Social Problems 247.Google Scholar
KITTRIE, Nicholas (1973) The Right to be Different: Deviance and Enforced Therapy. Baltimore: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
LEMERT, Edwin (1972) Human Deviance, Social Problems and Social Control. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
MARCUSE, Herbert (1965) “Repressive Tolerance,” in Wolff, Robert Paul, Moore, Barrington Jr., and Marcuse, Herbert (eds.) A Critique of Pure Tolerance. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
MARX, Karl (1963) “On the Jewish Question,” in Bottomore, T.B. (ed.) Karl Marx: The Early Writings. London: C.A. Watts.Google Scholar
MATZA, David (1969) Becoming Deviant. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall.Google Scholar
MAY, Edgar (1972) “Narcotics Addiction and Drug Control in Great Britain,” in Council, Drug Abuse (ed.) Dealing with Drug Abuse. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
MERTON, Robert (1957) Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.Google Scholar
MITCHESON, Martin and Richard, HARTNALL (1977) “Controlled Comparison of Injected Heroin and Oral Methadone as Maintenance Treatment of Heroin Addiction.” Presented at the Fourth National Drug Abuse Conference, San Francisco, California (May 5).Google Scholar
MORRIS, Norval and Gordon, HAWKINS (1970) The Honest Politician's Guide to Crime Control. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
MUSTO, David (1973) The American Disease: Origins of Narcotics Control New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
PACKER, Herbert (1968) The Limits of the Criminal Sanction. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9780804780797CrossRefGoogle Scholar
PREBLE, Edward and John, CASEY Jr. (1969) “Taking Care of Business: Heroin User's Life on the Streets,” 4 International Journal of the Addictions 1.Google Scholar
PLATT, Anthony M. (1969) The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
RADZINOWICZ, Leon (1966) Ideology and Crime. London: Heinemann Educational Books.Google Scholar
SCHUR, Edwin (1962) Narcotic Addiction in Britain and America. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
SCHUR, Edwin (1965) Crimes Without Victims. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
SCHUR, Edwin (1969) “Reactions to Deviance: A Critical Assessment,” 75 American Journal of Sociology 309.Google Scholar
SCHUR, Edwin (1971) Labeling Deviant Behavior. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
SEDGWICK, Peter (1971) “R. D. Laing: Self, Symptom and Society” In R. Boyers and R. Orvill (eds.) R. D. Laing and Anti-Psychiatry. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
SEDGWICK, Peter (1972) “Mental Illness is Illness,” 20 Salamagundi 196.Google Scholar
SEDGWICK, Peter (1974) “Erving Goffman's Anti-Psychiatry,” 26 Salamagundi 26.Google Scholar
SKOLNICK, Jerome (1966) Justice Without Trial. New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
SLADE, Steve (1974) “The Holy War Against Heroin,” Progressive 26 (January).Google Scholar
SMITH, Alexander B. and Harriet, POLLACK (1971) “Crimes Without Victims,” Saturday Review 27 (December 4).Google Scholar
SZASZ, Thomas (1970a) The Manufacture of Madness. New York: Delta Books.Google Scholar
SZASZ, Thomas (1970b) Ideology and Insanity New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
SZASZ, Thomas (1972a) “The Ethics of Addiction,” Harper's Magazine 74 (April).Google Scholar
SZASZ, Thomas (1972b) Law, Liberty and Psychiatry. New York: Collier Books.Google Scholar
SZASZ, Thomas (1974) Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers. New York: Anchor Books.Google Scholar
SZASZ, Thomas (1977) The Theology of Medicine. New York: Harper & Row.10.1097/00004010-197702030-00021CrossRefGoogle Scholar
U.S. NEWS AND WORLD REPORT (1976) “Drugs: A $17 Billion-A-Year Habit That U.S. Can't Break,” U.S. News & World Report 26 (May 10).Google Scholar
WILSON, James Q., Mark H., MOORE and David, WHEAT Jr. (1972) “The Problem of Heroin,” 29 The Public Interest 3 (Fall).Google Scholar
WOLFF, Robert Paul (1968) The Poverty of Liberalism. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
WOLFGANG, Marvin E. (1968) “Discussion,” chapter VI in Halleck, Seymour L. and Bromberg, Walter (eds.) Psychiatric Aspects of Criminology. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas.Google Scholar
YOUNG, Jock (1972) The Drug Takers. London: Granada Publishing, Ltd.Google Scholar
ZINBERG, Norman E. (1975) “Addiction and Ego Function,” in Eissler, R. (ed.) The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child: Volume 30. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
ZINBERG, Norman E., Richard, JACOBSON and Wayne, HARDING (1975) “Sanctions and Rituals as a Basis for Drug Abuse Prevention,” 2 American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse 165.Google Scholar
ZINBERG, Norman A. and John A., ROBERTSON (1972) Drugs and the Public. New York: Simon & Schuster.Google Scholar