NCJ Number
125866
Journal
Vanderbilt Law Review Volume: 42 Issue: 3 Dated: (April 1989) Pages: 725-818
Date Published
1989
Length
94 pages
Annotation
This study uses an interdisciplinary analysis to assess the Federal Government's drug demand reduction program with particular reference to cocaine abuse and identifies principles of demand reduction that should be followed.
Abstract
The study concludes that the Federal Government continues to devote most Federal resources to supply-side law enforcement methods that have a negligible effect on addicts. Altering the behavior of addicts is an essential element of any rational program for attacking the illegal drug industry by reducing market demand. Yet medical, psychological, and economic theories demonstrate that addicts will not be deterred by the law enforcement, education, and treatment programs enacted in the 1986 and 1988 antidrug statutes. The President's AIDS Commission has proposed a comprehensive national, long-term program that provides a treatment-based model for curtailing consumption by the critical population of drug abusers and addicts. To the limited extent that Congress implemented these proposals, it demonstrated that national policy and rational means of achieving these public goals can converge. Congress must design and fund programs that can remove large numbers of addicts from the population of cocaine users. 448 footnotes