Hawks Ascendant: The Punitive Trend of American Drug Policy (From Drug Use and Drug Policy, P 365-402, 1997, Marilyn McShane, Frank P. Williams, III, eds. - See NCJ-168395)

• NCJ Number: 168412
• Author(s): P Reuter
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 38 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Ford Foundation; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; Weingart Foundation
• Sale Source: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC

Annotation

This article proposes a discussion among supply side advocates (hawks), legalizers (doves), and bold demand-side advocates (owls) about the nature of the drug problem and the consequences of different approaches to controlling it.

Abstract

This article describes the increasing success of the hawks, who have taken control of drug policy and given it a distinctively punitive tone. The article suggests that the hawks may have gone too far. The punishment is expensive, in money terms and in the human costs of locking up many people for relatively minor offenses and not locking up many others for more serious offenses. A better approach would be to adopt less punitive measures and allocate more resources to prevention and treatment, an approach derived from the European "harm reduction" movement. The continuing decline in initiation among America's youth makes it clear that the drug problem is mostly the dangerous behavior of a relatively small number of adults who became addicted in the heroin epidemic of 1967-1973 or the cocaine epidemic of the 1980s. Perhaps locking them up will start to look more expensive and less attractive than developing better quality health and social services aimed at reducing their drug use and at improving their social functioning. Tables, notes