NCJ Number
122172
Journal
International Journal on Drug Policy Volume: 1 Issue: 3 Dated: (November/December 1989) Pages: 24-26
Date Published
1989
Length
3 pages
Annotation
Peter Cohen, the Director of the Drug Research Program of the City of Amsterdam (Netherlands), argues that European countries must base their drug policies in their own research rather than relying upon the ideologically-based American drug research.
Abstract
To receive funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, drug research in America must serve the ideology of repression and the "war on drugs." Drug policies and the possibilities of variability in drug policies are different in Europe than in the United States. By letting the Americans dominate drug research, European countries accept that drug use in Europe can be compared with drug use in the United States and that American drug policy can be generalized to European conditions. Currently, there is such a lack of good, comparative ongoing research in Europe that this void is being filled with American data. Still, there are indications that Europeans are developing drug policies that differ from the American focus. Good research should be free from ideological bias and form the basis for the critique and development of governmental drug policy.