NCJ Number
125675
Journal
International Journal on Drug Policy Volume: 2 Issue: 1 Dated: (July-August 1990) Pages: 16-22
Date Published
1990
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This critique of the 1987 Dorn and South "A Land Fit for Heroin," which argued from the perspective of Left Realism, agrees with many of the work's arguments, but maintains that weaknesses mean that the policies advocated are not suitable to resolving the heroin problem nor the drug problem in general. This article maintains that a policy needs to be constructed upon general categories and processes including pleasurable commodities, commodification, and the construction of temporality in modern society.
Abstract
Left Realists argue that criminology should be restructured to account for the views and experiences of inner city working class people for whom crime is a constant problem. Dorn and South assume three principal themes concerning heroin and heroin policy: Left Realist theory, the deficit model, and the policy of harm and use reduction. These principles lead to the conclusion that drug use is a negative pathology that can be solved through economic change. In political terms, they advocate policies that are electorally acceptable, but practically unrealistic. Their two mistakes are to assume that pursuit of drug use reduction can be advocated with a simultaneous check of economic growth, and that policies widely believed to work will actually work. The policy advocated in this article would consist of realistic harm minimization strategies similar to those applied to alcohol use and abuse. 26 references.