Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times, and Places / Edition 1

by Robert J. MacCoun, Peter Reuter

Overview

This meticulously researched study represents the first effort to provide a nonpartisan and objective analysis of how the United States should approach the drug legalization question. It surveys what is known about the effects of different drug policies in Western Europe and what happened when cocaine and heroin were legal in the US a century ago. The book shows that legalization involves different tradeoffs between health and crime and the interests of the inner city minority communities and the middle class. The book explains why it is so difficult to accomplish substantial reform of drug policy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521799973
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	08/27/2001
Series:	RAND Studies in Policy Analysis
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	496
Product dimensions:	6.02(w) x 8.98(h) x 1.02(d)

Table of Contents

1. Preface and overview; 2. Drug prohibition: American style; 3. The debate; 4. Philosophical underpinnings; 5. How does prohibition affect drug use?; 6. How does prohibition affect drug harms?; 7. Other vices: prostitution and gambling; 8. Other substances: alcohol and cigarettes; 9. US experience with legal cocaine and heroin; 10. Learning from European experiences; 11. Cannabis policies in the Netherlands; 12. Harm reduction in Europe; 13. Summary of the evidence and a framework for assessment; 14. Projecting the consequences of alternative regimes; 15. Obstacles to moving beyond the drug war.

Editorial Reviews

"...an enormously important book. This is especially true because drug policy is a field where tendentiousness prevails, with the exception of a very few other works...for anybody seriously and earnestly concerned about drug policy, it is likely to become indispensible." The Nation

"MacCoun and Reuter's book turns out to be first-rate scholarship. It is an incredibly carefully researched, thoughtful book—far and away the best scholarship I have ever encountered on the subject. This is a book I would recommend to economists interested in researching the area, to those just generally interested in the topic, and to cocktail party bores who mindlessly preach either the necessity of legalization or the inevitability of social ruin if legalization were to occur." Journal of Economic Literature

"...the largest, most sweeping comparative investigations of the contemporary use, regulation, and policing of various drugs and addictive behaviors..." amazon.com

"MacCoun and Reuter offer a refreshing, even unique, overview based more on data than preconceptions, and paying attention to aspects of this important issue that are generaly ignored.... Although no easy answers are offered, there are good and welcome guidelines on how to address the unavoidable difficult questions." Choice

"The book is well written, and it provides a fresh perspective on several options for drug policy. It certainly gives a valuable perspective on these enduring issues." Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare

From the Publisher

MacCoun and Reuter, former staff members at the RAND who study drug policy and behavior, have produced one of the largest, most sweeping comparative investigations of the contemporary use, regulation, and policing of various drugs and addictive behaviors, all with an eye to suggesting how the United States might decriminalize certain drugs and rethink public policy toward addictive substances generally. The sheer weight and variety of the authors' evidence, the especially instructive comparisons of addictive behaviors and policies in Western European societies most akin to the United States, and the linking of American policy to punitive antidrug practices in the Third World give the authors' arguments an intellectual heft and force no public discussion on the subject can hereafter ignore. Some readers will not be persuaded by the authors' pointing to the subjective, and even inconclusive, nature of "drug studies." So, too, the comparison of gambling, prostitution, and alcohol consumption with heroin, cocaine, and marijuana use sometimes strains the analysis. But the authors preach common sense rooted in evidence rather than dogma; their temperate tone throughout and their command of the subject make their book anything but a "heresy." Recommended for most collections. Randall M. Miller, Saint Joseph's Univ., Philadelphia Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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