How Does Prohibition Affect Drug Use?
Our current Prohibition isn’t very successful at stopping drug use, for many obvious and not-so-obvious reasons. However, in order to sharpen our focus on this issue it is helpful to list the social effects that prohibitionist policies have on drug use. Here we go:
- Deterrence or the fear of legal sanctions
This mostly concerns expected legal risks (Example: the likelihood of the punishment for the prohibited activity in the eyes of a typical Joe Public.) - Informal self and social controls
(a) Morality or legitimacy; (Example: Many people won’t try drugs if the society considers drug use to be something shameful and despicable.)
(b) Forbidden fruit effects; (Example: Teens rebelling against the authority might be tempted to try drugs simply because the mainstream tells them not to.)
(c) Community norms; (Example: Very religious rural communities create an environment that is less conducive to drug use than, say, a large cosmopolitan urban area.)
(d) Informal or extra-legal social sanctions. (Example: The fear of being ostracized or being labeled a drug addict by friends and neighbors.)
While the economic laws of supply and demand make sure that the prohibitionist action-based policies are bound to fail, the prohibitionist propaganda (that was so prevalent during the Bill Bennett years) that tries to frame drug use as a social and moral taboo can be more successful. If the society believes that drug use is immoral, any rational argument for or against it becomes pretty irrelevant. Notice how in the list above, every type of social control mechanism (except the forbidden fruit effect) would work towards hampering activities associated with drug use in a drug-intolerant society.
admin :: Jul.27.2007 :: Social Policy :: 1 Comment »
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