Assessing alternative drug control regimes

Abstract

The debate over alternative regimes for currently illicit psychoactive substances focuses on polar alternatives: harsh prohibition and sweeping legalization. This study presents an array of alternatives that lies between these extremes. The current debate lacks an explicit and inclusive framework for making comparative judgments. In this study, we sketch out such a framework, as a reminder of possible policy levers and their costs and benefits that might otherwise be neglected or go unrecognized. The framework identifies a range of pharmacological and economic characteristics of substances, potential harms and their bearers, and the sources of those harms, including drug use, trafficking, law enforcement, and illegal status per se. The framework highlights the difficulty of making objective, rigorous comparisons among regimes, but we believe that it can serve a useful heuristic role in promoting more constructive debate and identifying fruitful questions for research.

Drug Policy: Insights from Mathematical Analysis

“…Indeed, treatment is sometimes described as a "hook" for getting needy people in contact with health and social service agencies. Such a "harm reduction" approach to drug control is common outside the US (MacCoun et al, 1996), although it has not in general been the subject of much formal systems analysis.…”

Legally flawed, scientifically problematic, potentially harmful: The UK Psychoactive Substance Bill

“…Even if the Bill does lead to a reduction in the availability and use of NPS, this will not reduce overall rates of drug-related harm if it pushes people towards more dangerous forms of buying and using NPS and the already prohibited substances (MacCoun, Reuter, & Schelling, 1996). It will be very difficult to achieve a reduction of 12 deaths related to currently uncontrolled psychoactive substances, given that this would represent a two thirds reduction of the deaths in which such substances were implicated in 2014 (ONS, 2015).…”

In the Shadow. Illegal Markets and Economic Sociology

“…For some illegal markets -for example, illegal drugs -there is a political debate on whether they should be transposed into regulated legal markets due to the negative social effects of their illegal operation or because of the potential tax income for the state once the market is legalized (MacCoun 1996). There are also examples of markets -alcohol and gambling in the United States -that were once illegal and were legalized.…”