On the biopolitics of humane drug policies: What can we learn from 19th century sobriety boards?

Abstract

Background: In accordance with recommendations from The United Nations’ Chief Executives Board of Coordination, several countries are in the process of reforming their punitive drug policies towards health-based approaches – from punishment to help. The Portuguese model of decriminalisation is generally seen as a good model for other countries and has been scientifically described in favourable terms, and not much scrutinised. Method: This article draws on foucauldian archaeological and genealogical approaches in order to understand and compare governance logics of the 19th century Norwegian sobriety boards and 21st century Portuguese commissions. In doing this, we problematize contemporary drug policy reform discussions that point to the “Portuguese model”, which aims to stop punishing and start helping drug-dependent people, are problematised. Findings: The Portuguese commissions investigate whether drug-using people are dependent or not. Dependency, circumstances of consumption and their economy are considered when the commission decides on penalising, assisting, or treating the person, or a combination of all this. This model was studied alongside the Norwegian sobriety boards mandated by the Sobriety Act that was implemented in 1932. Sobriety boards governed poor alcoholics. Authorities from the sobriety movement were central in creating sobriety policies that culminated in sobriety boards. The Portuguese commissions have similarities to Norwegian sobriety boards. They make use of sanctions and treatment to govern people who use illicit substances to make them abstain, with the view that this is emancipatory for these people. The different apparatuses have distinct and different ways of making up, and governing their subjects. Conclusion: This article contributes to debates on drug policy reforms and aims to investigate whether they might produce biopower effects of governance masked by an emancipatory language. There is a need for critical studies on drug policy reforms to avoid policies that maintain divisions and control marginalised populations.

Förnuft och känsla – Kunskapsbruk hos gårdagens förbudskritiker och dagens alkoholliberaler

“…Det andra nedslaget fokuserar på tankesmedjan Timbros alkoholpolitiska engagemang åren 2012–2020. Syftet är att analysera utomstatliga aktörers alkoholpolitiska kunskapsbruk i början av 1900-talet respektive 2000-talet genom att studera deras huvudargument, kunskapsunderbyggnad och övergripande diskursiva legitimering ( Johansen et al 2021 ).…”

Utilising ‘new’ power strategies for public health education in addiction and dependency: learning from social media influencers

“…These mutations are intrinsically linked, he claims, to recent changes in ways of understanding and exercising political power. In this tradition using Foucault's genealogical approach, Johansen et al (22), for example, trace the construction of the 'addict' in 19 th Century policy and its relationship to drug reforms and social regulation attempts and argue that the 'addict' was brought into being as a result of various forms of social and political power. As Sedgwick ( 23) has observed the addict seems to be a perfect candidate for a list of identities that emerged at the end of the eighteenth century and intensified throughout the nineteenth: the hysterical woman; the Malthusian couple; the masturbating child; and the perverse adult.…”