Drug Politics Theory: Analysis and Critique

Abstract

The last decade has seen the flourishing of drug politics theory. Rooted existentially in the political and cultural radicalism of the late 1960s and theoretically in the societal reaction perspective on deviance, it took off from the specific controversy over marihuana to pose the general question of what conditions determine the legal and moral statuses of the use of various psychoactive drugs. True to its theoretical lineage, it has concluded that how a society reacts to drug use has less to do with the drug itself than the factors of class, status, and power in the social context in which use occurs. Put more simply, it has asserted that drug controls are largely efforts by powerful social groups to oppress powerless social groups.

In the last few years, drug politics theory has developed progressively more sophisticated specifications of this basic assertion. It is about time, therefore, to evaluate how well it has done.

Surveying the literature, we can conclude the following: First, drug politics theory is far more promising than any other approach to the question of the legal/moral statuses of drug use. Second, despite this, there are many kinds of drug controls that it simply cannot explain. It may be relevant only to certain moralistic responses to drug use. Third, historically, powerful groups have just as often tried to promote drug use among powerless groups as to control it, which is difficult for drug politics theory to explain. Fourth, drug politics theory has yielded a vast ensemble of often conflicting assertions, rather than a coherent body of ideas. There is disagreement on where in the control process politics intrudes, what social groups are responsible for controls, and what the functions of the control process are. These differences, furthermore, are often not recognized by the theorists themselves.