The role of value assumptions in shaping drug policy

An acceptable policy on the drug problem specifies who will be its focus, when employees should be questioned about or tested for drugs, why the problem should be addressed at all, and what the institution should be concerned about. The more explicit policymakers are about the values that determine the answers to these questions, the better able they will be to devise a fair and equitable program. U.S. culture favors the contractual model of justice. It dictates that the power anyone can have over another must be strictly limited to the terms of the agreement they have entered into and that obligations should be similarly limited. A stress on the value of individual freedom is therefore implicit in the contractual justice perspective, and institutions and individuals who subscribe to it would be expected to resist drug testing programs as long as possible. On the other hand, a "distributive/contributive" model of justice, as advocated by the U.S. bishops in their 1986 pastoral letter on economic justice, emphasizes the mutual responsibility of institutions (or societies) and individuals for the total well-being of one another. Committed to the communal values of inclusion and participation, the distributive/contributive ideal of justice would give institutions an alternative, and perhaps more constructive, perspective on the issues involved in the problem of drug use.