The law, social control, and drug policy: models, factors, and processes

The law is governmental social control; it is the state's most direct intervention in the normative life of its citizens. Psychoactive drugs are controlled through regulation and prohibition, depending on the legal status of the particular substance. Licit drugs are made available through a regulatory scheme of medical prescription and legal sale; health is protected through investigating, licensing, and monitoring the quality and quantity of drugs and the circumstances in which they are consumed. Illicit drugs are forbidden by criminal statutes which create offenses related to both use (i.e., possession) and distribution (i.e., trafficking, importing); no level of use is acceptable and there is no legal source of supply. The agents of control for licit drugs are physicians, scientists, and health bureaucrats. In contrast, the agents that enforce illicit drug laws are the police, prosecutors, courts, and customs officials. The general preventive effect of the criminal law is activated through the threat of punishment and the setting of educative and moral standards of permitted behavior. The acceptability of drug-use behavior has varied widely across time, culture, and substance. What have we learned about the legal control of psychoactive substances? It is evident that a state may become increasingly overdependent on the law and neglect other alternatives of social control that may sometimes be more effective or less costly in reducing the possible harmful effects of drug use. The law is a powerful but also blunt instrument of social control.