What Is Drug Policy For?, livre ebook

• An overdue re-examination of why we criminalise some substances and not others and the impact this has on lives in both developed and developing worlds

• Challenges the reader to consider how they would design a policy to manage intoxicating plants, derivatives and synthetic substances that have been traded across borders for centuries

• Julia Buxton is an internationally respected expert on the illicit drugs trade and the policies that attempt to eliminate it

The production, sale and possession of some drugs is criminalized – but why? And why, despite vast resources and budgets, have international efforts to control them so consistently failed?

Julia Buxton looks at how our current drug control regime came about from the first US-driven international meeting on drug control in the early 20th century and the ideologies behind it. She also charts the evolution of today's drugs market, looking at where drugs are produced and consumed, giving voice to those who get caught up in this world.

Ultimately she asks: if the current strategy isn't working, what should replace it?

Introduction

1 Drug Criminalization: Is it Working?

2 Building an International Drug Prohibition

3 The Persistence of the Drug User

4 The Problem of Endless Supply

5 What Chance of Drug Policy Reform?