Attachment Files

Drugs and the Drug Laws: Historical and Cultural Contexts

Summary/Abstract

This report is the product the Legal Frameworks Group of the King County Bar
Association Drug Policy Project, which included the participation of more than two
dozen attorneys and other professionals...

Content

DRUGS AND THE DRUG LAWS: HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXTS Americans are expected to be “drug-free” in a society in which both legal and illegal drugs are used to remarkable excess. While hundreds of thousands of American citizens are routinely arrested and incarcerated each year for possessing and using certain prohibited, psychoactive substances, the American commercial marketplace is flooded with attractive media images aggressively promoting other mind-altering or pleasure inducing substances to treat various new “disorders” and “syndromes” and to satisfy the American appetite for instant gratification. Any critical examination of current drug policies, as well as any recommendations for meaningful reform, must reflect an understanding of this paradox of drug use in America, a nation that purportedly eschews drugs yet consumes them with abandon. Crafting more effective policies to address the chronic problem of substance abuse requires an exploration of the historical and cultural contexts of the use of psychoactive substances in human societies and a review of the modern attempts to control such use, particularly in the United States. Read Entire Article Below...