Book Review: From witches to crack moms: Women, drug law, and policy

• Published date: 01 June 2017
• DOI: 10.1177/1057567717705190
• Date: 01 June 2017
• Author: Erin Allen
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

Boyd, S. C. (2015).

From witches to crack moms: Women, drug law, and policy (2nd ed.).

Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. xviii, 394 pp. $50.00. ISBN 978-1-61163-626-0

Reviewed by: Erin Allen, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA

DOI: 10.1177/1057567717705190

Susan Boyd’s From Witches to Crack Moms: Women, Drug Law, and Policy provides a thorough

examination of how drug policies, both current and historical, have differentially affected the lives

of women, and most especially poor and racialized women. Written from a feminist sociological

perspective, the book explores the social construction of drug law, looking comparatively at the

creation and implementation of drug law and policy in Britain, Canada, and the United States. The

author then critically examines how these policies create more harm than good both for the affected

women themselves and for their families. Although at times she draws upon her own research and

experience with as a social activist, the book is written as a well synthesized and in-depth literature

review. In addition to reviewing and criticizing the glaring faults within our current systems, Boyd

points to potential solutions that rely on evidence-based research and harm reduction techniques.

The attention-grabbing title, From Witches to Crack Moms, lends some insight into where Boyd

begins her work, with the persecution of witches and their use of plants for spiritual practice and

healing. While Boyd does not spend a great deal of time and energy discussing witch trials them-

selves, she effectively uses this discourse as a way of pointing readers to the historical complexity of

the role of women in modern Western soci ety, situating the development of dru g law and the

regulation of women within a historical and social framework. From here, she continues to highlight

how moral reformers, temperance ideology, and prohibition movements have helped to shape

societal attitudes concerning altered states of consciousness in a largely negative manner. Women

who use drugs, Boyd argues, are likely to be considered more deviant than their male counterparts

due to the fact that society views them to be the moral providers of the home and the family.

Boyd provides a thorough examinatio n of how the moral regulation of women af fects their

sexuality and reproduction. In this arena, legal, social service, and medical directives intersect and

severely weaken the control a woman has over her own body and ability to reproduce. Fetal rights

and child abuse charges applied to the fetus create a path for further criminalization and stigmatiza-

tion of women who use illicit drugs during pregnancy, and these laws disproportionally affect poor

women and women of color. She points out that negative birth outcomes cannot be solely associated

with drug use, and that the effects of poverty and limited access to adequate health care during

pregnancy must also be considered, although these factors are largely ignored. Drawing upon studies

conducted in Scotland and the United Kingdom, Boyd points out that when a mother’s medical

and living needs are met during pregnancy, birth outcomes are similar for drug using and nondrug

using women.

Using these comparative studies between countries, Boyd addresses the need for harm reduction

initiatives, such as needle exchanges and safe injection sites, rather than punitive policies that seek

only to punish and further stigmatize drug users. She points out the weaknesses of drug courts and

drug treatments, in that they are often inaccessible to those they would benefit most due to the

restrictions of poverty and access to adequate legal representation. Further, women who do end up

within the prison system due to drug offenses are often treated as although they are a moral

hindrance to their families, and lengthy prison sentences for such offences have the negative effect

of tearing apart families and increasing th e number of children in the foster care system. It is

interesting to note that, in reference to foster care, Boyd observes that many women in prison were

themselves a product of the foster care system. Additionally, she notes that the treatment of pregnant

women in prison in the United States often violates international human rights standards.

156 International Criminal Justice Review 27(2)