The Shifting Landscape of Drug Policy and the Need for Innovative Research

• Author: Henry H. Brownstein
• Published date: 01 August 2016
• Date: 01 August 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12225

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION

DRUG MARKET CONFLICTS IN

AMSTERDAM

The Shifting Landscape of Drug Policy

and the Need for Innovative Research

Henry H. Brownstein

Virginia Commonwealth University

The making, enacting, and enforcing of policies about what substances should or

should not be legal for what purposes among what people in what places under

what circumstances is always interesting, and it is especially so when the social

and cultural conditions and forces that influence and shape those policies are changing.

Throughout the 20th century, nations around the world favored policies intended to

prohibit, or at least inhibit, the production, distribution, and use of certain drugs among

some or all of their citizens (Bewley-Taylor, 2003; Inciardi, 2007; Musto, 1991, 1999;

Room and Reuter, 2011). Both early and late in the century, there were open debates

about whether drugs should be viewed more as a medical and health problem or more

as a crime and safety problem (DuPont and Voth, 1995; Erickson and Hathaway, 2010;

Herring, Thom, Beccaria, Kolind, and Moskalewicz, 2010; Inciardi and Harrison, 2000;

Kleiman, Hawken, and Caulkins, 2011; McBride and Terry-McElrath, 2016, Musto,1991;

Riley et al., 1999). By the end of the century, drug policies in many countries around the

world and notably in the United States had solidified around prohibition, culminating in a

declaration of war on drugs (Biden, 1990; Brownstein, 2013; Falco, 1996; Inciardi, 2007;

Reuter, 1992; Weisheit, 1990; Wisotsky, 1986). The start of the 21st century has been an

especially interesting time for drug policy as the ground under aging policies is shifting.

What is happening with drug policy now has been called “a quiet revolution” (Rosmarin

and Eastwood, 2012), and this era has been described as a time of “transformative change

in the global drug policy landscape” (Taylor, Buchanan, and Ayres, 2016: 2).

It is always difficult to study the social world of hidden populations such as the con-

sumers, distributors, and producers of illicit drugs or to understand and explain the conse-

quences of their actions and the responses to those actions (Lambert, 1990). The difficulty

Direct correspondence to Henry H. Brownstein, L. Douglas Wilder School for Government and Public Affairs,

Kearney House, Room 202, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284

(e-mail: hhbrownstein@vcu.edu).

DOI:10.1111/1745-9133.12225 C2016 American Society of Criminology 837

Criminology & Public Policy rVolume 15 rIssue 3