Drugs and Rights

Drugs and Rights

Author: Douglas N. Husak

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1992-07-31

Total Pages: 328

ISBN-13: 9780521427272

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This book was the first serious work to address the question whether adults have the right to use drugs for recreational purposes.


Book Synopsis Drugs and Rights by : Douglas N. Husak

Download or read book Drugs and Rights written by Douglas N. Husak and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-07-31 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was the first serious work to address the question whether adults have the right to use drugs for recreational purposes.


Drugs and Drug Policy

Drugs and Drug Policy

Author: Mark A.R. Kleiman

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2011-07-13

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0199831386

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While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know®. They begin, by defining "drugs," examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.


Book Synopsis Drugs and Drug Policy by : Mark A.R. Kleiman

Download or read book Drugs and Drug Policy written by Mark A.R. Kleiman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2011-07-13 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there have always been norms and customs around the use of drugs, explicit public policies--regulations, taxes, and prohibitions--designed to control drug abuse are a more recent phenomenon. Those policies sometimes have terrible side-effects: most prominently the development of criminal enterprises dealing in forbidden (or untaxed) drugs and the use of the profits of drug-dealing to finance insurgency and terrorism. Neither a drug-free world nor a world of free drugs seems to be on offer, leaving citizens and officials to face the age-old problem: What are we going to do about drugs? In Drugs and Drug Policy, three noted authorities survey the subject with exceptional clarity, in this addition to the acclaimed series, What Everyone Needs to Know®. They begin, by defining "drugs," examining how they work in the brain, discussing the nature of addiction, and exploring the damage they do to users. The book moves on to policy, answering questions about legalization, the role of criminal prohibitions, and the relative legal tolerance for alcohol and tobacco. The authors then dissect the illicit trade, from street dealers to the flow of money to the effect of catching kingpins, and show the precise nature of the relationship between drugs and crime. They examine treatment, both its effectiveness and the role of public policy, and discuss the beneficial effects of some abusable substances. Finally they move outward to look at the role of drugs in our foreign policy, their relationship to terrorism, and the ugly politics that surround the issue. Crisp, clear, and comprehensive, this is a handy and up-to-date overview of one of the most pressing topics in today's world. What Everyone Needs to Know® is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press.


Law, Drugs and the Politics of Childhood

Law, Drugs and the Politics of Childhood

Author: Simon Flacks

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-03-31

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 1000368432

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Debates about the regulation of drugs are inseparable from talk of children and the young. Yet how has this association come to be so strong, and why does it have so much explanatory, rhetorical and political force? The premise for this book is that the relationship between drugs and childhood merits more exploration beyond simply pointing out that children and drugs are both ‘things we tend to get worried about’. It asks what is at stake when legislators, lobbyists and decision-makers revert to claims about children in order to sustain a given legal or policy position. Beginning with a genealogy of the relationship between the discursive artefacts of ‘drugs’ and ‘childhood’, the book draws on Foucauldian methodologies to explore how childhood functions as a device in the biopolitical management of drug use(rs) and supply. In addition to analysing decriminalisation initiatives and sentencing measures, it (unusually) reaches beyond the criminal context to consider the significance of the ‘politics of childhood’ for law- and policymaking in the fields of family justice and education. It concludes by arguing that the currency of childhood and ‘youth’ is not reducible to rhetoric; it shapes the discursive entities of drugs and addiction and is one of the ways in which particular substances become socially, culturally and politically intelligible. At the same time, ‘drugs’ serve as a technology of child normalisation. The book will be essential reading for policymakers as well as researchers and students working in the areas of Criminal Justice, Law, Psychology and Sociology.


Book Synopsis Law, Drugs and the Politics of Childhood by : Simon Flacks

Download or read book Law, Drugs and the Politics of Childhood written by Simon Flacks and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-03-31 with total page 186 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Debates about the regulation of drugs are inseparable from talk of children and the young. Yet how has this association come to be so strong, and why does it have so much explanatory, rhetorical and political force? The premise for this book is that the relationship between drugs and childhood merits more exploration beyond simply pointing out that children and drugs are both ‘things we tend to get worried about’. It asks what is at stake when legislators, lobbyists and decision-makers revert to claims about children in order to sustain a given legal or policy position. Beginning with a genealogy of the relationship between the discursive artefacts of ‘drugs’ and ‘childhood’, the book draws on Foucauldian methodologies to explore how childhood functions as a device in the biopolitical management of drug use(rs) and supply. In addition to analysing decriminalisation initiatives and sentencing measures, it (unusually) reaches beyond the criminal context to consider the significance of the ‘politics of childhood’ for law- and policymaking in the fields of family justice and education. It concludes by arguing that the currency of childhood and ‘youth’ is not reducible to rhetoric; it shapes the discursive entities of drugs and addiction and is one of the ways in which particular substances become socially, culturally and politically intelligible. At the same time, ‘drugs’ serve as a technology of child normalisation. The book will be essential reading for policymakers as well as researchers and students working in the areas of Criminal Justice, Law, Psychology and Sociology.


Unequal under Law

Unequal under Law

Author: Doris Marie Provine

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0226684784

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Race is clearly a factor in government efforts to control dangerous drugs, but the precise ways that race affects drug laws remain difficult to pinpoint. Illuminating this elusive relationship, Unequal under Law lays out how decades of both manifest and latent racism helped shape a punitive U.S. drug policy whose onerous impact on racial minorities has been willfully ignored by Congress and the courts. Doris Marie Provine’s engaging analysis traces the history of race in anti-drug efforts from the temperance movement of the early 1900s to the crack scare of the late twentieth century, showing how campaigns to criminalize drug use have always conjured images of feared minorities. Explaining how alarm over a threatening black drug trade fueled support in the 1980s for a mandatory minimum sentencing scheme of unprecedented severity, Provine contends that while our drug laws may no longer be racist by design, they remain racist in design. Moreover, their racial origins have long been ignored by every branch of government. This dangerous denial threatens our constitutional guarantee of equal protection of law and mutes a much-needed national discussion about institutionalized racism—a discussion that Unequal under Law promises to initiate.


Book Synopsis Unequal under Law by : Doris Marie Provine

Download or read book Unequal under Law written by Doris Marie Provine and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-09-15 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Race is clearly a factor in government efforts to control dangerous drugs, but the precise ways that race affects drug laws remain difficult to pinpoint. Illuminating this elusive relationship, Unequal under Law lays out how decades of both manifest and latent racism helped shape a punitive U.S. drug policy whose onerous impact on racial minorities has been willfully ignored by Congress and the courts. Doris Marie Provine’s engaging analysis traces the history of race in anti-drug efforts from the temperance movement of the early 1900s to the crack scare of the late twentieth century, showing how campaigns to criminalize drug use have always conjured images of feared minorities. Explaining how alarm over a threatening black drug trade fueled support in the 1980s for a mandatory minimum sentencing scheme of unprecedented severity, Provine contends that while our drug laws may no longer be racist by design, they remain racist in design. Moreover, their racial origins have long been ignored by every branch of government. This dangerous denial threatens our constitutional guarantee of equal protection of law and mutes a much-needed national discussion about institutionalized racism—a discussion that Unequal under Law promises to initiate.


Law, Drugs and the Making of Addiction

Law, Drugs and the Making of Addiction

Author: Kate Seear

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-25

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 0429834764

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This book considers how largely accepted ‘legal truths’ about drugs and addiction are made and sustained through practices of lawyering. Lawyers play a vital and largely underappreciated role in constituting legal certainties about substances and ‘addiction’, including links between alcohol and other drugs, and phenomena such as family violence. Such practices exacerbate, sustain and stabilise ‘addicted’ realities, with a range of implications – many of them seemingly unjust – for people who use alcohol and other drugs. This book explores these issues, drawing upon data collected for a major international study on alcohol and other drugs in the law, including interviews with lawyers, magistrates and judges; analyses of case law; and legislation. Focussing on an array of legal practices, including processes of law-making, human rights deliberations, advocacy and negotiation strategies, and the sentencing of offenders, and buttressed by overarching analyses of the ethics and politics of such practices, the book looks at how alcohol and other drug ‘addiction’ emerges and is concretised through the everyday work lawyers and decision makers do. Foregrounding ‘practices’, the book also shows that law is more fragile than we might assume. It concludes by presenting a blueprint for how lawyers can rethink their advocacy practices in light of this fragility and the opportunities it presents for remaking law and the subjects and objects shaped by it. This ground-breaking book will be of interest not only to those studying and working within the field of alcohol and drug addiction but also to lawyers and judges practising in this area and to scholars in a range of disciplines, including law, science and technology studies, sociology, gender studies and cultural studies


Book Synopsis Law, Drugs and the Making of Addiction by : Kate Seear

Download or read book Law, Drugs and the Making of Addiction written by Kate Seear and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book considers how largely accepted ‘legal truths’ about drugs and addiction are made and sustained through practices of lawyering. Lawyers play a vital and largely underappreciated role in constituting legal certainties about substances and ‘addiction’, including links between alcohol and other drugs, and phenomena such as family violence. Such practices exacerbate, sustain and stabilise ‘addicted’ realities, with a range of implications – many of them seemingly unjust – for people who use alcohol and other drugs. This book explores these issues, drawing upon data collected for a major international study on alcohol and other drugs in the law, including interviews with lawyers, magistrates and judges; analyses of case law; and legislation. Focussing on an array of legal practices, including processes of law-making, human rights deliberations, advocacy and negotiation strategies, and the sentencing of offenders, and buttressed by overarching analyses of the ethics and politics of such practices, the book looks at how alcohol and other drug ‘addiction’ emerges and is concretised through the everyday work lawyers and decision makers do. Foregrounding ‘practices’, the book also shows that law is more fragile than we might assume. It concludes by presenting a blueprint for how lawyers can rethink their advocacy practices in light of this fragility and the opportunities it presents for remaking law and the subjects and objects shaped by it. This ground-breaking book will be of interest not only to those studying and working within the field of alcohol and drug addiction but also to lawyers and judges practising in this area and to scholars in a range of disciplines, including law, science and technology studies, sociology, gender studies and cultural studies


Sex, Drugs, Death, and the Law

Sex, Drugs, Death, and the Law

Author: David Richards

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 9780847675258

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Among the most commonly argued legal questions are those involving "victimless" crimes--consensual adult sexual relations (including homosexuality and prostitution), the use of drugs, and the right to die. How can they be distinguished from proper crimes, and how can we, as citizens, judge the complex moral and legal issues that such questions entail? David Richards, a teacher of law in the areas of constitutional and criminal law, and a moral and legal philosopher concerned with the investigation of legal concepts, applies an interdisciplinary approach to the question of overcriminalization, he draws on legal and philosophical arguments and links the subject to history, psychology, social science, and literature. To demonstrate how gross and unjust overcriminalization has developed, Professor Richards explores basic assumptions that often underlie the common American sense of proper criminalization.


Book Synopsis Sex, Drugs, Death, and the Law by : David Richards

Download or read book Sex, Drugs, Death, and the Law written by David Richards and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1986 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Among the most commonly argued legal questions are those involving "victimless" crimes--consensual adult sexual relations (including homosexuality and prostitution), the use of drugs, and the right to die. How can they be distinguished from proper crimes, and how can we, as citizens, judge the complex moral and legal issues that such questions entail? David Richards, a teacher of law in the areas of constitutional and criminal law, and a moral and legal philosopher concerned with the investigation of legal concepts, applies an interdisciplinary approach to the question of overcriminalization, he draws on legal and philosophical arguments and links the subject to history, psychology, social science, and literature. To demonstrate how gross and unjust overcriminalization has developed, Professor Richards explores basic assumptions that often underlie the common American sense of proper criminalization.


Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It

Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It

Author: James Gray

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 2011-12-16

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 9781439907986

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Our drug prohibition policy is hopeless, just as Prohibition, our alcohol prohibition policy, was before it. Today there are more drugs in our communities and at lower prices and higher strengths than ever before. We have built large numbers of prisons, but they are overflowing with non-violent drug offenders. The huge profits made from drug sales are corrupting people and institutions here and abroad. And far from being protected by our drug prohibition policy, our children are being recruited by it to a lifestyle of drug use and drug selling. Judge Gray’s book drives a stake through the heart of the War on Drugs. After documenting the wide-ranging harms caused by this failed policy, Judge Gray also gives us hope. We have viable options. The author evaluates these options, ranging from education and drug treatment to different strategies for taking the profit out of drug-dealing. Many officials will not say publicly what they acknowledge privately about the failure of the War on Drugs. Politicians especially are afraid of not appearing "tough on drugs." But Judge Gray’s conclusions as a veteran trial judge and former federal prosecutor are reinforced by the testimonies of more than forty other judges nationwide.


Book Synopsis Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It by : James Gray

Download or read book Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed and What We Can Do About It written by James Gray and published by Temple University Press. This book was released on 2011-12-16 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our drug prohibition policy is hopeless, just as Prohibition, our alcohol prohibition policy, was before it. Today there are more drugs in our communities and at lower prices and higher strengths than ever before. We have built large numbers of prisons, but they are overflowing with non-violent drug offenders. The huge profits made from drug sales are corrupting people and institutions here and abroad. And far from being protected by our drug prohibition policy, our children are being recruited by it to a lifestyle of drug use and drug selling. Judge Gray’s book drives a stake through the heart of the War on Drugs. After documenting the wide-ranging harms caused by this failed policy, Judge Gray also gives us hope. We have viable options. The author evaluates these options, ranging from education and drug treatment to different strategies for taking the profit out of drug-dealing. Many officials will not say publicly what they acknowledge privately about the failure of the War on Drugs. Politicians especially are afraid of not appearing "tough on drugs." But Judge Gray’s conclusions as a veteran trial judge and former federal prosecutor are reinforced by the testimonies of more than forty other judges nationwide.


The Legalization of Drugs

The Legalization of Drugs

Author: Doug Husak

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-08-29

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 1139445855

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In the United States today, the use or possession of many drugs is a criminal offense. Can these criminal laws be justified? What are the best reasons to punish or not to punish drug users? These are the fundamental issues debated in this book by two prominent philosophers of law. Douglas Husak argues in favor of drug decriminalization, by clarifying the meaning of crucial terms, such as legalize, decriminalize, and drugs; and by identifying the standards by which alternative drug policies should be assessed. He critically examines the reasons typically offered in favor of our current approach and explains why decriminalization is preferable. Peter de Marneffe argues against drug legalization, demonstrating why drug prohibition, especially the prohibition of heroin, is necessary to protect young people from self-destructive drug use. If the empirical assumptions of this argument are sound, he reasons, drug prohibition is perfectly compatible with our rights to liberty.


Book Synopsis The Legalization of Drugs by : Doug Husak

Download or read book The Legalization of Drugs written by Doug Husak and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-08-29 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the United States today, the use or possession of many drugs is a criminal offense. Can these criminal laws be justified? What are the best reasons to punish or not to punish drug users? These are the fundamental issues debated in this book by two prominent philosophers of law. Douglas Husak argues in favor of drug decriminalization, by clarifying the meaning of crucial terms, such as legalize, decriminalize, and drugs; and by identifying the standards by which alternative drug policies should be assessed. He critically examines the reasons typically offered in favor of our current approach and explains why decriminalization is preferable. Peter de Marneffe argues against drug legalization, demonstrating why drug prohibition, especially the prohibition of heroin, is necessary to protect young people from self-destructive drug use. If the empirical assumptions of this argument are sound, he reasons, drug prohibition is perfectly compatible with our rights to liberty.


Our Right to Drugs

Our Right to Drugs

Author: Thomas Szasz

Publisher: Syracuse University Press

Published: 1996-04-01

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780815603337

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In Our Right to Drugs, Szasz shows how the present drug war started at the beginning of this century, when the US government first assumed the task of protecting people from patent medicines. By the end of World War I the free market in drugs was but a dim memory. Instead of dwelling on the familiar impracticality and unfairness of drug laws, Szasz demonstrates the deleterious effects of prescription laws, which place people under lifelong medical supervision. The result is that most Americans today prefer a coercive and corrupt command drug economy to a free market in drugs.


Book Synopsis Our Right to Drugs by : Thomas Szasz

Download or read book Our Right to Drugs written by Thomas Szasz and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 1996-04-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Our Right to Drugs, Szasz shows how the present drug war started at the beginning of this century, when the US government first assumed the task of protecting people from patent medicines. By the end of World War I the free market in drugs was but a dim memory. Instead of dwelling on the familiar impracticality and unfairness of drug laws, Szasz demonstrates the deleterious effects of prescription laws, which place people under lifelong medical supervision. The result is that most Americans today prefer a coercive and corrupt command drug economy to a free market in drugs.


Human Rights and Drug Control

Human Rights and Drug Control

Author: Melissa L. Bone

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-10-10

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1315310198

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This book uses a human rights perspective – developed philosophically, politically and legally – to change the way in which we think about drug control issues. The prohibitionist approach towards tackling the ‘drugs problem’ is not working. The laws and mentality that see drugs as the problem and tries to fight them, makes the ‘drugs problem’ worse. While the law is the best-placed mechanism to regulate our actions in relation to particular drugs, this book argues against the stranglehold of the criminal law, and instead presents a human rights perspective to change the way we think about drug control issues. Part I develops a conceptual framework for human rights in the context of drug control – philosophically, politically and legally – and applies this to the domestic (UK) and international drug control system. Part II focuses on case law to illustrate both the potential and the limitations of successfully applying this unique perspective in practice. The conclusion points towards a bottom-up process for drug policy which is capable of reconfiguring the mentality of prohibition. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of human rights, criminal law, criminology, politics and socio-legal studies.


Book Synopsis Human Rights and Drug Control by : Melissa L. Bone

Download or read book Human Rights and Drug Control written by Melissa L. Bone and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-10-10 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book uses a human rights perspective – developed philosophically, politically and legally – to change the way in which we think about drug control issues. The prohibitionist approach towards tackling the ‘drugs problem’ is not working. The laws and mentality that see drugs as the problem and tries to fight them, makes the ‘drugs problem’ worse. While the law is the best-placed mechanism to regulate our actions in relation to particular drugs, this book argues against the stranglehold of the criminal law, and instead presents a human rights perspective to change the way we think about drug control issues. Part I develops a conceptual framework for human rights in the context of drug control – philosophically, politically and legally – and applies this to the domestic (UK) and international drug control system. Part II focuses on case law to illustrate both the potential and the limitations of successfully applying this unique perspective in practice. The conclusion points towards a bottom-up process for drug policy which is capable of reconfiguring the mentality of prohibition. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of human rights, criminal law, criminology, politics and socio-legal studies.