VOL. 6, NO. 12 (December, 1996) PP.182-83.
DRUG WAR POLITICS: THE PRICE OF DENIAL by Eva Bertram, Morris
Blachman, Kenneth Sharpe, and Peter Andreas. Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1996. 347 pp.
Reviewed by Kenneth J. Meier
,Department of Political Science, University of
Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
DRUG WAR POLITICS argues that the current effort to combat drug
abuse in the United States is dominated by a "punitive
paradigm." Policies under this paradigm seek to control the
supply of drugs by massive interdiction efforts and stringent
punishment. Demand for drugs is addressed by allowing "zero
tolerance" and making "no distinctions," that is,
both dealers and users and subject to harsh punishments and no
distinctions are made between drugs that are extremely dangerous
and those that are less so.
The authors marshall a great deal of evidence to demonstrate that
the punitive paradigm is a complete failure. Despite annual
expenditures of $12 billion on drug control in the United States,
the supply of drugs entering the United States and the
availability of drugs to users has not been affected. Such
policies have generated an insatiable demand for prison space and
spawned a rash of violations of civil rights. Failure, however,
only convinces the advocates of drug wars that greater effort
needs to be taken--more money should be spent, prison sentences
should be stiffer, and more drastic measures should be
sanctioned. The "price of denial" in the authors' view
is "the persistence of unworkable policies in the face of
overwhelming evidence of their failure" (ix). Despite this,
the U.S. government has "consistently refused to engage in a
serious reevaluation of the strategy or a search for a different
approach" (1).
To replace the punitive paradigm, the authors offer what they
term the public health paradigm. Essentially the public health
paradigm is built around the notion that prevention is more
effective than cures. The damage of drug abuse and drug policy
should be considered both to the individual and to the larger
society (e.g., the ill effects of black markets). In addition to
programs for education and treatment, the public health approach
seeks to treat the social causes that generate drug
abuse--unemployment, poverty, disruption of families, etc. It is
a holistic approach that requires a fundamental rethinking about
the problem of drug abuse, its causes, and its consequences.
Examples are provided from both pilot programs in the United
States and from other countries. The authors are under no
illusion that such a shift will be easy to attain; they recognize
the incentives that politicians have to continue the current
policies. Little will change, they conclude, until "pressure
mounts from citizens and organized groups demanding an end to the
politics of denial" (263).
DRUG WAR POLITICS can be evaluated on two dimensions--as serious
scholarship and as a contribution to public policy debate. As
serious scholarship, the book fails. It presents no original
research, analyzes no data, tests no hypotheses, and is not
theoretically driven. The analysis that is done is secondary and
tertiary. Perhaps the most best illustration of the book's
approach is its consistent use of newspaper articles about
original research on drug policy rather than using the original
sources. The authors do a good job of piecing together evidence,
few factual errors are made, but at the same time the serious
scholar of drug policy will learn little new from the book.
Scholars interested in the "drug law exception to the Fourth
Amendment," for example, will not see a detailed examination
of state and federal court cases, but rather will be subjected to
a brief treatment with a few anecdotes and citations to the work
of others. Reviewers should never criticize authors for not
writing a different book; however, reviewers and readers should
expect a major university press to publish serious scholarship
rather than competent journalism.
As a contribution to the public policy debate, the book serves a
useful purpose. The authors have a good grasp of the history of
drug control policies to place the most recent war on drugs in
context. They document both the failures of drug policy and its
second-order costs on society; although some might quibble with
the relative attention to some topics, e.g., the role of drugs in
the corruption of police forces is given little attention and
asset seizure laws are barely discussed, in the end all the parts
are there. Many sections such as the one on why interdiction does
not work are very well done.
Despite the authors' hopes for the public health approach to drug
control, they apply the same critical assessment to the treatment
literature that they do to law enforcement policy. A persuasive
argument is made that treatment systems are currently in service
to the punitive paradigm and that only by supporting escalation
in the war on drugs, can treatment facilities gain additional
funding. The authors quite rightly imply that more funds for
treatment will not be panacea; that treatment is effective only
in limited conditions that require both a desire to quit and a
supportive social structure (job, family, etc.). The true
solution to drug abuse, they contend, requires addressing serious
problems of poverty and inequity. They realize that such an
approach will be difficult and unpopular politically, yet such
changes would clearly be no worse than current policy.
I recommend DRUG WAR POLITICS as a supplement in an undergraduate
public policy or criminal justice class. The reading level is
acceptable and it presents a reasoned argument. It joins perhaps
one-half dozen other recent books on the same topic; check the
card catalogue at your library, you can't expect me to do all the
work. For undergraduate classes DRUG WAR POLITICS will work as
well as any of the others. The book also serves as a nice
introduction to the area of drug control policy for journalists
and perhaps the general public. I would not recommend the book
for graduate level classes.
Copyright 1996