Drug Policy in the United States

Toward an Improved Multi-Criteria Drug Harm Assessment Process and Evidence-Based Drug Policies

“…Ultimately, further discussion is needed in order to generate as many proposals for evidence based methodological approaches and specific models of drug harm assessment as possible. This is a necessary step in order to provide desperately needed evidence for legislators at federal, state and local levels, prosecutors making decisions in cases of illegal use of drugs and citizens engaged in drug policy change via initiative and referenda activities (see McBride and Terry-McElrath, 2016 ). Drugs and potentially addictive substances will be adequately regulated only as a result of a public discussion on a sufficiently large, eligible set of evidence based harm assessments and policy options.…”

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

“…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, ; Inciardi, ; Musto, , ; Room and Reuter, ). 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, ; Erickson and Hathaway, ; Herring, Thom, Beccaria, Kolind, and Moskalewicz, ; Inciardi and Harrison, ; Kleiman, Hawken, and Caulkins, ; McBride and Terry‐McElrath, , Musto, ; Riley et al., ). 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, ; Brownstein, ; Falco, ; Inciardi, ; Reuter, ; Weisheit, ; Wisotsky, ).…”