Book review of Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter, Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times & Places. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. $75.00 hardcover, $25.00 papercover

Midanik, Lorraine T.

English

ScholarWorks at WMU

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare Volume 30 Issue 2 June Article 11 June 2003 Review of Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times & Places. Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter. Reviewed by Lorraine T. Midanik. Lorraine T. Midanik University of California at Berkeley Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw  Part of the Public Policy Commons, and the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation Midanik, Lorraine T. (2003) "Review of Drug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times & Places. Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter. Reviewed by Lorraine T. Midanik.," The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare: Vol. 30 : Iss. 2 , Article 11. Available at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol30/iss2/11 This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the Social Work at ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact maira.bundza@wmich.edu. Book Reviews 177the problems of world economies on the cost of social programs.She ends her discussion without holding out much hope for suchlarge-scale international organizing.This is not a happy book, but it is an important one foranyone involved in or even concerned about the present stateof social provision in industrial countries, how it got where it is,the directions in which it seems to be headed, and what might bedone.Charles GuzzettaHunter CollegeRobert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter, Drug War Heresies: Learn-ing from Other Vices, Times & Places. New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2002. $75.00 hardcover, $25.00 papercover.In 1970, Troy Duster wrote a groundbreaking book entitledThe Legislation of Morality in which he argued that " ... moral be-liefs upon which we have based our public policy are themselvesfounded on myths about both the physical effects of drugs anderrors about the total quality of persons addicted (p. 239)." Now,32 years later, MacCoun and Reuter have taken this argumentfurther by carefully developing a set of frameworks by whichspecific drug policies can be assessed. They rightly argue thatunnecessary and unproductive dichotomies have been presentedin the literature that polarize policy options. Total prohibitionis one view strongly held by almost all political leaders, lawenforcement, and to a large extent, the general public. It arguesthat illicit drugs are harmful and should continue to be legallyprohibited with stronger enforcement and somewhat more se-vere penalties because they are morally unacceptable. Harm' re-duction/legalization, the other view, is held primarily by a fewacademics and researchers who argue that the sheer fiscal costsassociated with prohibition in terms of criminality and law en-forcement demonstrate that these policies need to be loosened orpossibly abandoned. This book makes a creative effort to narrowor bridge the gap between these two views and provide a neutralassessment of different policy in light of a critical assessment ofhistorical and international trends.178 Journal of Sociology & Social WelfareThe book is divided into four parts. The first section providesan overview that sets the tone for how the analysis will proceed.The authors describe a set of dichotomies which define how drugpolicy is generally perceived. These include abstinence versusharm reduction as goals for drug policy; criminalization versuslegalization as national drug strategies; and, criminal versus pub-lic health problem for how drug use/abuse is defined. The rest ofthe book goes well beyond these dichotomies in an attempt to "de-polarize" these views and resolve their differences in the hopes ofdeveloping a truly effective national drug policy. The reframingof dichotomous extremes and their likely effects on society is themain contribution of this work; it provides a refreshing break fromthe work of scholars advocating for a particular view. While it isclear that these authors are not supporting current drug policyper se, MacCoun and Reuter are not blinded by their own views,and they succeed in presenting a neutral assessment of what isand what might be.While the book does provide in depth description of drugpolicy in The Netherlands, Switzerland and other countries inEurope, its unique contribution stems from the last part of thebook in which the authors project possible outcomes of differentstrategies, such as depenalization, a regulated adult market, andmaintenance of drug use for different drugs including cocaine,heroin and cannabis. In a fairly cautious manner, MacCoun andReuter attempt to project how these various regimes may affectthe prevalence of use, harms related to use, and distributiveissues in the U.S. if adopted. They also are clear about how muchuncertainty is related to their projections. For example, for somedrugs, there is better knowledge of some outcomes given theexperiences of other countries, such as the Dutch experience withcannabis. For other drugs, there is much uncertainty given thatthere is less or no experience with these strategies, for example,cocaine and heroin. What is exceedingly clear from the authors'analysis is that this is an extremely complicated area ladened withmorality and uncertainty thus it is easy to determine why the U.S.has generally maintained an abstinence, prohibitionist positionover the years.While this book does illustrate some possible policy alterna-tives, there are several places that could have been developedBook Reviewsmore fully. First, while one can construct rational arguments forwhy our current prohibitionist drug policy does not and cannotwork and propose other policies that might well be somewhatbetter, there is always the political process which itself is oftenentrenched in moral claims. The book provides few insights intowhat it would take to change this process so that drug policyreform could possibly occur. At present politicians and the publicsupport the zero-tolerance, abstinence approach to illicit drugsand overwhelmingly reject legalization with the exception of"compassionate use" of medical marijuana legislation that haspassed in some states. What will it take for these public per-ceptions to change so that harm reduction approaches can gainbetter and stronger support? Another area that is problematic inthe book is the brief inclusion of gambling and prostitution as"other vices." These few pages seek to draw a parallel betweenthese behaviors and illicit drug use, but their brevity precludes athorough assessment. Thus, it might have been better to eliminatethese areas from the book. Sadly, there is also considerable redun-dancy in the book-the overview reviews several arguments indepth and the reader sees them again in later chapters of the book.Throughout the book, the authors constantly refer backwards andforwards to different chapters which is confusing and probablyindicates more overlap than necessary.Despite these limitations, the book is well written, and itprovides a fresh perspective on several options for drug policyIt offers a reasonable approach to the often irrational argumentsin this field which often claim moral certainty. One hopes thatthose in a position to develop and/or influence drug policy willread this book as it certainly gives a valuable perspective on theseenduring issues.Lorraine T. MidanikUniversity of California at BerkeleyDavid L. Altheide, Creating Fear: News and the Construction ofa Crisis. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 2002. $26.95papercover.Why are those members of our society who are least likely tobe victims of crime and violence arming themselves in unprece-

Review of \u3cem\u3eDrug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times & Places.\u3c/em\u3e Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter. Reviewed by Lorraine T. Midanik.

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Review of \u3cem\u3eDrug War Heresies: Learning from Other Vices, Times & Places.\u3c/em\u3e Robert J. MacCoun and Peter Reuter. Reviewed by Lorraine T. Midanik.

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