Published by De Gruyter

Volume 6 Issue 1 -

July 2013

Issue of Journal of Drug Policy Analysis

Contents
Journal Overview

August 22, 2013

Smart Justice: A New Paradigm for Dealing with Offenders

Kevin Sabet, Stephen Talpins, Matthew Dunagan, Erin Holmes

Abstract

Given the size and cost of the American criminal justice system, new ways of thinking about community corrections are necessary to both reduce the economic impact and public safety consequences of offenders cycling in and out of prison and jail. Several new paradigms for dealing with offenders have recently emerged and are expanding throughout the United States. All of these approaches involve utilizing swift, certain, and modest sanctions, rather than random and severe sanctions, which is the status quo. This paper outlines the aforementioned approach by highlighting three such programs currently in existence in the United States. The paper ends with general guidelines for constructing similar cost-effective programs.

July 24, 2013

Harm Reduction and Illicit Drugs in U.S. Newspapers

Michael H. Eversman

Abstract

Illicit drug abuse remains a serious problem in the United States. While contemporary U.S. drug policies emphasize a prohibitionist “War on Drugs,” other countries have embraced public health based harm reduction. Whereas the current U.S. policy aims to eliminate drug use, harm reduction seeks to reduce its inevitable consequences, revealing an important ideological tension. Newsprint media depictions of drugs influence public opinion, discourse, and policy, particularly surrounding harm reduction programs and services. Combining textual discourse and qualitative content analyses, this study explores and describes discursive use of the term “harm reduction” with illicit drugs in a sample of 296 U.S. newspaper pieces published between 1990 and 2012. Typically describing harm reduction and “Drug War” strategies as incompatible, harm reduction supporters advocated a range of policy changes, whereas opponents described harm reduction as something to be avoided given the danger of drugs. A discourse theory framework situates the debate over harm reduction as tension in the U.S. drug policy hegemony, and considers domestic and international politic dynamics, and beliefs regarding the nature of substance use, addiction, and recovery.

Essays

August 22, 2013

Cooperative Enforcement Agreements and Policy Waivers: New Options for Federal Accommodation to State-Level Cannabis Legalization

Mark A.R. Kleiman

Abstract

Passage of marijuana-legalization initiatives in Colorado and Washington poses a problem for the federal government: marijuana remains illegal under federal law, but the federal government lacks the capacity to fully enforce that law without state and local cooperation. Complete deference to state legalization would put each state’s cannabis policy at the mercy of its neighbors’. A system of legislatively-authorized policy waivers would allow controlled exploration of alternative systems of control. In the absence of such authorization, the executive branch could use existing authority to craft cooperative agreements with the states intended to confine the effects of each state’s new policies within its own borders.

Erratum

September 7, 2013

Cooperative Enforcement Agreements and Policy Waivers: New Options for Federal Accommodation to State-Level Cannabis Legalization

Mark A.R. Kleiman

About this journal

Objective

The journal　Journal of Drug Policy Analysis (JDPA) has ceased publication and no longer publishes with DeGruyter Publishing.

History

One issue/year, updated continuously
ISSN: 1941-2851
Content available since 2008 (Volume 1, Issue 1)