Drugs, Cultures and Controls in Comparative Perspective

Overly simple and one-dimensional definitions of a problem are likely to produce an overly simple and equally one-dimensional understanding of how that problem should be resolved. In September 1997 the incoming United Nations Drug Control Program Executive Director, Pino Arlacchi declared ?A Drug Free World ? We can do it!? This position was taken forward less than a year later with the decision by the United Nations General Assembly to re-affirm the principles of the 1988 Vienna Convention that had taken a relatively hard-line towards eradicating all illicit drug use, production and distribution. The basic underlying premise on which this approach was based is broadly outlined by the quotation used at the head of this page: drugs are inherently evil, their use inevitably undermines individual health and inexorably leads to the disintegration and destruction of community and society. Put simply, the contributors to this book show that (a) all of this need not be so; (b) such universalising statements ignore diversity and contrary evidence; (c) while drug-related problems undeniably do arise it will always be important to consider ?context?.