Talk:Drug policy

Planning outline for article

I've removed this from the article as it is not content.

Drug policy focus on the difference between different anti-drug policies

• What is possible,
• How is carried out, what methods are used and in what mix
• Why is it done, what is the theory about addiction behind the anti-drug policy

This page was started with the goal that it it can have a broader view than for example Prohibition (drugs) ,War on drugs, Cannabis(drug) or Legal history of marijuana in the United States or articles about the Drug policy in a specific country. It is to be hoped that each section can give a presentation of a specific policy.

NJGW (talk) 19:41, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Swedish drug policy discussions

I've moved the extremely long debate about Swedish drug policy to that article's talk page. The section here should be a short synthesis of that, rather than this area be the battle grounds for that artilce. NJGW (talk) 05:03, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

FCM on fighting drug crime

There is fuzzy cognitive map on fighting drug crime, which is quite interesting for drug policy. Probably due to a mistake on my side that picture had been removed in 2007. You can get the PNG from http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:FCMdrug520.png (the license in the german Wikipedia is "cc-by" and the author has agreed to the usage of his picture in the wikipedia). In case you are interested to use the FCM in en,wikipedia, you can extract a SVG version from http://www.hrir.eu/FCMdrug.pdf. In de:Drogenkriminalität#Komplexit.C3.A4t_der_Drogenbek.C3.A4mpfung you can see, how the FCM can be converted into a table. --DL5MDA (talk) 21:41, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Article is nonesense

The article is nonesense
Drug control laws are also licensing laws, supporting a vast licensed drugs industry
Wikipedia's drug-related articles are generally a mess
Perhaps this is because current thinking about drugs is generally a mess
Perhaps there is no coherent objective way of thinking and writing on the subject
We have laws seemingly dedicated to the notion that drugs are evil, and the use of force (sometimes lethal) to suppress their production and supply
Somehow, at the same time, we have a vast legal drugs industry, for ever chasing the holy grail of immortality
Laurel Bush (talk) 15:04, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I have this as perhaps a better intro:

Drug polcy usually refers to government attempts to counter drug use contrary to drug control legislation, and to mitigate harm due to this illegal drug use. Such use is considered misuse or abuse and is associated with drug addiction.

Laurel Bush (talk) 15:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it will be problematic to state in the intro why any government does something -like create a policy. When psychoactive drugs are evolved its even harder (and difficult to find good references for). For example: US politicians never mention that the real reason that prompted the first legislation on opium was down to a promise from the Chines gov. to award favourable trading terms to the US. To admit this would have not been politically expedient however, so other reason had to be invented ( and an early use of FUD).

The reason (also seldom mentioned) why China first prohibited the importation of opium (they had been growing it themselves for millennia) was in the effort to have all trade paid for in silver (the supply of which was controlled by the state) – and there was not enough silver in the west to make that a realistic proposition based on their manipulation of market prices. Indian opium on the other hand was cheap, of better quality, and as it took up little space it was a convenient means of exchange.

(If more proof were needed: If drug policies were decided by tossing a coin, then they would be limited to getting drug control methods wrong to about 50% of the time instead of the current 95%). So in short, I think it would be very misleading to start off with what governments/United Nations declare, because they are mainly used as political expedients for other unspoken ends. But I guess, you already know that, now that I have reminded you of it.--Aspro (talk) 17:27, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal

I am proposing Hard and soft drugs be merged here. The terms are meaningless except as legal definitions, and hence are useful in their context to discussion on drug laws and policies. This page is small enough to include them comfortably, and the topics intertwined enough so that having separate pages to me fractionates the discussion unnecessarily.

Support

1. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:06, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
2. The terms are really not used much in the professional scientific community, and seem to be mainly colloquialisms used by mass media. Since they do, in fact, refer to drug policy, the information is best combined into this article. Dr. Cash (talk) 03:14, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
3. I think that it should be merged. See comments below.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 09:04, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
4. Casliber's right. This makes a lot of sense, since the distinction is an informal, not scientific one. The distinction in popular usage can be noted in passing here. Eusebeus (talk) 15:59, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. The terms are used within the media (colloquially) and within the medical literature. They do not only have a legal meaning. Fences and windows (talk) 01:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
2. I would prefer additional clean-ups of Hard and soft drugs along the lines Literaturegeek's suggestions below rather then merging it here. If it is to be merged somewhere, I would suggest that it would be boiled down to section called "International impact and controversy" under the Opium Law-article instead (that article should change it's name to something more appropriate too). Steinberger (talk) 15:28, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
3. Well I'm starting to think that the article should be deleted or should be merged into another, but merging it with "Drug policy" wouldn't make much sense. Merging it with "drugs" in general or "recreational drug use" and having a section on harmful vs less harmful drugs would be more ideal if there was ever going to be a merge. And the term is used in many other circles besides just drug policy. Zachorious (talk) 07:38, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

I suppose yes they are used widely (and colloquially), but doesn't change the fact that the derivation of the definition is from their use in legal context. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:33, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

If the article is kept the definition of hard and soft should follow official drug scheduling of illicit drugs. Then any controversy or view points of research or experts eg is alcohol a hard drug, should go in a section called controversy.--Literaturegeek | T@1k? 09:04, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Literaturegeek, but I wonder:
Whose official scheduling of controlled drugs (which are not necessarily illicit because they may be licensed as medicines)?
UN scheduling followed by sections about specific jurisdictions, each section perhaps a summary of a "main article"?
Laurel Bush (talk) 11:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

If this article is merged elsewhere, it shouldn't be into Drug policy. Casliber states that the derivation of the definition is from their use in a legal content: citation needed, please!

There are other articles on drugs and harm, such as Responsible drug use, Harm reduction, Drug classification: making a hash of it?, Drug policy reform, Recreational drug use, Arguments for and against drug prohibition. Merging to one of these might be preferable, but I still think that this topic can stand on its own if all editors stick to verifiable facts and avoid synthesis. Fences and windows (talk) 15:20, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I've sourced early uses of the terms, see [1]. This might help flesh out the article and avoid OR enough for it to be kept. Fences and windows (talk) 18:44, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I am not talking about deleting it, just that the terms are enmeshed in a bigger picture. Upon thinking about it, maybe drug policy is a little circumscribed but it is a topic area where the terms are discussed alot (funny though, I don't hear hard and soft drugs as much as I did when I was a kid). Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:40, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

• I am removing the merge tags, as there does not seem to be concensus on this merge. Please continue to discuss and merge if necessary. --NickPenguin_(contribs) 23:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Drug classification: making a hash of it?

It would be nice with some information about the report called "Drug classification: making a hash of it?" in this article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_classification:_making_a_hash_of_it%3F --158.39.240.107 (talk) 20:18, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

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Not a reference

Removed from lead:

<ref>Entities at all levels, from international organisations, national governments, local government departments, down to individual night clubs, may have stated drug policies.</ref>

It could perhaps be reinstated as a footnote, but that's probably not the right solution, either. — MaxEnt 20:22, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

• I tried to reinster it smoothly in the introduction. Teluobir (talk) 22:21, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Hello everybody!

It seems that the "Prohibition of drugs" could very well be described as nothing more than a specific Drug policy –albeit a particularly mainstream one indeed. I believe the page Prohibition of drugs should therefore be merged here, particularly given that "Drug policy" is the main title used for these policies –including prohibition policies: for instance, it is the title used for a number of country pages (see for instance the Template Template:Drug_policy_nav). There are also problems with the fact that articles such as "Drug law" redirected to that article "prohibition of drugs" redirecting to the page "Drug policy" with an explanation that most drug policies are actially prohibitions of drugs, may be more accurate. Generally, even better would be:

1. renaming this page "Drug policy" as "Drug law and policy" (or similar),
2. merging "Prohibition of drugs" here
3. Pointing pages which used to point to "prohibition of drugs" here.

I think it would make more sense, and give the opportunity to review the content of both pages, which needs some updates.

Teluobir (talk) 22:38, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

For anyone coming to this fresh, the discussion actually took place at Talk:Prohibition of drugs#Merge this page into "Drug policy"?. It was decided not to merge. Gazelle55 (talk) 20:15, 13 May 2022 (UTC)

"mandated under" clarification

@Teluobir or anyone else: In Drug policy#Treaty-mandated organizations, it says, "There are four bodies mandated under the international drug control conventions (1961, 1971 and 1988):" and lists the CNB, the UN Secretary-General, the INCB, and the WHO. In plain English, I understand that as saying the drug treaties required the creation of the four entities. Is there a technical definition of "mandated" that makes my reading incorrect? Otherwise, the statement seems to be wrong, as the CNB, UN Secretary-General, and WHO were created well before the first drug treaty, only the INCB is a treaty body under the drug conventions. Thanks! -Tsavage (talk) 23:55, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

Hello!

Mandated = received a mandate.

Created = created by.

Only the INCB is a treaty body but here it does not says that there are 4 treaty bodies, it says that thare are four bodies mandated.

I created the pahe "Treaty body" some years ago to clarify this.

Mandated means in IL what is means in plain English: receiving a mandate from. Mandate: "noun – An authoritative command or instruction." Teluobir (talk) 08:29, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

@Teluobir Thanks, I get it. Perhaps a less technical description would be easier to understood for those unfamiliar with the precise IL usage, such as, "Four bodies are granted authority under the international drug control conventions..."? -Tsavage (talk) 16:12, 15 June 2024 (UTC)

Current treaties "main article"

@Teluobir In the Drug policy#Current treaties section, I had added a "main article" hatnote pointing to United Nations drug control conventions. You changed it to point individually to the three UN drug conventions articles, commenting: "I changed the "{{Main article}}" template (which was pointint to a new, secondary article that is not entirely consensual) to point towards the actual "main" articles of each three treaties respectively."[2]

Of course, I agree that the individual drug convention articles are the main articles for each convention, but the section as titled is about a set of current treaties, not each individual drug treaty, so I think an article specifically about that subject, the current treaties, is the appropriate main article. The drug treaties are already linked in the body copy.

In particular, the "Current treaties" section lists other treaties that in some way concern drugs, such as the International Convention Against Doping in Sport, and also treaties regarding human rights, where tension exists with the drug treaties. These areas are should be expanded on in the "UN drug control conventions articles", while they don't easily fit in the individual convention articles.

In saying that United Nations drug control conventions article is "not entirely consensual", I assume you're referring to our discussion on that article's talk page, where you object to it as a standalone article. I think the content there already usefully distinguishes itself from the individual convention pages, particularly in the guidelines and spirit of WP:SUMMARY—the "Current treaties" section seems to support that position. -Tsavage (talk) 16:43, 15 June 2024 (UTC)