How is UK drugs policy made, and why does it so often seem irrational when considering what works in reducing drug-related harms? This book explains how the concept of drug policy constellations – the loosely concerted policy actors with shared moral commitments that influenced policy outcomes – explains why there is no such thing as 'evidence-based' drug policy. Drawing on his participation in high-level policy discussions, and a novel approach to policy analysis, Stevens presents three recent cases involving key issues in UK illicit drug policy – medical cannabis, drug-related deaths and the government’s 10-year drug strategy.

Drugs, Crime and Public Health provides an accessible but critical discussion of recent policy on illicit drugs. Using a comparative approach -- centred on the UK, but with insights and complementary data gathered from the USA and other countries -- it discusses theoretical perspectives and provides new empirical evidence which challenges prevalent ways of thinking about illicit drugs. It argues that problematic drug use can only be understood in the social context in which it takes place, a context which it shares with other problems of crime and public health. The book demonstrates the social and spatial overlap of these problems, examining the focus of contemporary drug policy on crime reduction. This focus, contends Alex Stevens, has made it less, rather than more, likely that long-term solutions will be produced for drugs, crime and health inequalities. Stevens concludes, through examining competing visions for the future of drug policy, with an argument for social solutions to these social problems.

Drugs, Crime and Public Health provides an accessible but critical discussion of recent policy on illicit drugs. Using a comparative approach - centred on the UK, but with insights and complementary data gathered from the USA and other countries - it discusses theoretical perspectives and provides new empirical evidence which challenges prevalent ways of thinking about illicit drugs. It argues that problematic drug use can only be understood in the social context in which it takes place, a context which it shares with other problems of crime and public health. The book demonstrates the social and spatial overlap of these problems, examining the focus of contemporary drug policy on crime reduction. This focus, Alex Stevens contends, has made it less, rather than more, likely that long-term solutions will be produced for drugs, crime and health inequalities. And he concludes, through examining competing visions for the future of drug policy, with an argument for social solutions to these social problems.

For half a century the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 has dominated ill-conceived approaches to the prohibition of drugs and the criminalisation of many offenders. Wilful blindness to scientific facts has distorted the dispensation of justice, prevented lifesaving investigation, sidelined critics and thwarted advocates of politically inconvenient drugs law reform. This once in an epoch review by experts from a range of disciplines shows how lawmakers and the media have ignored the scientific evidence to sustain badly founded rhetoric in favour of blanket bans, punishment and the marginalisation of opponents. Countless individuals (including the vulnerable, deprived, addicted and mentally ill) have therefore suffered unnecessarily. This, the most comprehensive critique of the 1971 Act yet, rests on the combined learning of leading medical, scientific, psychiatric, academic, legal, drug safety and other specialists to provide sound reasons to re-think half a century of bad law.

The issue of 'recovery' has been increasingly prioritised by policymakers in recent years, but the meaning of the concept remains ambiguous. This edited collection brings together the thoughts and experiences of researchers, practitioners and service users from the fields of health, addiction and criminal justice and centres on current developments in addiction policy and practice. Tackling Addiction examines what recovery, addiction and dependence really mean, not only to the professional involved in rehabilitation but also to each individual client, and how 'coerced treatment' fails to take account of recovery as a long-term and ongoing process. Chapters cover the influence of crime and public health in UK drug policy; the ongoing emphasis on substitute prescribing; the role of recovery groups and communities; and gendered differences in the recovery process and implications for responses aimed at supporting women. Tackling Addiction will be essential reading for practitioners, researchers, policy makers and students in the fields of addiction, social care, psychology and criminal justice.