Analysing one of the most controversial areas in public policy, this pioneering Research Handbook brings together contributions from expert researchers to provide a global overview of the shifting dynamics of drug policy. Chapters tackle a complex and cross-cutting issue from inter and multi-disciplinary perspectives, incorporating political science, history, law and public health into their analyses. Emphasising connections between the domestic and the international, this timely Research Handbook illustrates the intersections between drug policy, human rights obligations and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. Integrating detailed discussion of ever-evolving drug markets, a diverse range of policy responses, and political and ideological tensions, the contributors offer an insightful analysis of the regional dynamics of drug control, its historic constructions, and the contemporary and emerging problems it is facing. Aimed at researchers and students interested in drug policy, as well as policy makers and practitioners at different levels of governance, the Research Handbook on International Drug Policy provides a much-needed comparative approach and will prove to be an essential resource for navigating the difficulties surrounding drug policy and control.

There remains substantial agreement among the international community on many aspects of the contemporary UN drug control regime. However, diverging views on the non-medical and non-scientific use of a range of controlled substances make drug policy an increasingly contested and transitionary field of multinational cooperation. Employing a fine-grained and interdisciplinary approach, this book provides the first integrated analysis of the sources, manifestations and sometimes paradoxical implications of this divergence. The author develops an original explanatory framework through which to understand better the dynamic and tense intersection between policy shifts at varying levels of governance and the regime's core prohibitive norm. Highlighting the centrality of the harm reduction approach and tolerant cannabis policies to an ongoing process of regime transformation, this book examines the efforts of those actors seeking to defend the existing international control framework and explores rationales and scenarios which may lead to the international community moving beyond it.

There remains substantial agreement among the international community on many aspects of the contemporary UN drug control regime. However, diverging views on the non-medical and non-scientific use of a range of controlled substances make drug policy an increasingly contested and transitionary field of multinational cooperation. Employing a fine-grained and interdisciplinary approach, this book provides the first integrated analysis of the sources, manifestations and sometimes paradoxical implications of this divergence. The author develops an original explanatory framework through which to understand better the dynamic and tense intersection between policy shifts at varying levels of governance and the regime's core prohibitive norm. Highlighting the centrality of the harm reduction approach and tolerant cannabis policies to an ongoing process of regime transformation, this book examines the efforts of those actors seeking to defend the existing international control framework and explores rationales and scenarios which may lead to the international community moving beyond it.