Not Just a Matter of Criminal Justice: States,Institutions, and North American Drug Policy

This article proposes a theoretical approach to illicit-drug policy that emphasizes politics and institutions, as an alternative to dominant perspectives emphasizing social control. After revealing conceptual links between drug-control policies and those of social provision, I describe a typology of drug policies based on the division of labor among the institutions responsible for implementing the legislated agenda. I then develop a theoretical argument that approaches drug policy as social policy, employing concepts of institutional reach and policy linkages. In the concluding section I use this approach to compare drug policies in the United States and Canada after 1980.