The first part of this book concerns four different ways of looking at drug problems in the United States. Chapter 1 examines drugs and drug control as an ideology. Chapter 2 addresses drugs as an issue of definition and measurement. Chapter 3 analyzes the history of drug control in the United States, and Chapter 4 deals with drugs as an occasion for debating the proper role of the state in regulating citizen conduct.

Viewed together, these chapters reveal both contrast and similarity. Each view of drugs competes with the other perspectives for the status of dominant paradigm. Because the ideologically committed drug warrior has no real need for definition and measurement when deciding drug control questions and little regard for historical analysis, the significant issue in drug control is a question of values. Persons committed to the historical viewpoint often believe that the lessons of history should have a dominant influence on the determination of policy toward drug programs and thus tend to dismiss the ideologist as irresponsible.

One way to evaluate the significance and importance of each perspective is to review each claim in the context of the other perspectives. Accordingly, we hope that the whole is greater than the parts, in that the four chapters read together will have a cumulative value that exceeds the individual worth of any one of them taken on its own.