Introduction

At the heart of British drug policy lies a prohibitionist stance that prioritises the relationship between drugs and crime, resulting in both increased medicalisation based on outdated notions of addiction and compulsion, and increased criminalisation dominated by ‘war on drugs’ and ‘law and order’ discourses. Medicalisation through the potentially compassionate treatment of problem users is based on an exaggeration of the drugs–crime relationship that is used to justify coercion into abstinence-oriented treatment.

However, the majority of young adult drinkers and drug takers fit neither the medical model of addiction nor the discourses of crime and compulsion. This chapter argues that this policy vacuum is being filled by a new wave of proactive prohibition of pharmacological intoxication (through both alcohol and illicit drug use), bolstering an enduring ‘official’ ambivalence to leisure, pleasure and intoxication. Four aspects of this new wave of criminalisation are considered: first, the extension of the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act to criminalise emergent drugs used for recreational purposes; second, changes to the burden of proof regarding drug supply offences; third, the increased regulation of young-adult drunkenness and drink-related disorder; and, fourth, the continued rejection by the British government of repeated calls to overhaul the drug classification system. We suggest that young people's involvement in vibrant and diverse local leisure ‘scenes’ provides the target for a new wave of stigmatisation and criminalisation of contemporary cultures of intoxication, at odds with official policy supporting the expansion of the night-time economy.

The relationship between the individual, the state and the market reflects tensions between leisure-time pursuits in a consumption and profit-oriented society on the one hand, and the criminal justice-driven ‘law and order’ agenda of the government on the other. At its heart is a process of identifying and criminalising certain transgressive practices (in the UK, for example, with illicit drug use, smoking tobacco in enclosed public places, certain adult consensual sexual practices, drunkenness and drink-related disorder) while facilitating and commercially exploiting others (such as gambling, attending sex clubs and moderate drinking), illustrated in three recent pieces of British legislation: the 2003 Licensing Act, the 2005 Drugs Act and the 2005 Gambling Act.