This book presents a comprehensive examination of the drug control policy process in the United States. How are policy choices identified, debated and selected? How are the consequences of governmental policy measured and evaluated? How, if at all, do we learn from our mistakes. The first section deals with four different ways of understanding American drug policy: drug control as ideology, drugs as an issue of definition and measurement, an historical analysis of drug control, and finally, drug control as an occasion for debating the proper role of the criminal law. Zimring and Hawkins also discuss priority problems for drug control and provide a foundation for an improved policy process. They argue that protection of children and youth should shape policy toward illicit crime, with attention to the fact that youth protection objectives may limit the effectiveness of some drug controls.

"This volume, as its title indicates, is a serious effort to point the way to moderation." Journal of Criminal Justice

"An important book on how to think about drug policy in the United States. Zimring and Hawkins challenge conventional thinking about drugs and demonstrate how understanding our past failures can guide us." Albert J. Reiss, Jr., Yale University

"Zimring and Hawkins put aside the false promises of our successive and futile `war on drugs', as well as the mischievous simplicities of an ill-defined `legalisation', and produce the first practical and achievable strategy to minimise the harm to individuals and to society from hard drugs and our criminogenic drug laws. Probing and practical, it is a joy to read." Norval Morris, University of Chicago

"Zimring and Hawkins put aside the false promises of our successive and futile `war on drugs', as well as the mischievous simplicities of an ill-defined `legalisation', and produce the first practical and achievable strategy to minimise the harm to individuals and to society from hard drugs and our criminogenic drug laws. Probing and practical, it is a joy to read." Norval Morris, University of Chicago

"So far as it goes, their program makes good sense. they would like to see more spent on helping pregnant women who use drugs and on intravenous drug users who have, or may develop, AIDS. And, rather than stigmatize addicts by imposing criminal penalties, they would like the government to pursue an 'open-door policy' in which hard-core users are encouraged to seek treatment. As for William Bennett, Zimring and Hawkins deplore his tendency to turn 'every public pronouncement into a rhetorical event.' With characteristic understatement, they suggest that Bennett's successor be a 'somewhat less gifted rhetorician.'" Michael Massing, New York Review of Books

"The authors (academics who have previously written fine books together on pornography, imprisonment and capital punishment) promote program budgeting for drug control....Their approach is rational, all right, and proffered with awesome historical and philosophical erudition. From the book's early chapters come valuable glimpses of the multiple prohibitions in American social history--state alcohol prohibition statutes in the 1850s, the criminalization of marijuana starting in the 1920s--and excerpts from commentators on this subject, from John Stuart Mill to Gore Vidal." Diana R. Gordon, The Nation

"This new book provides a thoughtful critique of the lacuna in federal drug policy formulation, as well as a host of other insights....this is a book that will engage and inform most readers. Perhaps it will also help prepare the nation for a more intellectually serious discussion of the proper stance to take on dependency-creating psychoactives." Peter Reuter, Health Affairs

"Zimring and Hawkins offer a devastating critique of the premises and tactics of U.S. antidrug policy...The critical aspects of this book are its strength and are required reading for scholars in this area." American Political Science Review

"Zimring and Hawkins offer a devastating critique of the premises and tactics of U.S. antidrug policy...The critical aspects of this book are its strength and are required reading for scholars in this area." American Political Science Review

"This book provides a good, rational evaluation of the current drug policy in the United States. The authors logically and scientifically assess the current drug policy, concluding that it is based more on fear and unknowns than on any research or rational processes....Overall, the book is well-written. The chapters are well-organized and demonstrate excellent scholarship and research in the process of comprehensive policy evaluation. They proide good criteria for comparison, and break the drug problem into specific issues rather than one global issue. As its title suggests, this book would be seminal to anyone seriously interested in rational drug control." International Journal of Contemporary Sociology