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The New Dutch and German Drug Laws: Social and Political Conditions for Criminalization and Decriminalization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Sebastian Scheerer
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Abstract

The “drug wave” of the late 1960s was widely perceived as a threat to the legitimacy of normative expectations in Dutch and German society. Although the overwhelming reaction of public opinion to drug users in both countries was hostile and punitive, the German legislature passed even more repressive laws whereas the Dutch legislature adapted the normative system to the use of both “soft” and “hard” drugs. Although in each instance the initiative for legal change came from the political and moral “progressives,” the conservative “moral center” retained a veto power. Why it used this veto power in Germany but actively supported the reform bill in Holland is explained in terms of the macrostructure of each society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 12 , Issue 4: Special Issue on European Sociology of Law , Summer 1978 , pp. 585 - 606
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 The Law and Society Association.

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