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Heroin Decriminalization and the Ideology of Tolerance: A Critical View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Ronald Bayer
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Abstract

Proposals for the decriminalization of heroin are examined and then analyzed in terms of the ideology of tolerance which informs anti-psychiatry, labeling sociology, and the concept of the victimless crime. Marcuse's discussion of repressive tolerance is brought to bear on this issue in order to suggest that tolerance for deviance may have consequences not immediately expected by those who advance reformist proposals regarding narcotics policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Winter 1978 , pp. 301 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © 1978 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Fourth National Drug Abuse Conference, San Francisco, California, May 6, 1977 and the Conference of the Institute on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, July 24, 1977.

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