MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Katharine A. Neill PhD
Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy
Baker Institute, Rice University
Houston, TX 77005
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Neill: This study is a historical review of drug policy in 20th century United States. It examines drug policy decisions and consequences through a socio-political lens and argues that the prominence of the law-and-order approach to dealing with drug offenders--that emphasizes punishment and incarceration over prevention and treatment--is a result of the construction of drug offenders as social deviants that threaten society. This punitive model has been especially harmful because it has occurred to the detriment of harm reduction approaches to drug use that have greater potential to negate the negative individual and public health consequences of drug use.
(more…)MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Katharine A. Neill PhD
Alfred C. Glassell III Postdoctoral Fellow in Drug Policy
Baker Institute, Rice University
Houston, TX 77005
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Neill: This study is a historical review of drug policy in 20th century United States. It examines drug policy decisions and consequences through a socio-political lens and argues that the prominence of the law-and-order approach to dealing with drug offenders--that emphasizes punishment and incarceration over prevention and treatment--is a result of the construction of drug offenders as social deviants that threaten society. This punitive model has been especially harmful because it has occurred to the detriment of harm reduction approaches to drug use that have greater potential to negate the negative individual and public health consequences of drug use.
(more…)