Fighting Drugs in Four Countries: Lessons for America?

Publication Date: September 1990

Publisher: Heritage Foundation (Washington, D.C.)

Author(s): Jeffrey A. Eisenach; Andrew J. Cowin

Research Area: Social conditions

Keywords: Society

Type: Report

Abstract:

Two basic facts about the history and current status of drug abuse in Britain, Japan, the Netherlands and Singapore cannot be avoided. First, the two countries with the toughest policies, Japan and Singapore, dramatically reduced drug use over the past 20 to 30 years. By contrast, the countries with the more lax policies, Britain and the Netherlands, have made little if any progress in fighting their drug problems during the 1970s and 198oS. While get-tough policies have not eradicated drugs altogether, they have done better than the alternative.