A Critical Look at the National Drug Control Strategy

Abstract

In September 1989, the Bush Administration published its drug control policy document, the National Drug Control Strategy, prepared under the direction of William J. Bennett, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. As a study of the appropriate responses to the nation's drug problem, the Strategy is an important, well-reasoned, and engagingly written document. It acknowledges the importance of treatment and education strategies as responses to the American drug problem. While it does not deny the limitations of international and other law enforcement initiatives, the Strategy's primary message advocates an "unprecedented" expansion of police, prisons, prosecutors, courts, and interdiction -much more of the same, evidently on the theory that we have been losing the war on drugs because of a lack of resolve.