“Prisoners, Pushers, Patients”: An Etiology of Opiate Prohibition and Addiction in the United States
Date of Award
2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Social Sciences
First Advisor
Fitzgerald, Keith
Keywords
United States, Addiction, Drug Policy, War on Drugs
Area of Concentration
Political Science
Abstract
Despite over a century of Narcotics Prohibition, the United States drug policy has created as many problems as it set out to remedy. This thesis examines drug policy through an historical lens beginning in the mid-eighteenth century, arguing that this policy exhibits a path dependent nature and a number of positive feedback loops. This project relies heavily on the scholarship of Paul Pierson, in particular his work Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Using Pierson’s framework, I demonstrate that the War on Drugs as we know it is an effect of self-reinforcing institutional, political, and social mechanisms established and compounded over time and spanning beyond particular moments in space and time (history). Furthermore, I propose that an alternative approach, specifically a public health approach, is necessary to de-stigmatizing drug habitués, preventing drug abuse, decreasing private economic gain, and generally serving the public good. Drawing conclusions from scientific experiments, sociological explanations, and a case study of decriminalization in Portugal, I conclude mechanisms by which to break the positive feedback loops propelling the prohibitive trajectory of drug policy.
Recommended Citation
Ryan, Eilis, "“Prisoners, Pushers, Patients”: An Etiology of Opiate Prohibition and Addiction in the United States" (2015). Theses & ETDs. 5106.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/5106