Prohibition, public health and a window of opportunity: an analysis of Canadian drug policy, 1985-1997

Abstract

For almost a century, Canadian drug policy has been dominated by a paradigm of prohibition, driven by the practical and institutional interests of drug law enforcement. In the 1980s, a ‘policy window’ for reform opened on the federal government level via the opportunity to establish a new drug control law and to launch a major public health‐oriented drug policy initiative. A detailed analysis of these developments concludes that, despite the rhetoric of reform, these efforts reinforced and expanded rather than reformed prohibition control policy in Canada. Possible social, political and economic determinants for the persistent resistance against drug law and policy reform in the Canadian context are examined, suggesting that the course of Canadian drug policy may be as much the result of external—particularly American—pressures as it is shaped by domestic convictions. On this basis, a call is made for a more systematic and theoretically grounded comparative analysis of international drug policy systems and reform.