10. 5 Conclusion
If we compare the policies on drugs and the policies on alcohol, we find
some striking similarities.
First, the central position of availability in the Swedish problem
definitions of the drug problem resembles the importance of the control
of availability of alcoholic beverages in the alcohol policy. The ration
book system in combination with the state monopoly on trade in and
sale of alcohol show that control of availability was an important goal
for the Swedish alcohol policy. Even when the ration book system was
abolished in 1955, control of supply by the state monopoly on sale, was
continued. Individual control by the ration book was replaced by an
obligation to show, if asked, a proof of identity when purchasing in a
state System Company shop. In the Netherlands, state regulations to
limit availability of alcohol in society were to restrict the sale of liquor
to licensed shops, curtail the number of licences to serve liquor, and
impose an age limit. In addition, city councils could reject applications
to establish new pubs in certain areas and decide on closing times.
Another similarity concerns control practices of drunkards. The
Swedish State became involved in the care of alcoholics at the
beginning of the twentieth century by establishing state institutions for
compulsory care and by subsiding compulsory intramural care provided
by non-governmental organisations. Municipal temperance councils
were responsible for applying the temperance law by monitoring
sobriety and surveillance of alcoholics. In the Netherlands, penal law
played an important role in the control of the drunkards who had been
arrested for public drunkenness. Recidivists were sent to state labour
camps together with beggars, vagabonds, and pimps. The socially
integrated alcoholics could be referred to the CBs. Assistance to
alcoholics was provided by non-governmental organisations, not by the
state.
A difference in the allocation of the authority to deprive abusers of
their liberty can be noticed. Penal law dominated in the Netherlands and
administrative law in Sweden. This tradition was preserved in the
compulsory care of drug addicts.
Assistance to drug users has a unique quality. Unlike treatment of
other diseases or mental disturbances, treatment of addicts is not solely
aimed at the benefit of the patient. Another function is that assistance
and treatment is expected to contribute to the solution of a social
problem, namely, achieving a drug-free society in Sweden and reducing
nuisance in the Netherlands. Here there is a striking analogy with
treatment of alcoholics during the first half of the twentieth century.
The question why the epidemic metaphor could attain such influence,
despite its shaky ground, may also be explained by an institutional
factor. The means of the action programme to handle the drug menace
as an epidemic had a strong affinity with the traditions of formal social
control of alcohol in Sweden. As we have seen, in the definition of the
alcohol problem, the immanent properties of the substance were seen as
the cause of the problem and confining its availability was the most
important countermeasure. It could also explain why the action
programme was sharpened, although the epidemic image declined, and
prevalence rates among students at the beginning of the 1980s declined
to a record low. It was the same phenomenon as in the 1920s when
consumption of alcohol declined sharply and temperance movements
nevertheless continued their struggle for a total prohibition of alcohol
and an alcohol-free society. It can be suggested that the struggle against
drugs could unite the Swedish people at the same time as the
government could proof its ability to function as the benevolent
protector of its people.
Coffee shops or urine tests?
The very existence of the two practices that have been depicted at the
onset of the thesis can also be credited to different institutional factors.
The idea of coffee shops as an alternative to sites where other more
dangerous substances are used has a long history in the Netherlands.
Just as pubs were the main targets for formal social control during the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries, places were drug users gathered
(youth centres) came into focus for governmental attention. The coffee
shops in the Netherlands had a forerunner in "Koffiehuizen" (coffee
houses in English) once established by the temperance movements as
an alternative to the pubs. In a Koffiehuis, coffee, non-alcoholic
beverages and beer were for sale. The resemblance is obvious, no liquor
in Koffiehuizen and no hard drugs in coffee shops. However, such
practices can only arise when distinctions are made between substances.
This is in fact what the Baan Committee did, when they elaborated the
risk concept.
In Sweden, the sites of interest were private apartments that had to be
controlled. Furthermore, any distinction between drugs was rejected.
The strategy to protect youth from drugs was to keep the possibilities to
obtain drugs as small as possible. The resemblance to the policy on
alcohol is obvious. No sharp distinction was made between different
kinds of alcoholic beverages. Individual monitoring of people's alcohol
habits was accepted as a means of control. This tradition could explain
why using urine tests as a method to make people abstain from taking
drugs is a vital practice in Sweden.
Both practices are types of formal social control but with a diverging
character because they developed in different contexts. After an initial
period of confusion and adjusting to the constraints and possibilities of
the international context, the practise of social control of drugs seems to
have followed the institutionalised patterns of formal social control of
alcohol. The conclusion must be that pattern of formal social control of
drugs can only be understood when its wider context is taken into
consideration.
Another conclusion is that the second problem definition did not alter
the basic features of the first problem definition, not even when the
drug in focus and the problem populations changed. This is in line with
Peyrot's (1994) assertion that the first definition sets the path for further
policy and programme reformations. However, while the definition of a
social problem may influence the course for the action programme, its
shape is largely determined by institutional factors. In Sweden, for
example, the central role of the social services to execute formal social
control of abusers was preserved. In the Netherlands, the central role of
the judicial system and the cities was maintained. Other examples of
this institutional heritage are the underlying tacit themes that guided the
direction of the action programme. In Sweden, the action programme
was inspired by a tradition of perceiving the population as a
homogeneous entity that had to be protected from alien threats. In the
Netherlands, with its long tradition of being a heterogeneous society,
the rights of minorities to be part of society, even if on the edge, was
extended also to deviant behaviour as long as it did not cause harm to
others.
Theoretical reflections
At this final stage, I have to ask you to recall my admonition to the
reader in the last paragraphs of the introductory text to this dissertation.
As I stated there, my research ambition in this study, is to analyse and
understand drug politics. The explanatory terms were given as
"institutional factors" and "new social problems".
The argument of this study is that the development of drug politics in
Sweden and the Netherlands can be explained as a function of these two
explanatory terms. Of course, such an explanation is never complete.
One of the problems, of course, is that the factors that make up the
terms are not independent of each other. The making of a social
problem, the establishment of an intervention arena, will of course
depend on the institutional set-up. We could easily cite instances of this
kind in the tales above. However, the contention is that the central
argument holds up. The development of drug politics in the two
countries under the looking glass can be fruitfully explained in terms of
institutions and problems, in the way I have outlined.
At the outset, I underscored that the focus of this research meant that
several interesting questions have had to be disregarded in the study. At
this stage, delimitation will also require an assertion that the
explanation outlined here is different from and excludes several other
explanations of drug politics. My results seem to make explanations in
terms of just to mention a few national mentality, discrete events in
the process of decision, individual actors, and minor peculiarities of a
state apparatus, lacking in probability.