American drug laws and policies have a history of vacillation between public health and strict law enforcement. Policies have moved from emphasizing treatment and risk reduction to high penalties for drug possession, to various combinations of these approaches. Analysis will be presented from a recent state illicit drug chart book describing laws in effect as of January 1, 2000. It is the purpose of this analysis to show how states differ in their approaches to controlling drug use. Specifically, data on state marijuana and ecstasy laws will be presented which place states into categories along a dimension of strict deterrence (high penalties for marijuana and ecstasy use) to a public health approach utilizing medicalization of marijuana. Discussion of state scheduling variations for ecstasy and marijuana will also be included. Comparisons are also made between state level drug policies and policies in other countries. These comparisons indicate that some states have laws more consistent with other nations than with other states. These data suggest that states provide a “natural laboratory” for relating differences in drug policy to youth perceptions about these drugs as well as youth drug use.
Learning Objectives: 1. To describe significant differences in state level drug scheduling, policy and penalties 2. To understand the policy implications of these differences.
Keywords: Adolescents, Drugs
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