1.1 Drug policy as a practice of social control

The inclination to influence the mood by using different substances is not an exclusively human habit. Every year, for example, drunken elephants run amok in Indian villages and alcohol-related accidents occur in Australia when intoxicated koala bears tumble down from eucalyptus trees. However, these are seasonal excesses in nature, i.e. if there are no overripe fruits there is no inebriety among our fellow mammals.
Salient for the use of psychotropic substances among humans is that we cultivate and produce these substances and that their use is embedded in a cultural setting. The wish among humans to change the perception of reality is probably a universal phenomenon. The use of psychotropic substances has presumably existed in all cultures and been surrounded by rules that have changed over time. The Dutch scholar Erik van Ree (1997) points out that drugs induce a loss of personal control. Control is necessary for human survival in nature and they are defenceless without it, according to van Ree. We are an anomaly in nature; naked and without natural tools to survive. Our survival depends on the ability to organise and control ourselves. The loss of control is correspondingly a serious matter and reason to control the use of psychotropic substances by surrounding them with rules and rituals.
In other words: loss of personal control has to be achieved in a controlled manner. There seems to be a basic balance to be checked in relation to "drugs", i.e. between the loss of personal control and an institutionalised practice of social control. Traditions and patterns of social control can be different because they developed in historically different contexts. A salient feature of the Swedish model of governance is the strong presence of the state aiming at leading the homogeneous Swedish people towards a common goal. In the Netherlands, the central state has been subordinated to the interests of minority groups in a heterogeneous population. Its seems reasonable to expect that these basic differences, which are described in more detail in Part II, also permeate the country's drug policies.
The mechanisms of social control have been a classic subject for sociological theory. In addition, in studies on substance use the subject of social control has been discussed. The Dutch criminologist Dirk Korf (1995: 7) in his dissertation defines two forms of social control: under formal social control, he understands: influence that occurs through agencies specialised in social control. Informal social control refers to direct, mutual influence and manipulation among individuals, with no powers involved which derive from duties they may have as representatives of agencies for legal or sociomedical control.
The Dutch sociologist Jan-Willem Gerritsen (1993: 3) defined social control as different forms of coercion that interact. Coercion occurs on a continuum ranging from external formal control, e.g. state intervention, less formal but still external, e.g. medical intervention, to informal external control exercised by groups outside the agencies for formal control and stimulating self-coercion. At the other end of the continuum, we find internalised social control, i.e. when self-control has become part of one's personality, always ready without the need of a reminder. These modes of coercion do not operate independently of each other or their context but are intertwined. Together they constitute a regulation regime that determines which substances are socially acceptable, which modes of substance use are integrated, and which are frowned upon as deviant, pathological or even criminal.

Three fields of formal social control

A drug policy is formal social control executed by society's institutions. Whether the practice is to allow the establishment of coffee shops or sampling urine tests is dependent on the traditions of formal social control that have been established by a society.
The first question that needs to be addressed in a comparison of drug policies is what a drug policy actually is. As a starting point the following will suffice: A policy on drugs consists of a set of programmes decided on by the central government aiming to control the supply and use of, as well as demand for, substances that are classified as illegal.
Illegal drugs I define as substances of which unauthorised use and production are declared by society to be undesirable and needing to be controlled in order to prevent and obstruct their use.
It is important to note that drug policies include a set of programmes. This implies that a mosaic of institutions, interest groups, and ideologies are involved in the elaboration of the policy as well as its implementation. In both countries, similar programmes are defined as essential elements of a drug policy and comprise three main fields;

•   Penal measures and international co-operation to control production and supply of drugs.
•   Assistance to cure drug addicts and to reduce demand for drugs.
•   Prevention to withhold people from using drugs.

Control of supply of drugs and of drug use and users by penal law is the most obvious kind of formal social control. Assistance through care and treatment can be less formal; drug addicts can ask for help, but also be coerced to enter assistance. Prevention by means of information and education aims at influencing people's attitudes and behaviour regarding drug use. It is less formal and directed at the future.

The period studied

The empirical part of the study covers the period 1965-1984. In both countries, narcotics were known and controlled prior to this period. It was, however, in the 1960s that illegal use of these substances came on the political agenda as a social problem, i.e. a problem that requires action by society to be solved. A new social phenomenon had emerged, on which society had to choose its position and elaborate a control strategy. The 1960s was also a period in which many aspects of social life were questioned by the post-war generations, for example sexuality, the position of women, the education system and not least the control mechanisms for deviant behaviour. The period ends in 1984 when the first problem definitions and drug policies became adjusted and new definitions and control strategies were agreed on in the parliaments. This is, of course, not the end of developments within the field of drug control. It is my presumption, however, that after the smokescreens of the roaring sixties and seventies had settled, these new strategies were in line with both historically grown general control practices and contemporary fabrics of society. The period can be denoted as the formative years of the modern drug policy in both countries.