Chapter Nine: AN ASSESSMENT OF CONTROL

Various theories or speculations have been put forward to explain the growth of drug taking during the last 10 years. Some, in the time honoured way of always looking elsewhere for the scape-goats, have blamed it on an influx of 76 Canadian addicts, 14 of whom arrived in 1961, but H. B. Spear discounts this, stating that "there is no evidence to suggest that their contribution was greater than that of the British addicts who without assistance from overseas had been responsible for the addition of 86 new heroin addicts to Home Office records in the period 1954-1960." Some theories have been frankly metaphysical, relating it all to growing up in the space age. Others more down to earth have seen it as a fashion which will soon pass away, and they believe that there is evidence to suggest that it is already well past its peak. Others again see it as related to "the general adolescent phenomenon" whereby a problem is produced by defining in advance the group who are likely to produce a problem, so that adolescents, who by definition are likely to have problems, will come to believe that they will. In this way, drug taking is merely a manifestation of a 'negative halo effect' which produces the very problem it is prepared to treat. The most promising socio-logical line of enquiry is that of R. S. Weiner, who found no differences between the family background of drug takers and non-drug takers, but the distinguishing characteristics of those who had taken drugs compared with the controls were that they spent less time with their parents, were more frequent visitors to pubs and coffee bars, had more money to spend and were more often engaged in 'adult pursuits'. This is in line with J. Bynner's study The Young Smoker, where he found that the young smoker differed from the non-smoker in his eagerness to be seen as a member of a 'mature' group who were breaking away from the restricted atmosphere of the schoo1.2 Both these studies relate to school children, and no comparable research exists for adult populations.

Most theories of drug taking have, until recently, been based on the concept of `retreatism' which was developed by R. K. Merton and received an additional sociological twist from Cloward and Ohlin. Whereas Merton viewed drug taking as an adaptation to an anomie situation, Cloward and Ohlin saw drug takers as 'double failures'. Merton saw retreatism as "arising from continued failure to near the goal by legitimate measures and from an inability to use the illegitimate route because of internalised prohibitions. . . ." Cloward and Ohlin saw it as arising "from continued failure to near the goal by legitimate measures and from an. inability to use the illegitimate route because of internalised prohibitions or socially structured barriers. . . ." 3 Such an approach is now regarded as too simplistic; it misses the variety of drug users, by calling them all `retreatisr, and more important it contributes to the moral categorisation of drug use which Duster shows helps to per-petuate legal sanctions.

For many years Professor Lindesmith has been critical of the retreatist argument about drug users. He, like Alan Sutter, objects to "lumping different patterns of drug abuse into one package by posing the existence of a uniform cultural adaptation made by frustrated or handicapped people who move along a single career line." a Lindesmith has taken the view that America ought to rethink its attitudes and adopt an approach nearer to that of the British system. His proposals have often been misunderstood and on some occasions he has been so widely misinterpreted that he believes the misunderstandings were deliberate. On one occasion, for example, a critic suggested that he was saying the British and American systems were identical after he had carefully pointed out the differences. More recently, however, Troy Duster has taken up Lindesmith's main argument.

The thrust of Duster's argument is that stricter laws in America will not be effective in bringing about a change in the behaviour of the law violators and the clinical dispensation of drugs should now be permitted. Duster thinks that the legal and medical professions could provide a moral cloak for the addicts for a period long enough for a more enlightened attitude to emerge. A change in the law would change the social conditions and thereby change the climate for a reinterpretation of moral issues.

As far as Britain is concerned the clinical dispensation of certain drugs has existed for over 50 years, but the enlightened attitude which Duster would welcome has not always appeared, and it possibly may have faded in the decade since 1960. If the previous analysis is correct it would not emerge in America as long as certain conditions prevailed or without radical change of thinking. As long as drug takers are not middle class and middle aged, and are not contrite or are hostile to the right and correct values, there seems a slim chance of a change in moral interpretations. Even so, in the 1930s when all the conditions were right for an enlightened attitude, drug takers in Britain were still regarded as 'sick' people which is itself a moral category and one degree removed from the nature of their addiction. The chance was available to redefine the Rolleston Committee's proposals, but this was never taken, and by the 1960s the notion of sickness fitted easily into arguments about drug taking being a 'socially infectious disease'. Duster is on more certain ground when he believes that addiction should be seen as a pharma-cological property, morally divorced from the person who uses it. Habits, however, die hard, and stereotypes, once formed, have an uncanny habit of persisting. It is not easy to expect a depersonalisation of addiction as we have depersonalised someone with a broken leg; the history of medicine does not allow for sudden changes in attitudes.

In Britain we have since 1926 believed that addiction is a sickness and this originally related to the pharmacological proper-ties of the drug and its effects on the body. Modern ideology has quickly transferred this to a personality matter. Addicts and drug takers are now commonly treated in mental, rather than general, hospitals, simply because we cannot believe that there are no 'underlying problems' for which psychiatric attention is appropriate. The clinical dispensation of drugs in Britain has not avoided this approach, but has played into it. In an attempt in some cases to be more humane, we have argued that ordinaryn doctors have limited understanding of the drug problem, and that it is a case for the psychiatrist or social worker who specialises in this type of sickness. The next step is to construct theories of personality inadequacy to explain the drug taking and the whole process escalates to a state of moral inferiority. It may arguably be better than the American system, but it is still a long way from what Duster seems to be advocating. If changes are to be made in the American system, and if Britain has learned much from America as to how not to go about drug control, the Americans may also observe that they have some-thing to learn from Britain as to how not to pretend to do one thing whilst actually doing another. If the British system is less overtly repressive than the American one it is still some way from Duster's ideal of enlightenment.

In spite of the numerous changes in the system of control, the British system is in many ways still much less severe than the American one. The differences are most obvious in the penalties for drug offences in the two countries. For example, of 100 drug offenders at London Courts in 1968, it was found that "compared with action taken in regard to indictable offences generally, these drug takers were relatively rarely awarded custodial sen-tences and relatively frequently given Probation or a conditional discharge." 5 Drug offenders in the U.S.A. could not expect such leniency. To some extent the less severe system in Britain may be due to many of the beliefs inherited from Rolleston, but on the other hand it is also reasonable to assume that these beliefs are reinforced by a fear of producing the obvious disadvantages of the American system. In other words, the alternative is so grim that we must restrict our moral condemnation, and we do not necessarily do so out of a basic sympathy for the drug takers. An overstatement of the case, perhaps, but it would be interest-ing to know how much of British control is based on a fear of producing American conditions. The second Brain Committee Report acknowledged this when they spoke of the need to reduce supplies but not to reduce them to the point where the vacuum could be filled by organised crime.

Throughout this essay I have been concerned with the general problem of explaining the legal system in terms of the drug takers, the social audience and the nature of the interaction that has taken place. In this sense I have not been concerned, as Jock Young has, to examine "the social meanings of drug abuse." The distinction is a flimsy one perhaps but it exists nonetheless—although of course there are many aspects which overlap. The norms of the Police in implementing the Drugs Acts have a crucial bearing on societal definitions of the problem, as do the misperceptions of the mass media. Together they create what Stan Cohen calls "moral panics" about certain types of deviancy, especially drug taking.

The difficulty with terms like 'societal definition' is that they can mean as much or as little as the sociologists want them to mean. I have tried to use the terms here to be synonymous with Duster's term of the 'moral centre'. This moral centre may be composed of shifting social groups, not necessarily middle class by any means, but would contain all who share a basic view of 'right' values. I have tried to show that it was the inevitable clash between the 'moral centre' and the 'immoral fringe' which led to severe legislative change. Although these changes may be justified on the grounds that one group is able to decide what is best for the other, Gusfield rightly warns us that "moral re-formism suggests the approach of a dominant class towards those less favourably situated in the economic and social structure." Gusfield is using this argument in a structural sense. If we transfer it to the area of the sociology of knowledge the point is well made.

I do not want to suggest that there is something sinister about the moral centre, or that it is confined to Western type capitalist societies. All societies, if they are to continue, require a moral centre, and revolutions would merely replace one with another. Our moral centre emphasises a form of Protestant Ethic and the drug takers happen—or deliberately choose, depending on one's point of view—to stand in opposition to this ethic. Hence the labelling and the justification given to that process. The process itself was made easier, as I have tried to show, by a shift in the social composition of the addict group. It would of course be equally applicable in a society composed entirely of drug takers to have a moral centre consisting of drug taking values. A sup-porter of the Protestant Ethic would then find himself labelled too, and his behaviour underlined as immoral. The process would of course be made easier if that supporter suddenly lost his previously high status position as this would ease the labelling problem for the designators. The point here is that all social groups have their own form of tyranny perhaps epitomised in that time honoured and beguiling phrase "If you can't beat 'em join 'em." The moral centre consists of "them" and joining "them" means sharing their right values.

Troy Duster has also argued that "more than any other form of deviance, the history of drug use contains an abundance of material on both questions of legislation and morality and of the relationship between them." b We have been less concerned with morality, more with the emergence of law, but Duster is surely right to call attention to the importance of the study of drug abuse for the study of deviancy. It brings into focus many issues which have long since become blurred and unclear in other areas of law such as offences involving property or violence. How much of the present analysis could be directly transferred to the Vagrancy Acts or the early 19th Century Larceny Acts is difficult to say, but at first glance there seem to be some important parallels. Did not the vagrants and property offenders threaten the norms of capitalist production in the same way as drug offenders threaten similar norms? The response of that moral centre was similar to the response of the moral centre in the 20th Century, i.e., to produce a response of a much more puni-tive kind than is now seen to be justified. Many of the issues raised by those responses have become settled or at least have reached an uneasy compromise, but the laws on drug taking present their own specific features which nevertheless can be related to other laws in a generalized way. I am suggesting that the laws on drug taking can be linked to value systems and political power and are not simply isolated instances where legislators had temporary aberrations.

The use of law as a symbol of political power has been well documented by Joseph Gusfield in his study of the American Temperance Movement.'" There the Prohibition Laws were used symbolically to affirm the power of Anglo-Saxon Protestants over the working class Catholics—the latter forming a large part of the drinking population. In Britain the Home Secretary refused to implement the recommendation of the report on Cannabis.

He said he did not want to introduce 'permissiveness' into society and in doing so made a similar affirmation of the power of 'right' values over a perceived deviant group. In other words deviancy can be surrounded by a constellation of social and political values extending further than the deviant act. When this happens all members of that deviant group are seen to be linked together, all having subterranean values even though many individual members may not share these values at all. Cannabis smokers for example may not regard their behaviour as part of a permissive syndrome, they may only want to legalize cannabis for their occasional use. To be successful the cannabis moral entrepreneurs would need to show that there were no wider values attached to cannabis use, or if there were, then these values would be confined to periods when they used the drug. They would also need to demonstrate that cannabis smoking was like "time out" drinking, i.e., where subterranean values only exist during the periods when they take the drugs allowing the users to claim a return to "normality" at the end of the "time out" period. In other words to be successful drug taking must be seen to be like drinking. Perhaps eventually it could even then act as a plea of mitigation for other deviant acts, for although drunkenness does not constitute a legal defence it is often used in Court to provide a commonsense explanation of the 'cause' of the deviancy. However, there is an important difference between the Temperance Movements position and the drug takers, the difference being in the relative power position.
When David Matza argued that a study of criminality must begin with 'ban" he was resurrecting a feature of deviant behaviour long since forgotten by criminologists, although not of course by the labelled criminals, i.e., the existence of the criminal law. He was also drawing attention to the political nature of crime. Gusfield adds to this area of study by emphasiz-ing the nature of symbolism in law when he says that "any act can be imbued with symbolic import when it becomes associated with non-instrumental identifications." He also shows that law can be symbolic when "it glorifies or demeans the character of one group or another." 9

Gusfield distinguishes two forms of political symbolism; the first is the gesture of cohesion which fixes the common and consensual aspects of the society and appeals to the unifying elements. Secondly there is the gesture of differentiation which points to the glorification or degredation of one group in opposition to others in society. In one sense law can obviously contain both, and the issue is about the degree of cohesion or differentiation. In this instance I want to point to the gesture of differentiation, and relate it to wider social issues and power and values.

Gestures of differentiation are also a matter of degree, they too can vary in quantity and quality. Some involve directing attention at a minority group, others at embracing all members of society. The type of gesture that takes place can be related in part to the power base of the law making group, so that the Prohibition Acts and the 1967 Dangerous Drugs Act stemmed from two different ideological positions. The former was con-cerned with demonstrating which status group is usually in control whereas the latter was dealing with a potential source of conflict. We can call the former symbolic reaffirmation for it is an attempt to justify laws on the grounds of traditional authority and exists when contesting groups are fairly evenly balanced in terms of political influence. The Dangerous Drugs Acts in Britain were more concerned with 'nipping in the bud' any possible agent for change. We can call this symbolic annunciation for here there is no overt threat to political authority; all that appears to be required is an announcement that this type of behaviour will no longer be tolerated.

Symbolic gestures of this sort vary according to a number of political and social factors and the list is endless. For example we could identify a third type, symbolic denunciation. This is likely to occur during a period of radical social and political change and where changes in political authority are often legitimized by pointing to certain selected groups who are thought to be the cause of the society's past failures. The Jews in Nazi Germany were obvious examples of symbolic denunciation but other minority groups in other societies have shared similar fates. In some countries of South America where there are frequent non-democratic changes of government, laws are enacted and repealed which symbolically denounce previous governments and their supporters. Once established, new authorities must continue the denunciation process. The Pass Laws in South Africa provide a continuous reminder of the status position of the non-white. The harshness of these laws also acts as a reminder of the power of the present régime.

The point here is that I want to see the laws on drug taking as part of a series of wider issues about law, sociology and politics. I also want to suggest that the sociology of law is well placed to produce important insights into these areas and concern itself with older questions of legitimate and illegitimate authority.

REFERENCES
1. Spear, H. B. The influx of Canadian addicts on heroin addiction in the U.K., awaiting publication.
2. Weiner, R. S. Drug Taking amongst School children, Longmans, 1970 and Bynner, J. The Young Smoker, H.M.S.O., 1970.
3. Merton, R. M. Social Theory and Social Structure, Free Press, 1957, p. 153-154. Also, Cloward, R. and Ohlin, L. Delinquency and Oppor-tunity, Free Press, 1960, p. 181.
4. Sutter, A. 'Worlds of drug use on the street scene' in Cressey, D. and Ward, D. (eds.) Delinquency, Crime and Social Process, Harper and Row, 1969, p. 802. op. cit.
5. Bean, Philip, op. cit.
6. Duster, T., op. cit., p. 6.
7. Gusfield, J. Symbolic Crusade, University of Illinois Press, 1963.
8. Matza, D. Becoming Deviant, Prentice Hall, 1969.
9. Gusfield, J., op. cit., p. 171.