Highlights
- The criminal law upholds a ‘great regulatory divide’ separating the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. This article, however, makes explicit comparison of recent policy developments used to govern alcohol and illicit drugs in England.
- Consideration of the idea of a convergence between policies governing alcohol and illicit drugs in England through the lens of the recovery agenda.
- Analysing the relevance of Berridge's long term historical argument to policies enacted by UK governments over the last 20 years, which pays specific attention to the re-emergence of abstinence in both alcohol and drugs policy.
- Examining whether the relevant policies of the New Labour Government (1997-2010) and the Coalition Government (2010-2015) to question whether the dividing line of the criminal law necessarily means that all public policies relating to alcohol are distinct in form and unrelated in practice from those which affect illicit drugs.
Alcohol
policy and illicit drugs policy are typically presented as separate and
different in academic discussion. This is understandable, to a degree, as the
criminal law upholds a ‘great regulatory divide’ ( Seddon, 2010 : 56) separating
the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as
either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971.
This paper takes a different stance. In doing so, it draws upon Berridge's (2013) argument that policies governing various psychoactive substances have been converging since the mid-twentieth century and seeks to elaborate it using recent developments relating to the control and regulation of drugs and alcohol in the broader areas of criminal justice and welfare reform. Significantly, the article examines how recent policy directions relating to both drugs and alcohol in England have, under the aegis of the ‘recovery agenda’, been connected to a broader behavioural politics oriented towards the actions and lifestyles of an apparently problematic subgroup of the population or ‘underclass’.
The paper thus concludes that, although the great regulatory divide remains intact, an underclass politics is contributing towards the greater alignment of illicit drugs and alcohol policies, especially in regards to the respective significance of abstinence (or abstinence-based ‘recovery’).
This paper takes a different stance. In doing so, it draws upon Berridge's (2013) argument that policies governing various psychoactive substances have been converging since the mid-twentieth century and seeks to elaborate it using recent developments relating to the control and regulation of drugs and alcohol in the broader areas of criminal justice and welfare reform. Significantly, the article examines how recent policy directions relating to both drugs and alcohol in England have, under the aegis of the ‘recovery agenda’, been connected to a broader behavioural politics oriented towards the actions and lifestyles of an apparently problematic subgroup of the population or ‘underclass’.
The paper thus concludes that, although the great regulatory divide remains intact, an underclass politics is contributing towards the greater alignment of illicit drugs and alcohol policies, especially in regards to the respective significance of abstinence (or abstinence-based ‘recovery’).
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School of Sociology and
Social Policy, University of Leeds, UK
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