Drugs, Crime and Public Health: The Political Economy of Drug Policy

'penetrating and insightful... [Stevens] strikes exactly the right balance between accessibility and critical depth and has produced a book that will deservedly attract a wide readership.... I wish and hope that one or two presidents and prime ministers around the world end up reading a copy. Who knows what might happen then?' - Toby Seddon, British Journal of Criminology, Vol. 51 No. 4 (2011)

'This is an interesting, relevant and wide-ranging book written with passion. The central question of this book is why the poor and socially deprived bear most of the harms related to the use of illegal drugs, when the use of such substances is found in all sectors of society? To explore this question, Alex Stevens situates drug policy within the political economy of the distribution of power and resources in society. By doing this, he distances himself from the more drug centered conceptions of drug policy that dominate both academic literature and policy making. This opens for interesting perspectives on the role and the relevance of drug policy in the distribution of drug related harm.' - Esben Houborg, Center for Alcohol and Drug Research, Aarhus University, Denmark

Drugs, Crime and Public Health provides a powerful diagnosis of the drug problem and is a must-read for anybody seriously interested in the subject. The analysis is thoughtful and nuanced, yet refreshingly concise and clear-sighted. Rather than academic dissembling, the political implications are laid bare, though the call for 'more reliable evidence on which to build drug policy' is tinged with irony. Stevens' own analysis suggests the evidence he presents will be unplatable to those best placed to act on it and will almost certainly be subject to the processes of selectivity and silencing he describes. That said, the call for a progressive coalition has an air of realpolitik about it, encapsulating what might be taken as the book's core manifesto - drug policy is inevitably political, but is too important to be left to politicians and their advisors. - Michael Shiner, Druglink (September/October 2013)