Questions based on Walker, Chapter 13:

1. What is meant by "drug hysteria" and what are some examples?
2. What did the National Household Survey and the Monitoring the Future survey show about drug use trends up until 1997?
3. What did the DAWN data show about serious drug use?
4. What does the evidence show about the causal relationship between drug use and criminal behavior - are drugs a "gateway to crime"?
5. What is the distinction between "hawks," "doves," and "owls" on drug policy?
6. What are the goals of the National Drug Control Strategy?
7. Drop this item:  the components and the goals are in the same five categories (What are the major components of the National Drug Control Strategy?)
8. How effective have each of the components been?  How effective are they likely to be, in the author's judgment?
9. What does history tell us about the effectiveness of the use of criminal law for social control?
10. How effective have drug education programs been in reducing illegal drug use?
11. Which educational programs are most likely to work?
12. Which kind of drug treatment programs are most likely to work?
13. Why did crack use declined substantially in many cities in the 1990s?  How was this related to police enforcement patterns?
14. What are the options concerning drug regulation?  What are the arguments for and against each option?

1. What is the difference between strategies, goals, objectives, targets and measures?
2. What are the major goals of the Drug Control Strategy? (this was also covered in Walker).  Who sets the "targets"?
3. Which goals are "on target" and which are not?  What kinds of measures are used to determine whether a goal is on target?
4. What conclusion does the report draw about the strategy itself?

1. What is implied by the title "reefer madness"?  How is this related to the theory of social movements?
2. What do opponents argue are the major negative consequences of marijuana prohibition?
3. What policies were considered by the 1973 National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse with regard to marijuana?  Which alternative did they recommend?  What actually happened?
4. What are the major arguments in favor of drug legalization and drug prohibition?  Which arguments are deontological and which are consequentialist?
5. Why do some people think the "War on Drugs" is really a "War on the African-American Family"?
6. What do critics of this argument say in response?
7. Why do critics argue that the war on drugs is one of the major causes of racial profiling?  What is the ACLU/s "irrefutable evidence"?
8. How does this evidence match up with the results in the Bureau of Justice Statistics's study "Contacts Between Police and the Public"?
9. According to the survey, what percent of the population has a contact with the police during the course of a year?  What are the most common reasons for contacts?
10. How large are the reported differences between black and white citizens in their reported contacts with the police?
11. How often did the police use force or the threat of force? In these cases, how often did people feel that force was used improperly?
12. What reasons did the police give for stopping motor vehicles? How many of the drivers thought they were stopped for legitimate reasons?
13. How did black and white officers differ in giving tickets to white and black motorists?