Note on Two Abuses: Drugs and the Pareto Criterion

1976 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 88-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Patrick Gunning
Keyword(s):  
Drug Abuse ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Control Drug ◽  
Economic Paradigm ◽  
Individual Cognition ◽  
Pareto Criterion

This paper shows, by example, how easy it is for an imaginative economist to manufacture plausible assumptions about individual cognition, even when the set of assumptions is limited to those which conform to the economic paradigm of individual rational choice. It examines a recent article which employed the Pareto criterion to discard classes of arguments in favor of using social policy to control drug abuse. It attempts to show that assumptions which seem realistic can be used to rescue each of the arguments which were discarded. The point that is made is not that social policy should be used to control drug abuse but that economists can do little in this field but provide a means for logically analyzing the problem.

DRUG ABUSE LEGISLATION FOR THE 1970'S

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 990-992
Author(s):  
Sumner J. Yaffe ◽  
Chables W. Bierman ◽  
Howard M. Cann ◽  
Arthur P. Gold ◽  
Frederic M. Kenny ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Drug Abuse ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Drug Abuse Prevention ◽  
Federal Law ◽  
Psychomotor Tests ◽  
Impaired Performance ◽  
Control Drug ◽  
Department Of Health ◽  
Frequent Use ◽  
Criminal Charges

The frequent use of marijuana by American youth has compelled the Committee on Drugs to explore the present methods of and recommendations for controlling marijuana. On October 15, 1970, the Executive Board of the American Academy of Pediatrics endorsed in principle a statement on marijuana which was prepared by the Massachusetts Chapter of the Academy and published in the Academy's Newsletter.1 This statement called for considering possession of marijuana as a misdemeanor rather than a felony, but it was against legalizing use of marijuana at the present time. On October 27, 1970, President Nixon signed into law the Comprehensive Drug Abuse, Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (P.L. 91-513). This law became effective May 1, 1971; it is the Federal Government's attempt to control drug abuse by scientific and medical measures (under control of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare) and by law enforcement activities (Department of Justice). The new Federal law has stopped short of legalizing marijuana, but it does allow a judge the discrelion to withhold criminal charges for the first offense of possession. The Massachusetts Chapter notes2 that marijuana is not a narcotic and does not produce addiction. Short-term physical effects are innocuous. However, impaired performance on simple intellectual and psychomotor tests is seen after individuals have smoked marijuana for the first time; but, such effects are not seen in regular users. There is no evidence to substantiate the common misconceptions that use of marijuana leads to crime or addiction to opiates. But, so little scientific information is available on the long-term use of marijuana that it should be considered a potentially harmful drug.

Clumps and Pumps: Clumpiness, Resolution and Rational Choice

Utilitas ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 118-125
Author(s):  
ASBJØRN STEGLICH-PETERSEN
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Martin Peterson ◽  
Value Relations

It is widely held that the possibility of value-incomparability poses a serious threat to comparativism. Some comparativists propose to avoid this problem by supplementing the three traditional value relations with a fourth value relation, variously identified as ‘roughly equal’ or ‘on a par’. However, in a recent article in this journal, Nien-he Hsieh has proposed that the comparisons thought to require rough equality or parity could instead be understood in terms of the concept of ‘clumpiness’. Against this suggestion, Martin Peterson has argued that the concept of clumpiness allows agents to be exploited in money-pumps, thus removing the central appeal of the concept. In this note, I show that Peterson's argument fails to establish that the concept of clumpiness allows agents to be exploited in money-pumps.

Analysing Bureau-Shaping Models: Comments on Marsh, Smith and Richards

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-189 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEITH DOWDING ◽  
OLIVER JAMES
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Rational Choice ◽  
Recent Article ◽  
Central Government ◽  
British Government ◽  
Theoretical Level ◽  
The Past ◽  
Interpretative Sociology

In a recent article in this Journal Marsh, Smith and Richards (MSR) note the massive recent changes in the organization of British government and the attention the bureau-shaping model has received both at a theoretical level and as an explanation of changes. They suggest that the model has breathed new life into debates about the behaviour of officials and is important in the context of the ‘Next Steps’ agency reform. They state two aims of their article: ‘First, it is a critical contribution to the literature on the bureau-shaping model’, and secondly it examines ‘the model's utility as an explanation of the changes that have occurred in British central government in the past decade’. They also use their arguments as part of an assault upon rational choice and empirical political science more generally in favour of interpretative sociology. However, in this Note, we respond to their work on the bureau-shaping model and rational choice.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document