“Can We Break Through the Identity Dilemma?”: The Multiple Governance, Identities Conflict, and Self-Managements for Chinese PWUD.

Background: Exploring why the national drug policy failed is an important issue. Based on it, this study considers both the drug governance system and the voice of people who use drugs (PWUD) to analysis drug policy effects and the lives of PWUD in the Chinese context. Methods: This study takes PWUD living in urban communities as the research participants. Using qualitative research data, exploring how individual using drug experiences are identified and classified by structural forces and how individuals manage their daily life. Results: The study finds that law enforcement agencies (Narcotics Control Office (NCO), Police Station , and Community Assistance Group (CAG)) have different attitudes toward PWUD and generate different managements, forming multiple governance models, and then shaping the multiple identity dilemma. PWUD perceive the dilemma, and they adopt the strategies of spatial isolation (hidden flow), disconnection from experience (temporal isolation), and instrumental cooperation to continuously re-adjust and achieve identity recovery from the bottom-up. Conclusion/importance: Through evaluating the effectiveness of self-management strategies, this research integrates the Chinese drug rehabilitation situation, expands the specific performance of law enforcement system, and presents the limitations and positive value of self-management strategies.

Imaginary Penalty and Identity Conflict: The Dilemma and Strategies of Multiple identities in Substance Abusers in Chinese Drug Policy

Background: Exploring why the national drug policy failed is an important issue. Although the theory of "Imaginary Penalty" points out the relationship between ideology and policy-making, it ignores the systemic nature of drug control and the voice of drug addicts. Methods: This study takes substance abusers who live in urban communities as the research participants. Using qualitative research data, this study explores how individual drug abuse experiences are identified and classified by structural forces and how individuals manage their daily life. Results: The study finds that law enforcement agencies (Narcotics Control Office (NCO), Police Station , and Community Assistance Group (CAG)) have different attitudes toward Substance abusers and generate different managements, forming multiple governance models, and then shaping the multiple and incomplete Substance abusers’ identity dilemma. Drug addicts perceive the dilemma, and they adopt the strategies of spatial isolation (hidden flow), disconnection from experience (temporal isolation), and instrumental cooperation to continuously re-adjust and achieve identity recovery from the bottom up with the "possible citizens" narrative logic. Conclusion/importance: Through evaluating the effectiveness of self-management strategies, this research integrates the Chinese drug rehabilitation situation, expands the specific performance of "Imaginary Penalty" in the law enforcement system, and presents the limitations and positive value of self-management strategies.

Drug Control as an Exception in a Humane and Rational Criminal Policy in Finland

The drug policy in Finland is described as a paradox. Finland has after the Second World War actively worked for reducing the prison population to the general Nordic and West-European level. While these efforts were successful, the drug policy however developed in the opposite direction.

Gang Talk and Strategic Moralisations in Danish Drug Policy Discourses on Young and Recreational Drug Users

In Denmark, a moralization of recreational use of drugs has lately occurred. The use is interpreted in a neo-liberal framing seeing the user who can chose as selfish, not regarding the negative consequences of drug use in a wider sense, and the legislation has been sharpened.

Street Users in Drug Policy: On the Underestimated Role of Welfare Institutions

In Norway, the public and political debate is moving in the direction of treatment. This is in line with the tradition of the Nordic welfare state. However, it is argued, a treatment or welfare state approach to drugs can be as controlling as a policy based on legal punishments.