ABSTRACT

While evidence-based policy is an emerging rhetoric of the desire by and for governments to develop policies based on the best available evidence, drug policy is an area where particular challenges abound. This book is a detailed and comprehensive examination of the contours of drug policy development through the consideration of the particular roles of science, media, and interest groups. Using Belgium as the primary case-study, supplemented by insights gathered from other countries, the author contributes to a richer understanding of the science-policy nexus in the messy, real-world complexities of drug policy. Change or Continuity in Drug Policy: The Roles of Science, Media, and Interest Groups is the first book to bring together policy and media theories, knowledge utilisation models, and public scholarship literature. As such, the book provides unique insights relevant to aspects of change or continuity in drug policies in Europe and beyond.

This book will be of great value to undergraduate and graduate students, as well as to academics, practitioners and policymakers with interest in the science-policy nexus with a particular focus on the drug policy domain.

chapter 1|11 pages

Introduction

chapter 2|37 pages

The Science-Policy Nexus

From Knowledge Utilisation Models to the Evidence Movement

chapter 3|15 pages

Analysing Drug Policy

Documents, Elites, and Related Challenges

chapter 5|16 pages

The Parliamentary Working Group on Drugs

1996–1997

chapter 6|17 pages

Turbulent Intermezzo

1997–2000

chapter 7|19 pages

The First National Drug Strategy

Federal Drug Policy Note (2001)

chapter 8|19 pages

The Reform of Belgian Drug Law

2002–2003

chapter 9|19 pages

Concluding Thoughts