ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the relations between the permissive/restrictive orientation and the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the national drug policies. The emergence of illegal drug use in the four countries studied (Czech, Hungary, Slovenia, Poland) has been related to different policy responses. Mostly in the 1990s, many new activities, professional doctrines and specific policies have been developed. The main idea of this part of the research is that drug-related attitudes matter. In other words, that they in a systematic way discriminate between the four countries studied and that they are related to what drug demand reduction organizations actually do and the way they are structured. This chapter discusses the relation between the founding time of organizations and their attitudes. The hypothesis could be that the newer organizations would show more often a more permissive orientation, while the older, more traditional ones would also have more traditional, in this case, restrictive drug-related attitudes.
