Modernity and Anti-modernity: Drug Policy and Political Culture in the United States and Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Drug law enforcement enjoys an aura of prestige in French policing circles. Illicit drug trafficking and the fight against drug supply are a constant source of popular beliefs and simplifications. The adaptability of criminal organizations and drug traffickers to the legislation brings into question the framework of law enforcement interventions. When confronting an ever-changing criminal scene, legislators are often faced with a Scylla and Charybdis situation rely on obsolete or insufficient laws, or produce too many laws whose implementation will be slow and that will make public action less transparent. Law enforcement organizations are quick to classify data regarding their knowledge as confidential, apparently for fear of potential damages to their reputation. Public policy analysis would benefit from exploring what remains of the social effects of political decisions once bureaucracies such as drug law enforcement organizations have absorbed them and partly drained them of their initial intent.