Drug Abuse Social Policy in the United States and Israel: A Comparative Sociological Perspective

Abstract

The United States and Israel have implemented the same social policy toward drug abuse: a supply/demand reduction model aimed at minimizing illicit drug use. The paper examines the results of this social policy in both countries, concluding that this social policy achieved a relative success in Israel, while relatively failing to achieve its explicit goal in the United States. The sociological nature of the drug abuse problem is analyzed, indicating that this problem is most efficaciously viewed as a moral-ideological one, and not as it has been: a technical-medical problem. Once the sociological nature of drug abuse is made clear, an explanation for the differential success of the supply/demand reduction model is offered. The explanation focuses on the different cultural matrices of the two societies, as well as on more technical differences such as borders and the army draft.