Demand-Side Policies

Demand-side drug policies aim to reduce the demand for the product primarily through prevention programs and the treatment of existing addicts. Supply-side drug policies, in contrast, have the goal of making it more difficult to buy illegal drugs through incarcerating manufacturers and dealers, destroying crops, or disrupting other parts of the supply chain. While “supply-side” and “demand-side” may describe noncomplementary approaches in other fields such as economics; in drug policy, the terms are complementary rather than mutually exclusive. [Page 195]The relationship is more analogous to other areas of law enforcement, where policies and practices may deal either with the victim side through safety awareness or preventative police presence, or with the criminal side, through arrests, prosecutions, and the handling of parolees and ex-convicts. American drug ...