出版社:Institute on Global Drug Policy & the International Scientific and Medical Forum on Drug Abuse
摘要:Legalization debates often focus on marijuana or marijuana and the rest of the "big four" (cocaine/crack, heroin, and methamphetamine), but decisions to ban non-medical use by "scheduling," or prohibiting a substance by listing it on national legislation, a substance are made on an ongoing basis for new or emerging substances (e.g., K2 or spice, mephedrone, etc.). Some literature is highly critical of certain of these decisions. This paper reviews the process used by the U.S. to make scheduling decisions, based on (1) the outcomes for all 137 substances regulated under the Controlled Substance Act between 1971 and 2010, (2) comparison with processes and outcomes for some other developed nations, and (3) its adherence to or departures from general principles espoused in the management and decision sciences literatures. While possible improvements are suggested, the overall conclusion of this paper is that the sky is not falling; the scheduling decision processes work more often than not