Discriminatory decision making at the legislative level

This paper is an analysis of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970. Consistent with value-conflict perspectives, previous research on the social origins of drug legislation suggests that coercive laws occur when the behavior of minority and other subordinate groups become threatening. Liberalizing drug legislation is enacted when the interests of dominant groups seem juxtaposed to existing punitive legislation. The present analysis explores the process of legislative decision making when both subordinateand superordinate groups engage in drug-related behaviors which run counter to dominant norms and values. To do so, a detailed analysis of the congressional committee hearings and floor debates which preceded enactment of the 1970 Act was conducted. This analysis revealed that Congress did not pass a strictly coercive drug control policy at the risk of stigmatizing superordinate groups. Nor did it choose to liberalize drug penalties across the board. Congress perceived that strictly liberal policies might undermine both the instrumental goal of reducing illicit drug activity, and the symbolic goal of expressing general societal disapproval of illicit drug use. Instead, the legislation that emerged from congressional debates contained both liberal and coercive provisions reflecting the requirements of dealing with two targeted populations: young middle and upper class white drug users who became identified as victims of drug traffickers; and large-scale and professional drug dealers who became identified as enemy deviants—the true source and symbol of the drug problem. Liberal, and essentially discriminatory, provisions permitted the protection of the former from stigmatization as criminal felons. Coercive, but apparently nondiscriminatory, provisions provided the threat and potential for severe punishment of the latter. The discriminatory features of the 1970 Act are identified and explicated. And, the implications of the Act's provisions for race- or class-based decisions in the application of sanctions are discussed.