Introduction

Some social problems are predictable, allowing, in theory at least, a proactive and structured policy response: for example, the age ranges of the population can be measured via the use of demographics. This enables the clear identification of time periods when more resources will be needed by primary schools, pension funds and so on. Equally, in many of these policy areas, there is a clear and unambiguous ‘lead’ agency that will structure the nature of the response. Other forms of social problem often emerge from the need to respond to changes in behaviour. In those cases, the fluid and relatively immediate nature of the problem precludes planned responses, creating conditions where reactive policy is necessary and service provision responds to the problem in a relatively unstructured and sometimes ad hoc manner. In some of these policy areas, there may well be shared or disputed ownership of the problem, leading to mixed and often competing policy responses.

The latter scenario is clearly the case in the state's response to the rise in illicit drug use. Since the 1960s, when the use of illicit drugs for recreational and experimental purposes started an upward rise that continues today (Bean, 2002) to a level whereby some commentators (Parker et al, 1998) have claimed that illicit drug use is normalised among certain sections of the population, we have seen the health and criminal justice wings of the state, coupled with sections of the private sector, struggle to provide a response to the various problems associated with the use of illicit drugs. However, the era of unstructured and uncoordinated drug policy appears to be coming to an end, due in no short measure to New Labour's fixation with audit, the managerialist imperative to produce quantifiable criteria of ‘success’ and New Labour's particular obsession with crime and disorder (Power, 1994; Barton, 2003).

Taken together, these three factors have had an impact on drug services, largely because they have sought to merge the criminal justice and welfarist approaches to dealing with problematic drug use and users.