With drug use related harms, explanatory models are often presented as predictive tools, even though they ‘are [rarely if ever] predictive of consequent behavior’ or outcomes. Hence, we feel confident in asserting at outset, that prohibition based approaches in drug policy lack a sound basis in empirical research (despite sounding logical, i.e. remove drugs or the means of their production and less drugs will be available to users, thus minimising or eliminating harm), and are not animated by well-defined goals, goals that are not only consistent with the ethical and humanitarian aims of public health policy in general, but also with the fundamental principles of democracy) such as empowering or enabling those best placed to act, but by beliefs, assumptions, hypotheses and expectations.

~ Daniel Waterman

Daniel Waterman Belief Democracy Drug Policy Drugs Ethics Explanatory Model Harm Humanitarian Policy Predictive Prohibition Public Health

The drug problem’ cannot be understood without a critical examination of the language and narratives of underpinning the explanatory models invoked to prove that there is a 'drug problem.

~ Daniel Waterman

Daniel Waterman Drug Problem Drugs Explanatory Model

We are particularly concerned with the question to what degree approval and implementation of an explanatory model minimising collective or institutional responsibility for certain problems and emphasising individual responsibility promotes detrimental perceptions and behaviours amongst individuals, who adopt and adapt similar explanations to justify their own lack of responsibility. For instance, admissibility of diminished responsibility arguments in criminal sentencing can be viewed as a direct consequence of a broader public acceptance of explanatory models purporting to prove a direct causal relationship between pharmacology, mental health and/or diminished ability to function.

~ Daniel Waterman

Daniel Waterman Causality Criminal Sentencing Diminished Responsibility Explanatory Model Institutional Responsibility Mental Health Personal Responsibility Pharmacology

State sponsored medicine and science can function as ideology, inspiring blind commitment, fanatical defensiveness and denial, particularly of outcomes inconsistent with the preferred explanatory model. The social etiology of compromised health, insists on an understanding of these conditions and the way they impact the objectivity or neutrality of scientific and medical interpretation.

~ Daniel Waterman

Daniel Waterman Etiology Explanatory Model Ideology Medicine Science