This article is the follow-up to the first part of The Culture of Addiction.
Society makes judgements about different types of psychoactive drug. As Bill White points out in his book Pathways from the Culture of Addiction to the Culture of Recovery, the social status and value attached to a particular drug by society influence several things:
- The risks associated with use of the drug
- The organisation of ‘tribes’ within the culture of addiction
- The characteristics of each tribe and the impairments that members experience from both the drug and the culture itself.
Clearly, there are likely to be differences in a variety of factors for drugs that are legal (e.g. alcohol) and those that are prohibited by law (e.g. heroin). Simply by using a prohibited drug, a person increases the risks associated with this drug, relative to what it would be if the drug could be legally obtained. Whilst society applies technology to reduce the risks of using legal substances, it often withdraws technology to increase risks from use of prohibited drugs.
‘We prohibit a ‘bad’ drug on the rationale that it is dangerous, and then construct social policies that assure high risks related to the drug’s use.’ William L White
Douglas Husak, a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University in the US, combines hard fact and rigorous moral reasoning in his cogent analysis of the drug law debate in his excellent book 
Throughout history there have been all sorts of attempts to regulate or control the use of certain drugs. It is generally assumed and rarely argued that it is all done for the greatest good, to help reduce the health and social problems caused by drugs. However, a closer look at the origins of prohibition reveals a more complicated picture. Ideological, political and economic interests play a major role.
