Abstract
This chapter explores how the general rationalities and technologies of contemporary government inform the drug control dispositif. It argues that while differences between democracies and authoritarian regimes may indeed be theoretically postulated, contemporary drug control is now also linked to certain more general modes of government and faces shared macrostructural pressures of resurgent sovereignty coalescing with neoliberal governmentality across the regime type continuum. This argument is an alternative to linking drug policy either to regime type, ‘degree of government’ or positioning of a state in global economy. It is advanced in detail in a case study of the Czech Republic’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy, tracing the parallel—nonlinear—evolutions in the country’s drug policy.
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Notes
- 1.
Regarding the degree of government, the ‘balloon effect’ marking shifts in drug production where institutions are weak has been documented, together with the further weakening effects of the organised criminal activity related to drugs, and even emergence of hybrid political orders engaging in alternative provisions of public goods.
- 2.
The key legal framework was provided by a penal law 140/1961 Coll., Illegal Production and Possession of Narcotic Substances and Poisons. Czechoslovakia was also a signatory to the Single Convention (1961), with reservations made regarding the independent gathering and assessment of statistical data.
- 3.
See e.g. an infosheet available at https://www.vlada.cz/assets/ppov/protidrogova-politika/GCDPC_information_1.pdf (undated).
- 4.
It was substantially debated in 1998 before the final bill was passed but then returned to the Parliament following the veto of the then president Václav Havel (cf. Zeman 2007).
- 5.
This ‘rebranding’ has parallels elsewhere too. For example, in Spain the National Plan on Drugs (PNSD) incorporated the concept of non-substance (or behavioural) addictions in reference to pathological gambling, but also video games, screens or social networks. This type of behaviours are therefore incorporated to the broader drug policy strategy. See Delegación del Gobierno para el PNSD (2022).
- 6.
The prevalence of illicit drug use is more or less stable—very high compared to EU’s average in cannabis, and relatively high in MDMA. The most common illegal substances are currently cannabis and methamphetamine (locally referred to as ‘pervitin’). The Czech Republic has the highest number of methamphetamine production sites in Europe, but as these are predominantly (90%) small scale uncomparable to industrial sites in the Netherlands, Belgium or Mexico, it does not rank as the greatest producer. The production of cannabis herb has increased over the recent years. The industrial production located in the Czech Republic, and intended for export, has been associated predominantly with Serb and Macedonian organised crime groups (Národní protidrogová centrála 2021). The law enforcement has been focused on large-scale cultivation, creating a competitive small-scale production market that has pushed the prices down (Belackova et al. 2015).
- 7.
An illustrative example of the linkage between immigration and drugs during the migration crisis (2015–) seeking to create a moral panic was by a representative of the SPD (National Socialists) Radim Fiala who used the public broadcaster information that many of detained dealers over a preceding period of Wenceslaus Square in Prague—for a long a local site of controversy over more or less restrictive approach to drug users featuring the police and NGOs—were from Africa to claim that they were ‘illegal migrants’ and used it as a ‘proof’ that the government was lying the people about migration. The statement is available at https://www.spd.cz/6084-radim-fiala-drogy-v-centru-prahy-jsou-distribuovane-africkymi-imigranty/. For an earlier, more comprehensive treatment of the parameters of the public debate, see Zábranský (2004).
- 8.
For more information, see https://www.psyon.cz.
- 9.
‘You are a threat to this country. You favour immigration, your neomarxist views are well known, you are the extreme left and you propagate drugs’, Babiš was reported as saying during a Chamber of Deputies’ session on 17 Dec. 2020. Blesk, available at https://www.blesk.cz/clanek/zpravy-politika/664312/babis-utoci-na-piraty-jste-nejvetsi-ohrozeni-zeme-propagujete-drogy-bartos-komediant.html.
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Ditrych, O., Sánchez Avilés, C. (2023). Drug Control Dispositif, State of Exception and Democracy. In: Governing Human Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43552-2_2
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