Part one addresses four different ways of understanding drug policy in the United States. One chapter examines drug control as ideology, followed by a discussion of definition and measurement. A third chapter provides a historical analysis of drug control, and a fourth chapter focuses on drug control as an occasion for debating the proper role of the criminal law. Part two provides a foundation for an improved policy process by discussing priority problems for drug control. One chapter shows how the protection of children and youth should shape policy toward illicit drugs, with attention to the fact that youth-protection objectives may properly limit the effectiveness of some drug controls. Another chapter explores the central but complex relationship between illicit drugs and predatory crime. The proper role of the Federal Government in drug-control policy is discussed in a chapter, and the final chapter criticizes the current national drug-control strategy and offers five suggestions for improving the drug control policy process. The recommended changes pertain to 2-track thinking, a focus on marginal cost and marginal benefit, attention to the lessons of prior Federal crime wars, priority for the maintenance of re-entry channels for drug users, and the adoption of a chronic-disease model of drug abuse as a social problem. Appended discussion of a survey of methods of estimating illicit drug use, 138 references, and a subject index