The dominant social response to women's drug abuse has been primarily legal, highly punitive, and targeted at pregnant women. This approach is predicated on the belief that the interests of the mother and fetus are in conflict, and therefore, has given rise to the perceptions of the deviant drug-abusing mother and the vulnerable unborn child. The alternative framework presented here broadens the range of strategies to be considered in designing drug policy for women by assuming that maternal-fetal and mother-child relationships need to be understood in terms of interactions in which the needs of one define the needs of the other. State intervention in the form of nonpunitive and noncoercive strategies in the form of education and treatment programs are more likely to protect women, their children, and their families the long-term harm that results from mothers' abuse of psychoactive drugs. 6 notes and 61 references