Recent government policy and legislation advocates the diversion of drug offenders and drug-using offenders from the criminal justice and penal systems into voluntary and statutory treatment programs. Harm (from drugs and drug-related crime) reduction should ideally inform enforcement strategies. This article argues, through the use of a local case study in one county in the UK, that during the 1980s large numbers of drug users came under pressure from law enforcement authorities because of the structure (and logic in use) of treatment programs and court sentencing philosophies and practices. By exploring some of the present routes into, and out of, treatment and on into the prison system, it is suggested that the new measures in the Criminal Justice Act 1991 may have only a limited impact on the problems posed for the criminal justice and penal systems by users of Class A drugs because of operative representations of dependency, motivation, and culpability. Footnotes, references