Elsevier

International Journal of Drug Policy

Volume 37, November 2016, Pages 122-128
International Journal of Drug Policy

Policy analysis
Mixing drink and drugs: ‘Underclass’ politics, the recovery agenda and the partial convergence of English alcohol and drugs policy

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.02.005Get rights and content

Abstract

Alcohol policy and illicit drugs policy are typically presented as separate and different in academic discussion. This is understandable, to a degree, as the criminal law upholds a ‘great regulatory divide’ (Seddon, 2010: 56) separating the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. This paper takes a different stance. In doing so, it draws upon Berridge's (2013) argument that policies governing various psychoactive substances have been converging since the mid-twentieth century and seeks to elaborate it using recent developments relating to the control and regulation of drugs and alcohol in the broader areas of criminal justice and welfare reform. Significantly, the article examines how recent policy directions relating to both drugs and alcohol in England have, under the aegis of the ‘recovery agenda’, been connected to a broader behavioural politics oriented towards the actions and lifestyles of an apparently problematic subgroup of the population or ‘underclass’. The paper thus concludes that, although the great regulatory divide remains intact, an underclass politics is contributing towards the greater alignment of illicit drugs and alcohol policies, especially in regards to the respective significance of abstinence (or abstinence-based ‘recovery’).

Introduction

Where policy is concerned, academic discussion of alcohol and illicit drugs frequently emphasises their disparities. As Bennett and Holloway (Bennett & Holloway, 2005:3) have commented, alcohol research and drugs research tend to be conducted by different groups of researchers and the resultant literatures do not regularly overlap. It is quite normal for research on drugs policy to be framed in regards to the divide between licit and illicit substances, or to make reference to alcohol and the (usually) more permissive policies which govern its consumption and trade, but more detailed comparison is rare. This is understandable, to a degree, as the criminal law upholds a ‘great regulatory divide’ (Seddon, 2010: 56) separating the licit trade in alcohol from the illicit trade in substances classified as either class A, B or C under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. But, in spite of this legal divide, there is a strong basis for a more comparative focus. Alcohol is usually understood to be a psychoactive and potentially addictive ‘drug’. Ever increasingly, its use has been connected to a broad array of social harms and, although disaggregating harms deriving from substance use from those deriving from the policy frameworks regulating substance use is challenging (see Rolles & Measham, 2011), its relative harmfulness has been compared to that of illicit drugs (Nutt et al., 2010, Nutt et al., 2007). These similarities suggest that, while unusual, it is feasible to compare social and political responses to the consumption of various licit and illicit substances.

One of the few academic studies which attempts this is Virginia Berridge's recent book Demons. This book examines the historical development of various expert discourses on alcohol, illicit drugs and tobacco, and considers the connections between these discourses and public policy. Importantly, Berridge's novel argument suggests that, despite some sharp historical divergences, subsequent shifts in understanding mean that policy responses to various substances, especially alcohol, illicit drugs and tobacco, may have moved closer together since the mid-20th century (Berridge, 2013). The “great regulatory divide” is seen by Berridge, not as monolithic and impermeable, but as nuanced and subject to historical change. This article picks up on Berridge's line of analysis and considers its connections to a broader behavioural politics, oriented towards the actions and lifestyles of an apparently problematic subgroup of the population or “underclass”, which has emerged from around the 1980s onwards (e.g. Murray, 1984, Murray, 1996a, Murray, 1996b). Political interest in an underclass is visible in various countries, notably Britain and the USA. The convergence in understandings highlighted by Berridge (2013), moreover, is identified within various Western countries as well as the actions of transnational bodies such as the World Health Organisation. While both central phenomena have a transnational dimension, this paper examines their relevance to some recent developments in alcohol and drugs policies in England. Specifically, the article considers how policy directions relating to both drugs and alcohol have, under the aegis of the recovery agenda, been connected to ongoing efforts to regulate the behaviour of an apparent underclass. The idea of historical convergence is thus investigated in respect to more recent policy developments in England.1

To do this, the article assesses the relevant policies of the New Labour Government (1997–2010) and the Coalition Government (2010–2015) and provides some preliminary comments on the directions adopted by the current Conservative Government (2015+). It examines key drugs and alcohol policy documents and considers the political discourse in which these have been framed. The article does not investigate policy implementation or impact, but instead concentrates primarily on the discursive level with a view to identifying how relevant policies concerning alcohol and illicit drugs are framed by central government. We maintain that analysing the framing of policy can be revealing with regards to comprehending how certain behaviours and social groups are constructed as problematic and how political interventions which target them are rationalised. The first section of the article outlines Berridge's analysis of the historical divergence and convergence of policies relating to alcohol and illicit drugs as well as introducing the notion of the underclass. We then discuss the recovery agenda, particularly with its initial focus on abstinence (Duke, 2013, Monaghan, 2012, Wardle, 2012). Here we acknowledge a schism between policy discourse and policy practice, but also suggest that via heightened conditionality, the ‘recovery’ of welfare claimants and offenders, often considered to be part of the underclass, is pursued more than that of other groups. It is in this scenario, we conclude, that a degree of convergence in alcohol and drugs policy is apparent.

Section snippets

Historical divergence and convergence

Berridge (2013) argues that a series of divergences and convergences have helped produce the discursive and regulatory situation that exists with regards to alcohol and drugs today. The most striking historical divergence is the advent of the “great regulatory divide” around the time of the First World War. The use of alcohol was legally restricted but widely practised in the Victorian period. Opium, and increasingly cannabis and cocaine, were also legally available and largely socially

The recovery agenda

The 2010 Drug Strategy, has at its core a desire to see so-called problematic drug and alcohol users undergo a ‘permanent change’ and come off drugs and alcohol for good. In doing so, they can ‘successfully contribute to society’, which can be understood as entering the paid labour market (UK Government, 2010:18). It is perhaps best encapsulated by the growing political discontent over methadone maintenance treatment as a key pillar of previous drug strategies. Indeed, the shift away from

Problematic behaviours of problematic populations

With conditionality in welfare and criminal justice targeting alcohol and drug users alike through a valorisation of abstinence, we are left with the task of explaining these trends. It is important to identify that those targeted by conditionality tend to belong to the more disadvantaged socio-economic groups. Obviously, the Work Programme and Universal Credit are welfare policies which are designed to deal with people who are out of work or on low incomes. Criminal justice interventions do

Conclusion

This paper has analysed illicit drugs and alcohol policies relating to an underclass with a view to exploring Berridge's (2013) idea of a convergence between government policies on certain psychoactive substances. It has examined a range of policies which have been followed by New Labour, the Coalition and, in a preliminary sense, the current Conservative Government. Of course, alcohol and illicit drugs policies remain separated by the thick line of the criminal law. But either side of this

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Emma Wincup, Katy Wright and Teela Sanders for their helpful comments on drafts of this article. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their feedback and advice.
Conflict of interest: There are no conflicts of interest to report.

References (70)

  • BBC News

    Duncan Smith outlines plans for pre-paid benefits cards

  • T. Bennett et al.

    Understanding drugs, alcohol and crime

    (2005)
  • V. Berridge

    Demons: Our changing attitudes to alcohol, tobacco and drugs

    (2013)
  • T. Blair

    Blaming a moral decline for the riots makes good headlines but bad policy

  • A. Bottoms

    Incivilities, offence and the social order in residential communities

  • J. Braithwaite

    The myth of social class and criminality revisited

    American Sociological Review

    (1981)
  • D. Cameron

    Troubled families speech

    (2011)
  • A. Crawford

    Regulating civility, governing security and policing (dis)order under the conditions of uncertainty

  • Department of Health

    UK Chief Medical Officers’ Alcohol Guidelines Review

    (2016)
  • Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)

    Universal credit: Local services support framework

    (2013)
  • Department of Work Pensions (DWP)

    Press release: Benefits sanctions down as more people helped into work

    (2015)
  • L. Donaldson

    Annual report of the Chief Medical Officer 2008 – On the state of public health

    (2009)
  • L. Donaldson

    Guidance on the consumption of alcohol by children and young people

    (2009)
  • K. Duke

    Out of crime and into treatment? The criminalization of contemporary drug policy since ‘Tackling drugs together’

    Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy

    (2006)
  • K. Duke

    From crime to recovery: The reframing of British drugs policy?

    Journal of Drug Issues

    (2013)
  • F. Field

    Britain's underclass: Countering the growth

  • F. Field

    Neighbours from hell: The politics of behaviour

    (2003)
  • J. Hancock et al.

    Policing the drugs intervention programme: An exploratory study of the southern UK policing region

    Policing

    (2012)
  • Health and Social Care Information Centre

    Statistics on alcohol: England, 2013

    (2013)
  • Home Office

    News story: Ambitious new Alcohol strategy launched

    (2012)
  • M. Hopkins et al.

    Sobering up: Arrest referrals and brief intervention for alcohol users in the custody suite

    Criminology and Criminal Justice

    (2006)
  • House of Common Library

    Appendix 1: Recommendation from the 2002 Home Affairs Committee on drug policy

    (2012)
  • A. Hucklesby et al.

    The evaluation of the restriction on bail pilot

    (2007)
  • Y. Jewkes

    Media and crime

    (2011)
  • Cited by (11)

    • ‘Playing the game’: Contemporary landscapes of alcohol policy and faith-based service-users everyday lives

      2022, International Journal of Drug Policy
      Citation Excerpt :

      Indeed, writing has shown how contemporary politics, policy and legislation have collided with ‘popular depictions’ of poor parenting/schooling, unemployment, poverty, unkempt homes, family breakdown, ‘nightmare-neighbours’, violence, anti-social behaviour, ‘binge-drinking’ and drugs. For example, Monaghan and Yeomans (2016, p124) suggest that despite ‘no significant change in ‘evidence’ both ‘population level’ initiatives and ‘underclass and behavioural politics’ have collided and become embedded in various alcohol/drugs policies/legislation with public health discourses overwhelmingly moving towards abstinence rather than reduced consumption. For example, drawing on use of ‘units’ as a pre-emptive proxy to define health risks the UK Government's Chief Medical Officer published various new advice notices between 2009 and 2016 including: all children and young people under age 15 should abstain from drinking alcohol; all adults should have several ‘alcohol free’ days per week; recommended levels of male alcohol consumption were reduced from 21 to 14 units per week, and total abstinence recommended for pregnant women or for those wishing to conceive a child.

    • Faith-based alcohol treatment in England and Wales: New evidence for policy and practice

      2020, Health and Place
      Citation Excerpt :

      In 2010 the Coalition government re-valorised ‘abstinence based’ approaches initiated by the previous New Labour government. This intensified under the current Conservative regime to include welfare and criminal justice sanctions as part of a ‘recovery agenda’ based on the ‘responsibilisation’ (Roy and Buchanan, 2016) of ‘vulnerable subjects’ (Brown and Wincup, 2019), underpinned by ‘behavioural politics orientated towards actions and lifestyles of an apparently problematic subgroup of the population or “underclass”’ (Monaghan and Yeomans, 2019: 122). Despite a partial policy convergence service providers and key stakeholders lamented the relatively reduced levels of funding for alcohol services in comparison with drug treatment, and while in our study we found no evidence of organisational restructuring related to policy convergence, or dedicated faith-based alcohol treatment organisations broadening their mandate in the context of shifting funding priorities to also encompass drug treatment, respondents did however note that the revalorising of abstinence politics/policy and its close fit with the philosophy and practices of faith-based organisations has contributed to the recent growing prominence of the sector.

    • History and the future: Looking back to look forward?

      2016, International Journal of Drug Policy
    • COVID-19 and Drug Trends

      2023, Crime, Justice and COVID-19
    • Intoxication: Self, State and Society

      2023, Intoxication: Self, State and Society
    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text