‘Unearthing Women’ in Drug Policy: Where Do Women Fit — Or Do They?

Abstract

In Britain the policy framework within which treatment responses to women drug users and alcoholics developed can be situated within political changes reflecting distinct phases or periods. For Susanne MacGregor and Lynne Smith (1998: 70) these phases are characterized by treatment and care as well as control and punishment — all shaped within a pragmatic system whose treatment objectives have varied from abstinence, stabilization, risk reduction, and harm minimization. These authors argue that the British system has developed by trial and error, step-by-step experimentation, and avoidance of extremes. While how women have fared within this system is affected by these developments, objectives and characteristics, women’s involvement with this system has been marked by their invisibility and/or extreme moralizing. Citing Virginia Berridge’s (1984) work, MacGregor and Smith (1998: 70) outline how British drug policy has gone through five phases, with a sixth now underway. We argue that the sixth phase is completed and a seventh is on its way. When we look at these phases with special reference to women and ask how women fit into drug treatment policy in Britain, the question arises, ‘Where do women fit — or do they’?