Week Five - Reading Flashcards
Define policy:
The intentions and actions of governments; a dynamic concept, as much about process as about outcomes.
Define policy levers:
Tools and mechanisms that governments use to implement policy ideas in reality.
Define the different types of policy instruments in Australia:
- Policy through advocacy – educating or persuading
- Policy through network – leveraging relationships within and across government and with external partners
- Policy through money – using spending and taxing powers
- Policy through direct government action – delivering services through public agencies
- Policy through law – legislation, regulation and of official authority
Define the list of policy levers:
• Taxes (e.g. adding a new tax, increasing or changing existing taxes)
• Regulation and law (e.g. changing the law to make something illegal, closing loopholes in existing law, raising or lowering the sanction level)
• Subsidies and grants (e.g. adding a new subsidy to stimulate the market)
• Service provision (e.g. funding a new service, expanding existing services, changing the intake criteria, improving access)
• Information and education (e.g. displaying standard information, requiring disclosure of information by companies, warning citizens of risks)
• Framework of economic activity (e.g. encouraging competition, controlling prices)
• Finance and contracting (e.g. altering fee structures, setting up a public
enterprise)
• Bureaucratic and political reforms (e.g. changing public service, constitutional law).
What are the four challenges that are associated with drug policy?
> conflicting goals,
coordination
balance
politics
Define conflicting goals:
In responding to drug use and related harms, there are contrasting policy actions across departments, which can result in conflicting goals and flow-on effects.
Provide example of ambulance cross police.
Howdy we measure drug policy success:
There are two common indicators: first, the number of people who use drugs and, secondly, the amount of harm that is experienced by individual drug users, their families and the community.
When is law enforcement regarded as an appropriate strategy to reduce the supply of illegal drugs?
Where use reduction is the ultimate goal of drug policy.
When is education a more effective strategy to reduce drug use?
When the environment where harm reduction is the more important policy goal.
Define zero tolerance:
An approach
to drug policy
that encourages abstinence and seeks to eliminate drug use in society by curbing supply and punishing those individuals who are responsible for the harm caused.
Define harm reduction:
An approach to drug policy that seeks to minimise the harmful consequences of drug use to the individual, families and the community at large, and adopt
a value-neutral position with regard to drug use.
Define zero tolerance:
An approach
to drug policy
that encourages abstinence and seeks to eliminate drug use in society by curbing supply and punishing those individuals who are responsible for the harm caused.
Define four pillars:
This approach categorises the
array of drug policy options available
into four domains: law enforcement, treatment, prevention and harm reduction: law enforcement; treatment; prevention; and harm reduction.
Define harm minimisation:
Refers to strategies that aim to minimise harm from AOd, including abstinence strategies and harm reduction strategies. it has been the encompassing
term used in Australia’s National drug strategy and
is inclusive of supply reduction, demand reduction and harm reduction
Contrast Australia, UK, USA, Sweden, Switzerland, and Singapore drug theories.
Australia - four pillars. demand reduction, supply reductions and harm reduction.
UK - Placed on three themes: reducing demand, reducing supply, building recovery in communities.
USA - new balanced approach; prevention, treatment, recovery, support, law enforcement, interdiction.
Sweden - prevention, treatment, and law enforcement.
Switzerland - no barriers approach to the four pillars.
Singapore - emphasis placed on zero tolerance.