engleski

Croatian Drug Policy: Penal Liberalisation, its Impact, and Current Trends

Given the still rather recent penal liberalisation in Croatian drug policy we reflect on Albrecht’s highly valuable insights on drug control and critically assess the impact and trends such liberalisation has so far produced in Croatia. Following his bright example, we take a criminal law and criminological perspective, while em- bedding our analysis in the overall Croatian social context. Given that slightly less than a decade has passed since Croatia ‘decriminalised’ the largest share of its criminal drug offences, by down tuning possession for personal use to a misde-meanour, our analysis is both timely and necessary, while filling a considerable gap in European drug policy research. After providing an overview of the past and present penal drug policy, with focus on the main policy justifications and their transposition into criminal law, we address specific normative and practical chal-lenges the Croatian criminal justice system faces in implementing such liberalisa-tion. These findings are then further analysed and scrutinized in light of criminal justice statistics, public health statistics, seized narcotics statistics and prison sta- tistics, in order to assess the overall impact the liberalisation has had thus far and to detect most likely future trends. Finally, instead of simply taking a pro or con stand on the question of penal drug liberalisation in general, and particularly in Croatia, we will conclude the paper at hand by arguing that a one-size-fits-all ap-proach in matters of illegal drug policy commonly disregards cultural, moral and even behavioural differences between countries, societies and regions, and that relevant policy decisions need to be rooted in scientific knowledge, rather than opposing ideologies or world-views.

drug policy ; Croatia

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