Drug policy and global regulatory capitalism: The case of new psychoactive substances (NPS) (2014)

The recent emergence of vibrant markets in 'new psychoactive substances' or 'legal highs' has posed significant new challenges for drug policy. These partly concern what to do about them but the speed and complexity of change has also raised difficulties for how policy responses should be developed. Existing drug policy systems appear too slow and cumbersome to keep up with the pace of change, remaining locked in large part within ‘old’ ways of thinking that centre almost exclusively around the deployment (or not) of the criminal law and its related enforcement apparatus. In this paper, it is argued that we need to rethink the problem through the lens of regulation, in order to learn lessons from other sectors where more agile responses to changing markets and business innovation have often proved possible. By examining examples drawn from these other areas, an alternative policy-making framework can be developed, involving a more flexible mix of state regulation, civil society action and private law mechanisms. This new approach is founded on a recognition of the networked and polycentric character of effective market governance in an era of global regulatory capitalism.
Highlights:
The trade in new psychoactive substances is presenting novel policy challenges.
These challenges are best understood and approached from a regulatory perspective, as a specific example of more general problems presented by global regulatory capitalism.
To respond to the level and speed of innovation in NPS markets, regulatory innovation is required.
Lessons from other sectors indicate that a more flexible mix of state regulation, civil society action and private law mechanisms is needed.