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Unintended consequences of drug prohibition: How does the drug abuse start?
Džmuráň, Daniel ; Schwarz, Jiří (advisor) ; Mikolášek, Jakub (referee)
Drug abuse is a major contemporary issue that draws attention of scientists as well as of the general public. Attitudes towards drug prohibition, however, differ greatly. On the one hand, the so called prohibitionists emphasize that each country needs to fight drug abuse. Their critics, on the other hand, argue that this approach constitutes baseless interfererence with the free market and personal freedom. In addition, oponents of drug prohibition point out to the various unintended consequences that the prohibition brings along. Author of this text pays a special attention to the concept of these consequences and, as a result, gives a detailed overview of existing research on unintended consequences in the context of drug prohibition. The main goal of this text is to contribute into the discussion on drug prohibition by conducting a specific empirical research that discloses one of the negative consequences of the prohibition - the illegal black market. Being a direct effect of the drug prohibition, the black market increases the availability of drugs to teenagers. The validity of this effect was confirmed by data obtained by questionnaires from a sample of Prague drug users. The reason is that the data shows that the entrance into the black market for teenagers is enabled by their immediate...
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