[Role of science in the formulation of social policy on drugs].

Abstract

Psychoactive drugs are used almost universally for the pleasure and benefits which they can provide, but they also cause sufficient harm that most societies have adopted policies to control and limit the amount of use. Science is increasingly called upon to provide a rational basis for these policies. However, the biological sciences and modern sociology have fundamentally different approaches to such issues, the former being based on the concept that there is an external reality which can be discovered only by objective means, the latter holding that social problems are defined strictly subjectively and can not be separated from the values and ideologies of the researchers. Since social policy affects all members of a society, and must reflect all of their attitudes, values and traditions, science can contribute only facts and probabilities, but society as a whole must assign the values and make the required choices.