This short document is an addendum to a paper RAND Europe provided for the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology in January 2006 on the evidence base for the classification of drugs (see Levitt et al., (2006). The Evidence Base for the Classification of Drugs, 2006, TR-362-HOC).
That report included information on legislation, punishment, and treatment arrangements in the USA, the Netherlands, and Sweden, as comparators for the UK. The Committee subsequently asked RAND Europe to provide a further, short summary of those international comparisons, to complement the information already set out in the main report.
This addendum provides selected additional information about drug use, strategy, punishment and treatment regimes, and drug education in the UK. It provides selected additional information on the USA, the Netherlands, and Sweden, to complement that already provided in the main report on drug education systems.
The information is not a comprehensive review of all the evidence available for the four countries; rather it provides an overview of the drug classification systems and the punishment and treatment regimes in place.
