How should we wage the war on drugs? Determinants of public preferences for drug control alternatives

When citizens are presented with alternative policy solutions to a given social problem, why do they choose to support one over another? In this article, the authors analyze a survey of residents of the five largest U.S. metropolitan areas to understand determinants of public support for spending on three major components of American drug control policy: law enforcement programs, rehabilitative services for addicts, and school-based prevention programs. The authors estimate effects of self-interest, political socialization, and policy attitudes on support for total drug control expenditures and on preferences for each drug control alternative versus the others. Effects of group self-interest, societal interest, and political socialization change dramatically across dimensions of support. Policy attitudes are strong predictors of both types of support, whereas individual self-interest measures are not associated with either dimension.