Citation

Wolfson M, Hourigan M. Addiction 1997; 92(9): 1159-1164.

Affiliation

Division of Epidemiology, School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55454, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1997, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9374014

Abstract

This paper describes how widespread legal changes appear to have affected law enforcement practices concerning youth tobacco and alcohol use in the United States. We argue that the threat of criminalization was seldom addressed in scientific and public policy discussions of the drinking age, and only sporadically addressed in discussions of measures to regulate youth access to tobacco. We argue that unintended consequences are an important ethical issue for professionals involved in advocating, developing, implementing and evaluating public policy concerning substance abuse.

Language: en