Discipline or contain?

Based on archive sources and interviews with the people involved, this case study revisits the 1997 Drug Policy Committee in Finland and the struggles that were fought out within that committee over the definition of drug issues: the two main rival camps were the police authorities that were advocating for a drug-free society and insisting on policies of strict control and, on the other hand, the social welfare, health and criminal policy alliance that was in favour of harm reduction. The committee's efforts produced the first national drug strategy. Applying a social constructionist approach to social problems, the analysis concludes that the general objective of harm reduction, in the drug strategy was based not only on public health concerns: the ideological roots of the concept can be traced back to the tradition of a rational and humane criminal policy that was first adopted in the 1960s and 1970s. According to this tradition, criminal and social policy were primarily aimed at minimising overall social harm and at protecting the minorities that were the targets of control. The article describes the argumentation of different administrative and professional groups and their positions on harm reduction and the goals of a drug-free society. The end results, the aims and measures of the drug strategy, was a compromise between two logics, which has since paved the way to the further elaboration of the policy of harm reduction but also stricter criminal controls on drug users.