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CAUT Bulletin Archives
1996-2016

June 2004

From Witches to Crack Moms: Women, Drug Law, and Policy

Susan C. Boyd. Durham, North Carolina: Carolina Academic Press, 2004; 392 pp; ISBN: 0-89089-127-3; paper $37 US.
This book provides a critical feminist analysis of the impact drug law and policy have on women in the U.S. compared with women in Britain and Canada. In order to illuminate the connections between the regulation of illegal drug use in Western liberal states and non-Western states, the drug war's impact on women and indigenous peoples in Colombia is also addressed. Boyd examines how punitive drug laws lend legitimacy to other repressive practices and policies against women. Providing insight into the intersection of the war on drugs and the regulation of reproduction, this book also shows how women's drug use is gendered, class-based and racialized.

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