| This study sought to compare the conceptions of and measures for handling drug-related behaviors in six secondary schools in Bogota, Colombia, with international, national and school drug control policies.; Drug-related behaviors (other than for medical or scientific purposes) tend to be conceived as a dangerous pathology, caused by personal and social problems, with negative consequences for individuals and societies, including violence and corruption. Accordingly, these behaviors are prohibited or controlled by the threat of punishment, a zero-tolerance prevention approach or forced therapeutic restraints. Additionally, efforts to improve the socio-economic conditions underlying drug-related behaviors may be undertaken. Alternatively, drug use may be understood as a social/public health phenomenon and a normally motivated behavior that could become problematic depending on the drug and dosage, ways of ingestion and context of use. This perspective emphasizes secondary level prevention efforts aimed at reducing adverse health, social and economic consequences of drug misuse or abuse.; This study employs an interpretive/hermeneutic approach for analyzing policy documents and statements made during interviews with school personnel (administrators, orientadores/counselors, and teachers) from six schools representing all six socio-economic strata within Bogota.; Following a functionalist perspective on policy implementation, international, national and school level policies tended to mirror each other; they prohibited drug-related behaviors for non-medical or non-scientific purposes, on pain of punishment. Variation between international and national levels of drug control is possible if a country's constitutional provisions and national autonomy establish exceptions to international policy, especially for the purpose of personal drug use.; Adhering to an interpretive perspective, school personnel variously reinterpreted, contested and appropriated international, national and school drug policies. School personnel, especially teachers, often viewed drug-related behaviors as being caused by individual and social factors (including family and socio-economic conditions). Being closest to students' realities and being least aware of legal constraints on their actions, teachers, more than coordinators and orientadores, tended to prefer non-repressive measures of drug control. Nevertheless, teachers' (and other school personnel's) potential for exercising agency in implementing policy was constrained by their perceptions of having limited expertise, lack of time and resources, as well as their uncertainty about whether schools could and should address the individual and social factors underlying drug-related behaviors. |
