ABSTRACT
Recently, a provocative essay in the Atlantic Monthly enumerated many of the pitfalls of public policy administration. The essay ruminated on public policy as it relates to the difficulty of changing—or perhaps more precisely, reforming—human behavior and, in the process, identified many of the problems facing national drug control policy today. 1 The tract lamented the incorrigibility of human behavior and begged for patience where public policy to reform behavior is concerned. Specifically, the essay suggested that we be tolerant and allow policies time to influence behavior and that we learn to understand that our best estimates—about costs, effects, and so forth—will often be stunningly off the mark. The author also urged that policymakers not be unduly criticized for attacking the easiest problems first, but rather, savor whatever victories over incredibly complex problems that can be salvaged. In return, however, policymakers were urged not expect (or promise) to solve a problem in its entirety; and not to compare results to ideals, but to the more appropriate standard of the conditions that existed prior to policy intervention. Finally, policymakers were warned that while many problems can, and should, be attacked along multiple fronts, that most policy issues are too complex to address along every dimension.
