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Based on a number of applied anthropological studies of methadone treatment and related services to drug users in Denmark, this paper suggests that the idea and practice of 'treatment' itself needs ethnographic exploration as a particular cultural construction of the relationship between drug users and the rest of (the welfare) society. In our everyday thinking, the need for and practice of treatment is usually regarded as obvious and at least intentionally beneficial, something that on the basis of reason or morality can not and should not be questioned. However, this paper argues that treatment first of all serves to establish a particular relationship in which the solution (treatment) defines the problem (drug use and drug users' lives and activities) in culturally and politically expedient ways. Drawing on the theory of 'governmentality' from Michel Foucault, this paper argues that a crucial component in the functioning of treatment is the creation and targetting of drug users as a particular and identifiable section of the population, and that researchers - anthropologists included - assist in this process.

An anthropology of drugs takes the consumption aspect as a starting point, how consumers construct their identity, derive meaning from the act of consumption, and express their relationship with society in the process of consuming drugs.

Drug use has spread widely through the different strata of the so-called subcultures of young people, is embedded in the behaviour of deviant groups, both predictor and consequence of offending and anti-social behaviour, a ritual of rebellion, a rite of passage and an increasingly mainstreamed part of ordinary pleasures seeking behaviour.

Drug taking remains highly controversial, is imbued with moral uncertainty, is highly politicised, but at the same time poorly defined. Popular definitions tend to derive from the legal status of psychoactive substances, which has in effect left the definition to lawmakers.

The weak empirical foundations for drug policy are in part a product of the multifaceted character of the issue. Anthropology has an essential role to play as critical friend of ongoing activities due to methodological advantages

(i) the relative method -

(ii) concerns with the construction meaning by informants

(iii) locating behaviour within wider contexts and analysing relationships

(iv) detailed studies of small communities with ethnographic observations on actual patterns of use

(v) anthropology can humanise marginalised groups and despised practices

European anthropology has to outline an area for systematic exploration including

• field studies of cultures of drug use across Europe

• the impact of drug control on citizens and the state - what are the successes and failures of drug control

Within the drug treatment and research environment in Denmark the issue of what is treatment has been intensively debated throughout the last decade. This has resulted in several reports recommending how treatment of drug use should be organised. One of the recommendations is that people in treatment should have a case manager. A Campbell review has also recently pointed out that case management is effective in bringing people within the treatment system. It seems that case management is becoming one of the cornerstones in drug treatment in the first part of the twenty first century.

In this paper I will present an ongoing research project in an out patient clinic for people with a dual diagnosis (people with both a psychiatric disorder and a drug use). One of the treatment principles in this clinic is intensive case management (ratio: 1 case manager has 5 to 6 patients). I will focus on the benefits of case management as experienced by the staff. Case management seems to produce a very close relation to the patients that the staff uses to facilitate psychiatric treatment, to avoid and contain aggressive behaviour on part of the patients, to create a standing point in a moral difficult environment there patients talk and live with violence, prostitution and criminality, and last but not least where case management give a possibility for control in a treatment setting where former control through rules of methadone dispensing have been abandoned with reference to the principles of harm reduction.

Drug policy studies forms part of for example criminological research or policy studies in general. These different knowledge traditions also colour the perspective and methodological aspects of drug policy studies: drug policy research is often reduced to control policy focusing mainly on legislation and the more formal aspects of drug control; and, it is mainly quantitative studies based on documentary evidence, such as numbers of seizures, prosecutions, sentencing, and arrests in relation to drug offences, as well as police activity in relation to drugs. The present paper takes a point of departure in the perspective of both recent and classic drug policy studies, in order to discuss how an anthropology of drug policy can contribute and expand this field of study. In general, the argument will be that an anthropology of drug policy covers drug policy in the broadest sense, including both the formal aspects of legislation and how it is constructed, as well as how legislation is implemented in practice, e.g. how policing is conducted, treatment is formed, prevention is carried out, etc. Examples from a study of drug treatment in Danish prisons and a study of cannabis policy in Denmark forms the empirical examples of discussing how an anthropology of drug policy can contribute with new insights and new perspectives to the field of drug policy studies in general.