Politically Acceptable Effects: Reframing Unintended Consequences of Drug Policies

“Unintended consequences” is a taken-for-granted narrative used to refer to the effects of a policy that overflow the original intended effect. In drug policy scholarship, “unintended consequences” is used to call for better and more accountable decision making. In this article, I draw from sociology, science and technology studies, and policy anthropology to consider the political decisions that underpin “unintended consequences.” I elaborate the relationships between choice, intent, interest, and unintended versus unanticipated consequences before considering the case example of police diversion in NSW, Australia. While drug policy decisions are taken without assurances of the outcomes, I argue that effects that are known or expected should not be referred to as “unintended consequences.” Instead, I argue that reframing these effects as “politically acceptable effects” allows closer attention to policy choice and the political calculations that underpin it.