Social Sciences in China Review

No.1, 2020

A Disciplinary Perspective on Thirty Years of Jurisprudential Research on Narcotics Control in China (Abstract)

Chu Chen’ge

Chinese anti-narcotics jurisprudential research has developed through four stages, beginning with Decision on the Prohibition of Narcotic Drugs (1990); reaching a high point in research around the time of the amendment of the Criminal Law of the PRC (1997); breaking through impediments in criminal jurisprudence prior to 2008; and then revolving around the Narcotics Control Law of the People’s Republic of China (2007) and Opinions on Strengthening Narcotics Control Work (2019). At present, Chinese narcotics control jurisprudence faces dilemmas such as institutional barriers to access to research data and information, a low disciplinary standing, difficulty in the attribution of research findings to the discipline, a lack of theoretical depth and breadth in research findings, insufficient acquaintance with legal dogmatics, and an urgent need to strengthen policy research. The fact that Narcotics control jurisprudence is neither departmental jurisprudence nor an independent discipline should not be a reason to neglect research in this field. Future research should be problem-oriented and should involve interdisciplinary crossover research, and create and innovate the jurisprudential discourse and theoretical system of China’s narcotics control.