Crime, Law and Social Change 15: 19-36, 1991. 9 1991 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. Heroin policy and deficit models The limits of Left Realism STEPHEN K. MUGFORD 1 and PAT O'MALLEY 2. 1Department of Sociology, Australian National University, Canberra; 2National Centre for Socio- Legal Studies, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria 3083, Australia (* requests for offprints) Abstract. This paper criticallyassesses Left Realist approaches to understanding heroin use and to formulating policies with which to deal with heroin use as a social problem. It criticises the epistemological foundation of Left Realism, querying especially its prioritizing of inner city residents' experiences. Dora and South's Left Realist accountof heroin use and their formulation of an appropriate policy are then argued to have fundamental weaknesses as a result of their Left Realist assumptions. The paper then attempts to indicate some alternative paradigms for in- terpreting drug use, developingespeciallya focus on theorizingdemand, and suggestsalternative policy directions which emerge from this. Introduction "Left Realism" is said to be capable of replacing a more theoretical but allegedly more unrealistic, romantic and impractical position held by Left criminologists in earlier years. Among its central virtues are held to be that it speaks more directly to the real concerns of the working class and thus provides a more sensible and practical basis upon which to pursue a progres- sive political agenda for criminological issues. Moreover, its adherents claim to address policy issues more closely than their critical forebears, attempting to present reforms which are attainable in the short and medium term, rather than in the mythological time of revolutionary reconstruction. The central criticism made by its opponents, predictably, is that it represents a sellout to conservative criminal justice policy, giving a progressive gloss to the justifi- cation of punitive sanctioning, police repression and even institutionalised racism. Often, the critique of Left Realism has been accurate and biting, but in a very large measure it has been responded to by its opponents at a rather general level) The central aim of this paper is to bring such critical exam- ination down to the level of specific policy formation which Left Realism takes as its home ground. After preliminary examination of important methodolog- ical issues the paper will examine the response of Left Realist advocates to demands for the formation of a progressive drug policy. The topic poses an odd