Date of Conferral

7-11-2024

Date of Award

July 2024

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Public Policy and Administration

Advisor

Victoria Landu-Adams

Abstract

Possession of small quantities of narcotics for personal use in Ghana could result in years in detention under the Narcotic Drugs Law of 1990, with youth constituting a large number of offenders. The government proposed a drug policy change in 2017 as the prevailing one failed to achieve its goals even with such stringency, resulting in Act 1019’s adoption in May 2020 as a new national drug policy to replace the Narcotic Drugs Law of 1990. The purpose of this generic qualitative study was to assess public perception of the impact of the new policy on the incidences of youth narcotic drug habits. Act 1019 was examined through multiple streams theoretical framework and analyses centered on the act’s impact on youth narcotic activities. Interview data were generated from 11 respondents using (a) purposive sampling to select institutions and (b) convenience and snowball samplings to select the respondents from the institutions. Data were coded on NVivo14 with a description-focused strategy and analyzed using reflexive thematic method. Results indicated youth drug activities rather worsened in the study area since 2020, with no signs of any form of narcotic-related penalty existence. Findings also showed policy illiteracy among respondents, as some of them learned about the act through this study. Recommendation for further research centers on policy stakeholder involvement in the entire policy process leading to Act 1019. The implications for positive social change with this study are that policymakers may include policy education in the policy process, especially policies that necessitate law-abiding with penal consequences.

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