Drugs and Domesticity: Fencing the Nation

Sociology Compass, 2010

This article on the American administration's war on drugs policy uses an interdisciplinary approach to assess the assumptions of drug prohibition. It applies a historical and contemporary analysis to the issue of drugs in society. It will explore new ways of thinking about drug war politics, aiming to address drugs as a source of political state repression. American foreign policy has sought to use the war on drugs to reduce human suffering; but instead, the age of prohibition has brought financial opportunities for criminal syndicates and clandestine political operations and causes. I will seek to show that prohibition faces serious challenges as a result of changes in contemporary culture and communication. I will argue that prohibition has been concerned with more than drug control and through drug war policy, it has wider ambitions to govern culture through prohibition. The paper explores the growth of drug normalisation and questions whether drugs can be understood as a customary practice across social groups in different communities and asks to what extent the United Nations policy of 'cultural sensitivity' can fit alongside an aggressive war on drugs policy.

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2017

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New Labour came to power promising to offer a new, evidence based approach towards drug policy. However, despite early promise, the latter years of the Labour government descended towards tabloid led criminal justice populism. During the same period, the Conservative opposition often gave contradictory messages on policy, although they increasingly appeared to veer towards a hard-line, abstinence based approach. In power they have moved quickly to produce a drugs strategy that promises a move towards a 'recovery' agenda. This article reviews and evaluates the evolving Conservative Party policies on drugs misuse and explores whether the strategy lives up to its ambitious rhetoric and its stated aim to follow evidence based policies. It finds a mixture of laudable aims; vague and sometimes contradictory statements; proposals that are unsupported, and sometimes contraindicated, by evidence; and policy goals that are often at risk of being undermined by a wider policy agenda that threatens to marginalize people with drug problems still further.

The concept of 'moral panics' continues to be used as a framework for analysing the causes, structures and functions of social and political crises. Nonetheless, as an analytical tool, such a framework is limited in its capacity to explain the ongoing and interconnected relationships between drugs and society. Drawing first on an interdiscursive and intertextual framework, the field of analysis is broadened to consider how recent drug panics in Australia depend upon, signify and condense wider social and historical anxieties around drugs and other social problems. However, such an approach also has its limitations given that the play of intertextuality is conditioned by relations of power at the level of what Foucault calls a 'dispositive', a historically contingent configuration that strategically orientates our responses to the problem. Three dispositional drug-related prototypes are considered and how they work together to shape, reinforce and condition the drug problem and our responses to it. This research was initially concerned with better understanding the socio-political dynamics around what was stated to be a new emerging threat to the Australian community , and then finding an appropriate conceptual/theoretical framework from which to analyse it. The threat concerned the increasing use of methamphetamine, especially crystal methamphetamine, more commonly known as 'crystal meth' or 'ice', as represented in the mainstream media, and the conceptual framework under consideration was 'moral panic'. However, in surveying the media texts and commentary on the subject, it soon became apparent that there were a number of drug-related controversies , 'scandals', debates and such occurring in Australia over the past few years, many

Drug and Alcohol Review, 1991

The use of psychoactive drugs is regarded by many as a basic human drive, but it is one that induces a variety of societal responses to curb it. The present review examines two aspects of government policy on drugs: first, the influence of social movements on drug policy; and secondly, the choices for constraining drug use as an alternative to total prohibition. Addiction is essentially a repeated behaviour which is viewed as excessive or harmful. As such, it has many similarities with a wide range of human behaviours. With the concept of addiction becoming progressively banalized, there is the possibility of a more natural debate about decriminalization and legalization of drugs in terms of a balance between harm and benefits. The current public debate may create a climate for serious political consideration of the strategies. [Room R. Drug policy reform in historical perspective: movements and mechanisms. Drug Alcohol Rev x99x ~ io: [37][38][39][40][41][42][43]

The Sociological Review, 2011

As academics, researchers and perhaps policymakers (if you do get to read this) we are charged with finding out about the social world, discussing and reporting on it, and hopefully along the way something may happen which may mean that things are done for the greater good (Briggs, 2010). As someone who has researched in this manner for over a decade now, I was very enthusiastic to read and comment on Neil McKeganey's new work which tackles the most pressing arguments and debates in the context of drug policy and practice. Overall, the book is extremely accessible, easy to read and well structured. Chapter 1 starts with, what seems to be, a never-ending list of questions which immediately throws the reader into the book's debates. By raising these questions of legalisation, harm reduction and law enforcement, the reader is already juggling with central issues which the book aims to disaggregate. Thereafter, McKeganey quickly sets the scene for drugs policy and outlines the structure of the book. Using the examples of HIV and AIDs epidemic in chapter 2, he charts the movement of harm reduction, debating whether it was focussed on health and welfare of drug users or was a Trojan Horse for drug legalisation. Indeed, Gerry Stimson has made similar observations at the start of the millennium (Stimson, 2000). Continuing in this vein, in chapter 3 McKeganey then examines the role of drug treatment in the UK and draws on evidence to suggest how and why the system may be failing a substantial proportion of drug users despite the NTA rhetoric (see NTA, 2007).The chapter questions the role of methadone in the recovery of drug users and draws attention to the billions of pounds which have been thrown at the treatment sector-only for a small number to remain drug free (Fox et al., 2005). Chapter 4 addresses the myths and realities of drug enforcement: not only on a global but also on a local scale. It considers whether people are deterred

2013

This article aims to inspire and empower new understandings, interpretations and intervention strategies that genuinely meet the aims of global and domestic drug policy and law. Using Critical Discourse Analysis we identify a specific element of discourses on drugs and drug use which we term Responsibility Assignment Narrative (RAN). RAN empowers us to identify how responsibility is assigned within discourse on drugs and policy. The authors argue that this is crucial to avoiding the untoward consequences for human rights resulting from the current implementation of ineffective, sweeping measures, imprecise language, and narrative constructions that fail to address the real needs and interests of those concerned, rendering drug policy ineffective.

Drug and Alcohol Review, 1988

Australia's National Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NCADA) commenced in 1985. It is an innovative approach to drug policies, emphasing reducing the demand for drugs, addressing all drugs and involving a partnership of all governments in Australia and the non-government sector. The Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy agreed, in October 1988, to continue the Campaign into a second triennium in a substantially unchanged form. An evaluation of the first three years of the Campaign outlines its strengths and weaknesses, assesses the degree to which the Campaign's goals have been achieved and draws attention to the broader context within which the Campaign operates. The first triennium has been found to be successful, in that the NCADA has shown substantial movement towards achieving its goals and provides a firm base for further achievements. Based on the findings of the evaluation, we point to a number of key policy issues in the drugs field which are facing Australian society today and which provide the context for further development of Australian drug policies.

Journal of Australian Studies, 2008

... Mr Briese said that he interpreted these approaches as attempts to influence the Ryan case (see Sydney Morning Herald, 6 October 1984, pp. 4–5). Both Premier Wran and Justice Murphy denied the allegations. They have not been proven in the course of time. ...