Key Concepts in Drugs and Society

This is a great resource that does what it promises and reflects the huge expertise of the authors. It will be welcomed by students, researchers and indeed anyone wanting critical but comprehensive coverage of key issues and trends concerning drugs and society - locally and globally, historically and today.

This highly accessible book provides informative, balanced and contextualized insights into the relationships between people and drugs. Whatever your background and however knowledgeable you feel you are about contemporary drug issues, I guarantee that you will learn something unexpected and new from this valuable text.

This broad and thorough text provides the reader with great insight into the reality of substance use in society. It eagerly challenges the readers' assumptions and beliefs about drug use and drug users with sound international evidence. All of us who work in areas relating to drug use, whether that be pertaining to education, legislation, criminal justice or clinical practice would do well to read this book and remember the historical and socio-political context in which we work. A pleasurable and page turning read!

The authors’ presentation of this vast amount of material is lucid, up-to-date and very student-friendly. Coomber and his colleagues have done well: this is an excellent text which should prove useful to third-level teachers and their students for years to come.

While its structure lends itself to dipping in and providing a veneer of understanding and insight into some of the thorny issues which surround drugs, it is also very readable, and the links between various headings are clearly flagged... it provides a great deal of information and clarity, and provides an excellent basis for common understanding and meaningful debate. We could all benefit from more of that.

Professor Ross Coomber is teaches Criminology at Griffith University, Australia.  Professor Karen McElrath is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Fayetteville State University.

Section One: Types of Drugs and Patterns of Use What is a drug/medicine? Prevalence and trends in illicit drug use Why do people take drugs? Addiction Legal drugs: alcohol and tobacco Polydrug Use/Polysubstance Use Common illicit drugs Typologies of drug use: use-misuse-abuse-problematic and recreational Binge drinking Raves and circuit parties Dance drugs/club drugs Cross-cultural and traditional drug use Gender, ethnicity and social class Normalisation Section Two: Drug Effects Drug Effects: Drug, Set and Setting Medical marijuana and other therapeutic uses of illicit drugs Prescribed and Over-the-Counter (OTC) Drugs New psychoactive substances/ 'Legal Highs' The Gateway Hypothesis/Stepping Stone Theory Drug related violence Drugs and crime Drug risks and health harms HIV/AIDS and other blood-borne viruses Injecting drug use Section Three: Drug Policy, Treatment, and Perceptions of the Drug Problem Drug Treatment and Quasi-Compulsory Treatment (QCT) Harm Reduction Substitute prescribing The New Recovery Approach Prevention: primary/secondary/tertiary International drug control history/prohibition Drugs in sport Drug scares and moral panics Drug dealers Drug markets - difference and diversity Drug trafficking Crop Eradication, Crop Substitution and Legal Cultivation War on Drugs Drug Testing in Schools and Workplaces Drug Courts Decriminalisation, legalisation and legal regulation Liberalisation