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Key Concepts in Drugs and Society
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Key Concepts in Drugs and Society



April 2013 | 208 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
'This is a great resource that 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.'
- Nigel South, Professor of Sociology, University of Essex

'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.'
- Joanne Neale, Professor of Public Health, Oxford Brookes University

Why do people take drugs? How do we understand moral panics? What is the relationship between drugs and violence? How do people's social positions influence their involvement in drug use? Insightful and illuminating, this book discusses drugs in social contexts. The authors bring together their different theoretical and practical backgrounds, offering a comprehensive and interdisciplinary introduction that opens up a wide scientific understanding moving beyond cultural myths and presuppositions.

This is an invaluable reference source for students on criminology, sociology and social sciences programmes, as well as drug service practitioners such as drug workers, social workers and specialist nurses.

 
PART 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 and Problematic-Recreational Use
 
Binge-Drinking
 
Raves and Circuit Parties
 
Dance Drugs/Club Drugs
 
Cross-cultural and Traditional Drug Use
 
Gender, Ethnicity and Social Class
 
Normalisation
 
PART 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
 
Novel Psychoactive Substances
 
The Gateway Hypothesis/Stepping Stone Theory
 
Drug-related Violence
 
Drugs and Crime
 
Drug Risks and Health Harms
 
Injecting Drug Use
 
HIV/AIDS and Other Blood-borne Viruses
 
PART 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 and 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

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.

Nigel South
University of Essex

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.

Joanne Neale
Oxford Brookes University

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!

Anna Nelson
Programme Manager, Matua Raki National Addiction Workforce Development Centre, New Zealand

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.

Shane Butler
School of Social Work & Social Policy, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

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.

David MacKintosh
DrugLink

Scholars, students or even a lay audiences, will find this useful for grounding themselves in a broad understanding of the roles that drugs play in human society... a welcome addition to the tool box: it helps restore a learning style that has been largely displaced by an MTV-style of learning that blasts factoids in a pastiche of information with no apparent rhyme, reason or theoretical foundation to support it. Key Concepts covers a prodigious amount of intellectual terrain in a relatively small amount of space, making it a book that people might both buy and carry around. It could very well become the "Key Words" of the drug field.

Ric Curtis
John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY

Useful for module looking at legal and ethical issues. Uses up to date research and informs students about debates around misuse of drugs in society.

Mrs Susan McGrory
Health and Social Care, North West Regional College
May 18, 2016

It will be used as an addition to my undergrad reading list as a comprehensive look at the drugs issues.

Professor Colin Sumner
Department of Sociology, University College Cork (NUI)
April 27, 2015

Both an accessible and insightful way in to a complex area. There is material in here for students from a wide range of disciplines that will add to their professional capacities.

Mr Timothy Wallis
Health, University Campus Oldham
December 19, 2014

All the students who study contemporary issues in drug misuse should have this book at hand. It provides basic information on all the relevant topics that are covered in such a module.

Mr Marian Buhociu
Criminology, Univ. of South Wales
July 16, 2014

Ross Coomber – Qualitative Criminology

Professor Ross Coomber is teaches Criminology at Griffith University, Australia.  More About Author

Karen McElrath

Professor Karen McElrath is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Fayetteville State University. More About Author

Fiona Measham

Karenza Moore

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