Editorial

Aysel Sultan, Marta Rychert

Drugs, Habits and Social Policy

ISSN: 2752-6739

Article publication date: 5 August 2022

Issue publication date: 5 August 2022

349

Citation

Sultan, A. and Rychert, M. (2022), "Editorial", Drugs, Habits and Social Policy, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1108/DHS-03-2022-061

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited


Launching “Drugs, Habits and Social Policy”. Inaugural editorial: Reflecting on the past, envisioning the future

We are writing this editorial at the time when international drug policy and the social studies of drug use have been undergoing major reforms on political, social and academic levels. More stakeholders have become involved in the debates about decriminalization and legalization of drugs, and an increasing number of jurisdictions are reforming their drug laws. Establishing a new journal that could address these reforms with a critical eye is a timely endeavour. As the incoming editors we feel responsible for providing a medium that will help unite not only policy debates and research advancements but also professional practitioner and activist viewpoints.

The need to reconcile academic, practitioner and policy viewpoints has been exacerbated by the pandemic and the numerous issues with regards to austerity, health and social inequalities resulting from the criminalization of drug use and people who use controlled drugs across the world (; ). Since the COVID-19 pandemic and the disruptions it presented for the work of drug policy research and activism, we observed national lockdowns impacting patterns of drug use, and then how quickly they returned to “normal” when public health measures were eased (; ). Some drug market monitoring studies provided evidence of disruption to drug cryptomarkets () and changes in illicit drug offerings on social media (), but we also learnt – yet again – that drug supply networks remained resilient during the pandemic (; ). Challenged by social distancing measures and resource constraints, harm reduction and professional drug services responded by implementing innovative modes of service delivery, including telemedicine, home-delivery and contactless opioid substitution treatment (; ).

The recent disruptions and challenges brought by the pandemic have reinforced the role of evidence in drug policy space(s) as more important than ever before. In this spirit of re-imagining social studies of drug use and drug policy, we are delighted to be launching Drugs, Habits and Social Policy (DHSP) at this particular time. Previously named Drugs and Alcohol Today, the journal started more than 20 years ago and quickly established itself as a unique publication in the field of social drug studies for publishing research from some of the most under-represented parts of the world, and for allowing academic as well as practitioners’ perspectives an equal platform. In renaming the journal Drugs, Habits and Social Policy, our aim is to reflect the changes and conceptually intervene in the ways drug policy studies and social studies of drug use have developed in the past decades. Firstly, we want to break the dissociation between drugs and alcohol that is often used to categorize drugs based on their legal status and which supports the social facilitation of alcohol as opposed to “other” drugs. This distinction has been criticised as reductionist and increasingly irrelevant. In addition, this name change comes as a growing number of jurisdictions are experimenting with legalisation. Secondly, we want to highlight the importance of sensitive and inclusive language by choosing a title that reflects the critical drug studies of the past decade and shows awareness of the detrimental consequences of pathological and disease-informed models of drug use (). Thirdly, following pioneering critical drug studies, we have opted for the term habits instead of more familiar but value-laden terms such as addiction or drug use. Habits, as some critical drug scholars have already argued, help to provide a better denomination of drug use related lifestyles. One that does not necessarily centre itself around the rational human consumer, but also captures the complex socio-material worlds that drugs inhabit (). Finally, the term social policy signals the significance and need for more engaged and socially responsible research that is acutely aware of how policies shape public discourse, institutions, development and sustainability that are vital for more humane drug policy reforms around the world.

Over the past decade or so, social drug research has expanded into new terrains as methods and monitoring tools have also advanced in response to evolving drug markets, patterns of drug use and public policies. In this range of novel methods, the growing adoption of wastewater analysis, syringe residue analysis and darknet drug market scraping as additions to the suite of monitoring tools over the past few years has been welcomed (; ; ). As colleagues from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) note in the latest DHSP blog post about online drug markets during the pandemic, we need more innovative approaches and new tools to understand ever-changing drug markets and habits ().

The past decade also saw accelerated technological, scientific and policy innovations in the field, from the third wave of the opioid epidemic in North America (), the emergence of cryptomarket drug markets and online drug trade (), the commercialisation of e-cigarettes and vaping technologies (), to the establishment of legal recreational cannabis markets in Uruguay, Canada and 18 states in the USA (; ). While we continue to gather evidence on how these changes impact drug use and drugs markets in the West, there is also a need to understand developments in other parts of the world.

DHSP is committed to promoting transdisciplinary research that draws on epistemological traditions and methods from various disciplines, from epidemiology, public health and economics to criminology, public policy, sociology, educational sciences and science and technology studies. In particular, we believe we can do more as a field in terms of engaging with people who use drugs and the methodological innovations in this space, including co-design and participatory approaches.

With the world undergoing a paradigm shift from prohibition to harm reduction, we are particularly interested in contributions that provide evidence for innovative harm reduction responses. The first special issue addressing this topic at DHSP is led by Fiona Measham and co-guest edited by the Trans-European Drug Information team. The special issue will focus on drug checking services that are gaining increasing interest from policymakers, as also evidenced by the recent implementation of the world’s first legal framework for drug checking services in New Zealand . Entitled “From Guerrilla to government agent”, the special issue speaks to the journal’s interest in bottom-up drug policy reforms.

Finally, we would like to invite researchers and practitioners to submit manuscripts to the DHSP and welcome expressions of interest to lead special issue editions of the journal. We are committed to advancing critical drug studies by publishing diverse, inclusive and critical research, and providing a fair and supportive publishing experience. We would like to thank the outgoing co-editors Axel Klein and Blaine Stothard for their fundamental contributions to the journal under its previous title Drugs and Alcohol Today (DAT). We are especially thankful for their support in assembling the new, female-led editorial team of Azerbaijani, Polish and American origins with Aysel Sultan and Marta Rychert coming in as co-Editors-in-Chief, and Shawnee Harkness as the managing editor. We are aware of the importance of such diversity, especially with regards to recent debates on diversity and representation of authors, as well as editorial teams in addiction journals () and would like to further encourage interests in joining our diverse editorial board.

It is our great honour to work with an exceptional team of new associate editors for Africa, the Caribbean and the Middle East, respectively, represented by Ediomo Ubong-Nelson, Emeka Dumbili, Alana Griffith and Maziyar Ghiabi, as well as the new editorial board member Khalid Tinasti. We are delighted that the previous editorial board of DAT will continue with us in this new launch. The incoming editors are committed to continuing the international and diverse scope, welcoming submissions and participation from under-represented regions, and supporting all in the publishing process of innovative drug, habits and social policy-related works.

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About the authors

Aysel Sultan is based at Department of Science, Technology and Society, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany.

Marta Rychert is based at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand.

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