Accepting that opioid use and crime are associated and develop together, amongst opioid-using criminals the need for opioids may cause crime on a day-to-day basis or both may tend to be determined by some other set of factors. Previous studies have either failed to allow for such other factors, or have failed to compare opioid users to adequate control groups. From interviews with 151 Scottish prisoners and non-prisoners, divided into five drug-using groups: (1) alcohol only; (2) cannabis and alcohol; (3) other drugs but not opioids; (4) moderate opioids; (5) heavy opioids, data were obtained on drug use frequency, crime frequency and a variety of other variables. It was found that: (1) there were no differences between incarcerated and non-incarcerated opioid users, in fact incarceration had no substantial effects on other variables; (2) heavy opioid users committed crimes significantly more frequently than did moderate opioid users, non-opioid polydrug users, cannabis users or alcohol users. But, moderate opioid users did not commit crimes significantly more frequently than did the other groups; (3) other drugs were related to crime. Polydrug use (including cannabis use) was more related to theft and delinquency than was opioid use. Alcohol use was related to fraud; (4) there were larger explanations of crime than opioid use--criminal experience and polydrug use--and crime was a better explanation of opioid use variance than opioid use was of crime. It is concluded that need for opioids did not simply cause crime. Rather, crime and opioid use tended to influence each other. However, this relationship was not special to opioids but, depending on historical circumstances, could--and to some extent does--apply to any drug. In consequence, society's treatment of drug-using criminals needs to deal with drug use and crime together.

It is contended that the advent of the Internet accelerated and inflated the mephedrone scare, but also that online media allowed [web] user-generated information transmission, rather than simple dissemination by news media to audience, fostering competing discourses to stock drug scare themes as they emerged.

This article will highlight the difficulties faced by qualified but disadvantaged young people in accessing higher education. This is an issue which has strong implications for education policy, economic efficiency and social justice. Over the past two decades, despite large increases in overall access to higher education, the gap in level of participation between the most affluent and most disadvantaged school‐leavers has remained intact. This article will examine patterns of educational attrition amongst less affluent young people, who gain sufficient qualifications to enter higher education. In other words, in order to redress the imbalance in the uptake of places in higher education, this article will distinguish between the factors which qualify young people to access university and those which predispose them to participate. A range of factors (barriers) which impacted upon levels of participation in higher education was found. Access to higher education was primarily dictated by level of school achievement, although this in turn was found to be a function of disadvantage. Furthermore, some qualified but disadvantaged young people forwent the opportunity to enter higher education on leaving school, while others enrolled in less advanced courses, for reasons other than academic ability.

Interviews were conducted with 135 participants in the Glasgow dance (rave) scene. Drug use in this group was varied and not merely restricted to drugs associated with dance events, such as MDMA (Ecstasy). The setting in which each drug was used varied greatly. Amphetamine, nitrites and Ecstasy were the drugs most commonly used at dance events. Pharmaceuticals were least likely to be used in such settings. However, some drugs, such as Temazepam, were sometimes used prior to or after attending rave events. It is suggested that dance drug users are polydrug users who use drugs in a setting specific fashion. As such it would be wrong to classify such users solely on the grounds of their very visible behaviour in the public arena (at dance events). Other forms of substance use engaged in by this group may have a greater potential for harm than that seen at raves. The implications of these findings are discussed.

In recent years Popular Music Studies has witnessed a turn towards concentrating on music at a local level (Cloonan) and its use in what DeNora ("Music") calls everyday life. In a separate, but overlapping, development there has been a growing interest in the Night Time Economy. At an academic level this has included some interest in the role popular music plays in that economy (c/f Bennett, Björnberg and Stockfelt) and at UK governmental level it has included responses to 'binge drinking' (Home Affairs Select Committee, Prime Minister's Strategy Unit, Scottish Executive) and to licensing. 1 But there has been less attention paid to the role that music plays within a key part of that economypubs. In this article we examine the use of music in city centre pubs in Glasgow, Scotland. We include the role of music in attracting customers to pubs, the different types of clientele attracted, the relationship between music and alcohol sales and the ways in which music can act as both a trigger for disorder and a means of preventing it. We develop a typology of uses of music and explore the implications for Popular Music Studies.