If, as many would have it, the 'drugs problem' is among the more perilous and uncompromising challenges of our times, parental substance misuse represents one of its most insidious expressions. The last 15 or so years has seen a concern for the 'hidden harms' experience by the children of drug users emerge as a principal concern for national policy actors and local service provision. However, there has been relatively little critique of the assumptions and epistemological foundations underscoring this policy shift, or of the preoccupation with the 'family' in drug policy in general. Through examination of seminal policy documents relating to parental substance misuse, and using Carol Bacchi's 'What's the Problem Represented to Be?' (WPR) approach, the purpose in this paper is to attend more closely to the formulation of parental drug use as a significant policy problem, and to the family as a principle site for the constitution of drug harms.

Police stop and search powers have been widely criticized for the disproportionate manner in which members of black and ethnic minority communities are targeted. However, the use of such powers on minors in England and Wales has largely escaped comment, despite good evidence that such practices are harmful and counterproductive. Whilst data on the stop and search of under-10s and even toddlers has been reasonably widely reported by the mass media, there has been little interest in the welfare of older children who are subject to such police powers. Drawing on police data, qualitative research and information obtained through Freedom of Information requests, this article considers the relationship between potentially corrosive stop and search practices, young people's use of public space and the question of vulnerability. It is concluded that policy and practice around the use of such powers should be amended to take account of the specific needs of individuals under the age of 18, and that children's welfare should be a central consideration.

Children are critical to debates about drug law reform. For both advocates of liberalisation and, especially, defenders of prohibition, the protection of children is an important rhetorical device in pressing for, or resisting, change. However, the privileged position of minors within such discussions, or talk about drugs in general, has rarely been explored in any depth in either drug and alcohol studies or legal research. Drawing on scholarship on performativity, and particularly John Law's work on 'collateral realities', this article will consider how constructs such as childhood and drugs are 'produced' and '(re)made' in such discourses. Through analysis of legal measures, policy documents/statements submitted to the UN General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS) in 2016, and scientific discussion, it will be argued that such 'realities' include the constitution of the child as the logical victim of drugs (and the natural beneficiary or casualty of reform), and the enactment of drugs as an inherent threat to children. It is suggested that drug policy research needs to pay attention to age as a social construct and cultural category, and that a critical awareness of the relevance of age in policy discourse is as necessary as, for example, race, class or gender. Moreover, attendance to the ontological politics of constructs such as 'childhood' and 'drugs' is important if law and policy measures are to account for young people's agency.

The definitive publisher-authenticated version of Flacks, Simon (2014) 'Risk, welfare and the treatment of adolescent cannabis users in England', British Journal of Criminology, 54 (2). pp. 281-297. ISSN 0007-0955 is available online at:http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/bjc/azt066The WestminsterResearch online digital archive at the University of Westminster aims to make the research output of the University available to a wider audience. Copyright and Moral Rights remain with the authors and/or copyright owners. Users are permitted to download and/or print one copy for non-commercial private study or research. Further distribution and any use of material from within this archive for profit-making enterprises or for commercial gain is strictly forbidden.Whilst further distribution of specific materials from within this archive is forbidden, you may freely distribute the URL of WestminsterResearch: (http://westminsterresearch.wmin.ac.uk/).In case of abuse or copyright appearing without permission e-mail repository@westminster.ac.uk

Stop and search can harm young people, damage relations between police and the community and alienate ethnic and racial minorities. In Mohidin and another v Commissioner of the Police of the Metropolis and others, a group of minors who had been stopped, searched and, in some cases, falsely imprisoned, assaulted and racially abused by officers, were awarded damages for the distress and pain suffered. In this article, the case will be read not for the tortious legal consequences of police actions towards youth, or members of the public in general, nor for the culpability of any of the parties concerned, but for how the use of ‘lawful’ police powers on young people was framed and justified by both officers and the courts. It is argued that the punitive function of such powers has been underexplored by criminologists, and that the authorization and legitimization of such tactics, routinely defended as a ‘necessary’ crime prevention tool, can be understood as an instantiation of ‘necropolitics’.