Enacting Alcohol and Other Drug (Testing)-Related Harms in an Australian Drug Court

Self Cite

Global momentum for drug law reform is building. But how might such reform be achieved? Many argue that human rights offer a possible normative framework for guiding such reform. There has been very little research on whether human rights processes can actually achieve such aims, however. This paper responds to this knowledge gap. It explores how one human rights mechanism—the “parliamentary rights scrutiny process”—deals with alcohol and other drugs. We consider how four Australian parliaments scrutinized proposed new laws that would deal with alcohol and other drugs for their human rights “compatibility.” We find that laws that would limit the rights of people who use alcohol and other drugs were routinely seen as justifiable on the basis that alcohol and other drugs were inherently “unsafe.” Crucially, safety was conceptualized in a gender-neutral way, without regard to the potential role of gender, including specific masculinities, in the production of phenomena such as family violence and sexual violence and other public safety problems. Instead, such problems were regularly constituted as consequences, simply, of alcohol or other drug consumption. In making this argument, we build on the pioneering work of David Moore and colleagues (e.g., 2020). Their work asks important questions about how the causes of violence are constituted across different settings, including research and policy. Drawing on ideas from scholars such as Carol Bacchi and John Law, they identify “gendering practices” and “collateral realities” in research and policy on violence, in which the role of men and masculinities are routinely obscured, displaced or rendered invisible. We find similar problems underway within human rights law. In highlighting these gendering practices and collateral realities, we aim to draw attention to the limitations of some human rights processes and the need for more work in this area.

mentioning

confidence: 58%

Enacting Safety and Omitting Gender: Australian Human Rights Scrutiny Processes Concerning Alcohol and Other Drug Laws

Seear

Mulcahy

2021

Self Cite

“…Ironically, although mechanisms such as monitoring through urinalysis are designed to ensure compliance, their broad scope greatly enhances the likelihood of noncompliance (Clancey & Howard, 2006; Manderson, 2011; Sarmiento et al, 2019). Following Carlen (2008) and Garland (1996, 1997), we suggest that the success of such interventions is not important to governments; rather these types of mandatory programs are intended to meet populist demands for punitive measures and manufacture imaginary successes through tough law and order strategies (also see Quilter, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imaginary Drug Control and the Failures of Contemporary Australian Drug Policy

Pereira

Scott

Beem

2020

Contemporary Australian drug policy is characterized by a tension between punitive law and order responses that invoke the myth of sovereign power and responsibilizing strategies that “(re)moralize” individuals, holding them responsible for their safety, security, and well-being. This article argues that this blending of neoliberal techniques of governance, such as harm minimization, with neoconservative methods of rule typified in prohibitionist policies, presents a paradoxical policy response to illicit drug use. We explore the development and contemporary practice of a dualistic Australian drug policy that, on the one hand, promotes pragmatic interventions based on harm reduction while, on the other, relies on law and order strategies and traditional penal powers to deter illicit drug use. Drawing on Pat Carlen’s concept of imaginary penalities, we argue that this imaginary form of drug control is underpinned largely by symbolic measures that, in attempting to address public demands for safety and security, reproduce a punitive form of governance that fails to achieve its desired outcomes. Using qualitative interview data from a sample of 29 people who used drugs, and 15 professionals working in the drugs field, this article investigates responses to the contemporary governance of illicit drugs in Queensland. Based on the research findings, we argue that the conjoined nature of Australian drugs governance can be understood as imaginary drug control because it constantly recreates the conditions that perpetuate drug-related harm.

“…As with the drug test, or other material devices of drug policy, the assemblage of human and non-human forces can be seen as drug control dispositif (Foucault). Through this lens the power relations of material objects and their discursive embeddings can be highlighted (e.g., Gomart & Hennion, 1999;Herschinger, 2015;Paul & Egbert, 2016;Sarmiento et al, 2019). This short overview of existing studies shows that socio-material perspectives are already present in (critical) drug research, creating important new sensitivities regarding the co-constitution of drug policy and the materiality of control and prevention measures.…”

Section: The Socio-materiality Of Drug Use Prevention and Controlmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associate Editor’s Introduction: Sharpening the Focus— Taking Into Account the Socio-Materiality of Drug Control and Prevention

Paul

Egbert

2021

Drug use is an inherently socio-material practice. Drugs are material, as are the bodies that consume them. Likewise, drug control and prevention practices heavily rely on material infrastructures, especially technical objects which enable control and prevention measures by materializing drug use-in the sense of documenting it, hence rendering it intelligible. Ranging from the installation of alcoholinterlock-systems in cars to devices simulating the alcohol experience (e.g., "drunk goggles") or drug testing kits, technologically-based practices aim to prevent and/or detect the use of psychoactive substances, although the specifics of the technology and their underlying rationales (e.g., secondary and tertiary prevention, simulated experience) may differ.Although drug effects and forms of harm are shaped by material-discursive practices, there is a need for more critical work on these issues. This special issue aims to set the stage for a focused discussion on the relationship between drug control and prevention strategies and their materiality-as fundamental prerequisites for materializing drug consumption, "harms," "effects," and/or "impairment." By adopting a socio-material perspective to study such technologies, drug control and prevention practices can be fruitfully analyzed in new ways. When approaching drug control from a socio-material perspective, sensitized to the agency of technical artifacts and/or technical infrastructures, new research questions and empirical methods arise. For example, where responsibility for controlling drug use or preventing drug effects is delegated to technological artifacts, there is the potential for stricter control strategies and more punitive approaches. Other questions concern the new possibilities for action that emerge from processes of technification, whether in drug control (e.g., new drug detection methods), or prevention (e.g. intoxication simulation devices). How is drug consumption discovered and labeled as (mis)use through the utilization of technical instruments and/or material infrastructures (e.g., drug tests, laboratories)? What indicators are used in the course of this and how reliable are they? How do inscribed standards (Akrich, 1992) such as threshold values for (in)appropriate alcohol or other drug use manifest materially and what effects does this have on bringing drug (mis)use into being? How are (material) bodies used as information resources in order to detect drug (mis)use (Aas, 2006;van der Ploeg, 2005)? Last but not least: Which kinds of technical/material mediation support the drug control through personalized monitoring and surveillance and how do consumers feel about this?When drug research has acknowledged socio-material perspectives, it has been predominantly concerned with the agency of drugs "themselves" (see Fraser, 2020) or the agency of people who use drugs. The whole concept of "addiction" has always mobilized highly contradictory questions of agency and the emergence of neuroscientific approaches to addiction research have resulted in...