Gender, intoxication and the developing brain: Problematisations of drinking among young adults in Australian alcohol policy

Abstract

In this article, we draw on recent scholarly work in the poststructuralist analysis of policy to consider how policy itself functions as a key site in the constitution of alcohol 'problems', and the political implications of these problematisations. We do this by examining Australian alcohol policy as it relates to young adults (18-24 years old). Our critical analysis focuses on three national alcohol policies (1990, 2001 and 2006) and two Victorian state alcohol policies (2008 and 2013), which together span a 25-year period. We argue that Australian alcohol policies have conspicuously ignored young adult men, despite their ongoing over-representation in the statistical 'evidence base' on alcohol-related harm, while increasingly problematising alcohol consumption amongst other population subgroups. We also identify the development of a new problem representation in Australian alcohol policy, that of 'intoxication' as the leading cause of alcohol-related harm and rising hospital admissions, and argue that changes in the classification and diagnosis of intoxication may have contributed to its prioritisation and problematisation in alcohol policy at the expense of other forms of harm. Finally, we draw attention to how preliminary and inconclusive research on the purported association between binge drinking and brain development in those under 25 years old has been mobilised prematurely to support calls to increase the legal purchasing age from 18 to 21 years. Our critical analysis of the treatment of these three issues - gender, intoxication, and brain development - is intended to highlight the ways in which policy functions as a key site in the constitution of alcohol 'problems'.

New frontiers in alcohol and gender: The role of health promotion policy and practice in Australia

“…Past scholars have advocated for stronger gender‐informed alcohol policies in Australia [10,37]. We reiterate this message because co‐ordinated policy responses are essential to support health promotion interventions, particularly in primary care settings.…”

Problematizing Urban Shit(ting): Representing Human Waste as a Problem

“…She gives the example of policies that suggest training in order to increase women's workplace status rendering women's lack of training the problem (Bacchi, ). This way of thinking about policy analysis is gaining popularity, with studies exploring the problematization of drug policy (Manton and Moore, ; Pienaar and Savic, ), education policy (Gulson and Webb, ), cultural policy (Stevenson, ) and policy studies (Ureta, ).…”

Making visible the politics and ethics of alcohol policy research

“…Gusfield's work also anticipated themes and arguments evident in critical analyses of AOD policy inspired by Carol Bacchi's post‐structuralist ‘What's the problem represented to be’ approach . Why specific phenomena come to be defined as problems, the crucial role of research and policy in constituting these problems (rather than responding to pre‐existing problems), and the ways in which these problematizations make visible and possible certain solutions but foreclose others, are all questions that similarly occupied Gusfield.…”

“…His argument that the contours and concerns of drinking‐driving research and policy derive at least partly from moral tensions arising in modern, industrial society anticipated later work on how drug policy inscribes neoliberal values of autonomy, independence and rationality in the governing of drug users . In Gusfield's insistence on the importance of scrutinizing institutional definition and ownership of public problems, he anticipated later critical studies of the National Institute on Drug Abuse's aggressive proselytization of the ‘brain disease’ model of addiction ; and his analysis of scientific research as a form of rhetoric, and identification of the literary techniques and tropes by which uncertain and ambiguous observations are transformed into unassailable ‘evidence’, is echoed in several recent critical works .…”