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Crime, Harm and Contemporary Drug Use Practices

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Crime, Harm and Contemporary Drug Use Practices Governing drug use among young people: Crime, harm and contemporary drug use practices Margaret Pereira BSocSci (Hons1) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy School of Justice, Faculty of Law Queensland University of Technology July 2013 Keywords Drug use, drug practices, policy, harm reduction, young people, governmentality, problematisation, neo-liberalism, biopolitics, drug services, recreational drug use, addiction, political rationality, rehabilitation, criminality, morals, ethical practices. i Abstract Since the nineteenth century, drug use has been variously understood as a problem of crime, social problems and addiction. The drug ‘problem’ has subsequently been the focus of an immense body of research, much of which is founded on assumptions of inevitable harm and is directed towards preventing drug use or developing solutions to the problem. This problematisation of drugs has generated a range of law enforcement responses, drug treatment technologies and rehabilitative programs intended to prevent drug related harm and resituate drug users in the realm of functional citizenship. Yet in recent years, interest groups have been vocal in their concerns that efforts to address drug related ‘harm’ have actually exacerbated harm. While this thesis does not propose alternatives for policy or practice, it does seek to analyse the knowledges, truths and rationalities that have made drugs a problem and to understand the effects of this problematisation. By taking an empirical, critical approach to the problem of drugs, this research aims, firstly, to understand how historically contingent knowledges of problematic drug use have shaped the government of drugs and drug users in Australia. Secondly, the research aims to understand how notions of the drug problem, framed through discourses, policies and practices of harm reduction, influence how young people use drugs, what they believe about their drug use and how they respond to it. Using Foucault’s conceptual framework of governmentality, this thesis seeks to understand young people’s drug use as ‘practices of the self’. From this perspective, drug use practices are formed through an interaction of the government of illicit drugs and the drug user’s own subjectivity. To understand this relationship, qualitative interviews were conducted with police, drug researchers, legal and medical professionals, drug service providers and young people who used drugs. The findings of the research allow for a reconceptualisation of the drug problem in drug policy and research. This opens up possibilities for new directions in drug research and a redefinition of drug related harm, which takes into account the relationship between discourses, policies and practices, and the formation of a drug user self. ii Contents Keywords ..................................................................................................................... i Abstract....................................................................................................................... ii Contents .....................................................................................................................iii List of Tables ............................................................................................................. vi List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................... vii Statement of Original Authorship.........................................................................viii Acknowledgements.................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................... 1 Background to the Thesis.......................................................................................... 1 Themes for the Research ........................................................................................... 2 Reducing harm.................................................................................................... 2 Responding to drug related crime....................................................................... 3 ‘Normal’ and ‘dependent’ drug users................................................................. 3 The Research .............................................................................................................. 4 Research aims and questions .............................................................................. 4 Governmentality framework............................................................................... 4 Governmentality as a method............................................................................. 5 Research interviews............................................................................................ 5 Structure of the Thesis............................................................................................... 6 Conclusion................................................................................................................... 8 CHAPTER TWO: A HISTORY OF THE DRUG PROBLEM............................. 9 Nineteenth Century Opium Regulation ................................................................. 10 An acceptable practice to a public health problem........................................... 10 The regulation of opium ................................................................................... 12 Medicine, morals and regulation ...................................................................... 15 The Twentieth Century ........................................................................................... 22 Policy shifts ...................................................................................................... 22 Tightening prohibition...................................................................................... 28 The war on drugs .............................................................................................. 31 Conclusion................................................................................................................. 34 CHAPTER THREE: REFRAMING THE DRUG PROBLEM FROM THE 1960s................................................................................................................. 37 A Problem of Drug Subcultures.............................................................................. 37 Creating deviants .............................................................................................. 37 Normality and problematic development ......................................................... 40 Young People’s Contemporary Drug Use.............................................................. 42 The drugs young people use ............................................................................. 42 Creating drug user typologies........................................................................... 43 The problem of pleasure ................................................................................... 49 Public Health: Reframing the Drug Problem........................................................ 50 A social problem to socially productive citizens.............................................. 50 iii Rational management through harm reduction................................................. 52 Drugs, Crime and Social Disorder.......................................................................... 57 Causality and the drugs/crime nexus ................................................................ 57 Drug law enforcement and punishment............................................................ 59 Drug treatment or prison?................................................................................. 61 Unintended consequences: perceptions of policy failure ................................. 65 Conclusion................................................................................................................. 67 CHAPTER FOUR: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ......................................... 69 Foucault’s Concept of Governmentality ................................................................ 69 A biopolitical problem of population................................................................ 69 Power, knowledge, truth ................................................................................... 74 Liberal rationalities........................................................................................... 76 Research Aims and Questions................................................................................. 81 Foucault in the Research ......................................................................................... 82 Governmentality as method.............................................................................. 82 Disrupting knowledge....................................................................................... 84 The Research Approach .......................................................................................... 85 Doing drug research.......................................................................................... 85 Challenging the rules ........................................................................................ 87 Ethnographic approach ..................................................................................... 89 Research Methods ...................................................................................................
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