Long time no post
This is my first post in two years, and a positive one it is too. Today sees the launch of my co-authored report commissioned by The Beckley Foundation, and written with Hattie Wells and Amanda Feilding. Roadmaps to Regulation: MDMA is an innovative report mapping how a strictly regulated legal market for MDMA products would […]
Podcast Heaven with Social Science Bites: Discussing Dance Culture
As many of you will know (cue groan!), I am a huge fan of all things BBC Radio Four, particularly The Archers Omnibus which brightens up my world every Sunday! Given my appreciation of the power of listening, I was honoured to be asked by the great David Edmonds of Philosophy Bites fame to discuss ‘dance culture’ […]
News: Europe Launches UK Web Survey on Drugs
The UK’s relationship with our European neighbours is the topic of increasingly heated debate as Thursday 23rd of June looms. The UK “referendum on Europe” is at times even usurping our enduring preoccupation with the weather. Whatever the outcome, I am sure we as drug researchers, practitioners and concerned others will continue to find ways to work collaboratively around shared concerns which […]
Researching ‘Futures’ in the Past
In honour of the recent establishment of the Institute of Social Futures, Lancaster University, I revisited my PhD thesis: Versions of the Future in Relation to Mobile Technologies, awarded in July 2004! Twelve years on, it is immense fun to read an ‘old’ future imagined by the young people who participated in my focus groups […]
NPS: The malevolent genie out of the global drug prohibition bottle
I have been reflecting on the debates surrounding the recent passing of a new drug law onto the British statute books which comes into effect from 1st April 2016. This new law, which will act in parallel to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, effectively bans all substances (with the exception of alcohol, tobacco and […]
Benzo analogues: Should we be worried?
Happy New Year to all readers of Club Research! So, a new year, and a return for me to the academic world after a long and difficult period of illness. I recovered only with the unwavering support of friends, family, Lancaster University’s Department of Sociology colleagues and fantastic NHS services and charities in Manchester, UK. […]
Conservatives on Drugs: Business as Usual
I doubt that Count the Costs of the War on Drugs will be on our new/old Prime Minister David Cameron’s “things to do next” list. We have a Conservative majority government to contend with for the next five years. It seems likely they will bring us more of the same in terms of their responses […]
“Old School” Harm Reduction for a New Era of Dance Music Clubbing
“Old School” Harm Reduction for a New Era of Dance Music Clubbing: Drinking water in the night-time economy I have just been perusing the 2015 Revised Guidance issued under section 182 of the Licensing Act 2003 (yep, I really am that geeky) and I recalled the fight that dance music clubbers went through (supported by London Drug Policy Forum, […]
Drugs and Dance Music Culture
Drugs and drug use are an integral aspect of electronic dance music culture which has flourished worldwide over the last 25 years. For millions of people across the globe, the consumption of dance music also entails the consumption of psychoactive substances, some legal as with alcohol, some only recently or yet to be criminalised as […]
Most drug-takers are ‘recreational’ users who will come to little or no harm, and who will not become dependent. Shocking but true!
Paul Hayes is Honorary Professor London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. As CEO of the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse, he was responsible to ministers and parliament for the funding and delivery of treatment for drug addiction in England between 2001/13. He currently chairs the Northern Inclusion Consortium, a collaboration between five third […]