News release    03-05-2011

“DRUGS AND CULTURE Knowledge, consumption, and policy”

Adopting approaches from anthropology, sociology, history and political sciences a book presents major themes of the international conference Drugs and Cultures

At the end of 2008, the French Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and Sciences Po Institute of political studies jointly organized a conference entitled "Drugs and Cultures".

The Pompidou Group of the European Council and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction also supported this international meeting.

Under the overall theme “Drugs and Cultures,” the conference1 brought together scholars in social sciences (sociologists, anthropologists, historians, economists, criminologists) from Europe and North America to discuss different aspects of drug consumption and related research and policies: drugs and the modern culture, drugs and subcultures, and the culture of drug policies.

Based on the conference proceedings the book Drugs and Culture Knowledge, Consumption and Policy, published today by Ashgate2 is an extension of the reflections and findings presented at this event. Edited by Geoffrey Hunt, Maitena Milhet and Henri Bergeron3 the book is structured in three main parts and 16 individual chapters.

The chapters in section I, Knowledge: Science, Medicine and Discourses on Drugs, examine dominant approaches to drug research, and aim at contributing to a reflexive understanding of the theoretical and conceptual tools currently prevailing in the study of the drug phenomenon.

In the second section, Consumption: Cultures of Drug Use, the chapters deal with the cultural and ritual context of drug use, the meaning that is created through the consumption experience, and the role that drug use plays in the formation and performance of contemporary identities.

Finally, in section III, Policy or Politics? The Cultural Dynamics of Public Responses, the book examines public responses. Besides the historical approach that looks at the most striking developments in modern societies, various contributions describe the mechanisms at work in developing these policies and their consequences.

Press contact OFDT : Julie-Emilie Adès - +33 (0)1 41 62 77 46 - This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it