Key Concepts in Drugs and Society

This is a great resource that does what it promises and reflects the huge expertise of the authors. It will be welcomed by students, researchers and indeed anyone wanting critical but comprehensive coverage of key issues and trends concerning drugs and society - locally and globally, historically and today. Nigel South

This is a great resource that does what it promises and reflects the huge expertise of the authors. It will be welcomed by students, researchers and indeed anyone wanting critical but comprehensive coverage of key issues and trends concerning drugs and society - locally and globally, historically and today.
Nigel South
Professor of Sociology, University of Essex This is a terrific book that for me does sit in a grey area between a textbook and a reference book. Dick Hobbs
Professor, Essex University, UK Scholars, students or even a lay audiences, will find "Key Concepts" useful for grounding themselves in a broad understanding of the roles that drugs play in human society. Major topics in the field are examined more comprehensively and in more depth than is the case with many current approaches, like encyclopedias, that make the big picture difficult to discern. Key Concepts is a welcome addition to the tool box: it helps restore a learning style that has been largely displaced by an MTV-style of learning that blasts factoids in a pastiche of information with no apparent rhyme, reason or theoretical foundation to support it. Key Concepts covers a prodigious amount of intellectual terrain in a relatively small amount of space, making it a book that people might both buy and carry around. Key Concepts could very well become the "Key Words" (Raymond Williams) of the drug field.
Ric Curtis
Professor of Anthropology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY, USA This highly accessible book provides informative, balanced and contextualized insights into the relationships between people and drugs. Whatever your background and however knowledgeable you feel you are about contemporary drug issues, I guarantee that you will learn something unexpected and new from this valuable text.
Joanne Neale
Professor of Public Health, Oxford Brookes University, UK This broad and thorough text provides the reader with great insight into the reality of substance use in society. It eagerly challenges the readers' assumptions and beliefs about drug use and drug users with sound international evidence. All of us who work in areas relating to drug use, whether that be pertaining to education, legislation, criminal justice or clinical practice would do well to read this book and remember the historical and socio-political context in which we work. A pleasurable and page turning read!
Anna Nelson
Programme Manager, Matua Raki National Addiction Workforce Development Centre, New Zealand