Judging Drugs
Key Issues in Law and Society
Published on 14. May 2026
Book
Hardback
242 pages
978-1-009-71335-1 (ISBN)
Description
Every day, judges determine vital questions about 'addiction', 'drugs', and the rights of those who use them. Despite the law's crucial role in handling drug 'problems', and in shaping drug practices, effects and outcomes, drug scholars have often overlooked case law. In a rapidly changing drug policy landscape, how is the law managing drug effects and harms, stigma, addiction, agency and responsibility? Why do we regulate drugs? Are drug offenders responsible for their actions? Is drug use a disability? Is drug treatment a human right? Do drugs cause harm? And might drug law itself be harmful? Authors in this volume take a variety of approaches to these questions and more. Drawing on critical theory, all consider new ways of thinking about 'drug problems'. This vital new collection enables a deeper, critical understanding of how the law 'works' to shape knowledge about, as well as 'judge', drug use and its effects.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 18 mm
Weight
507 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-009-71335-1 (9781009713351)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Simon Flacks is Associate Professor at the School of Law, University of Sussex. He is a socio-legal scholar and criminologist with considerable expertise in researching the interface between law and critical drug studies. He has published widely. He is the author of Law, Drugs and the Politics of Childhood: From Protection to Punishment (2021). Kate Seear is Professor at Deakin Law School, Deakin University, Australia. She is a lawyer, sociologist and leading international expert in critical drug studies. She has published widely on drug law and policy. Her book Law, drugs and the making of addiction: Just habits (2020) was the winner of the UK Socio-Legal Studies Association's History and Theory book prize.
Content
Introduction Kate Seear and Simon Flacks; 1. What is an e-cigarette? Comparison and resemblance in tobacco control Helen Keane; 2. Remembering Poccum: stigma, suffering, torture and rupture after the death of Veronica Nelson Kate Seear; 3. Violence, alcohol and the making of psychosis Simon Flacks; 4. The undeclared war on drugs in the post-Soviet limbo Alexandra Dmitrieva and Vladimir Stepanov; 5. From crack house to supervised consumption site: Overdose and the politics of (False) equivalency in the United States Shana Harris; 6. Policing maintenance: judicial restrictions on Medication for Opioid Use Disorder (MOUD as a violation of the Americans with Disability Act (ADA) Nancy Campbell; 7. This is only the beginning': drug induced homicide, a test case, and the construction of death-worlds in the US overdose crisis Allison Schlosser; 8. Speaking legally' to rule out emergency claims in Swedish cannabis cases Mats Ekendahl; 9. Rethinking the sexual subject: assembling intoxication, gender and consent in the law Renae Fomiatti, Kiran Pienaar and Gemma Nourse; 10. Revisiting the entrepreneurial 'dealer': the case of Shiny Flakes Aysel Sultan.