Centre for Criminology, Law and Justice, Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney.
Manchester Metropolitan University: Department of Sociology and Criminology; Visiting Fellow, Drug Policy Modelling Program, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW Sydney.
Int J Drug Policy. 2024 May;127:104425. doi: 10.1016/j.drugpo.2024.104425. Epub 2024 Apr 13.
In this paper, we explore how the social harm approach can be adapted within drug policy scholarship. Since the mid-2000s, a group of critical criminologists have moved beyond the concept of crime and criminology, towards the study of social harm. This turn proceeds decades of research that highlights the inequities within the criminal legal system, the formation of laws that protect the privileged and punish the disadvantaged, and the systemic challenge of the effectiveness of retribution and punishment at addressing harm in the community. The purpose of this paper is to first identify parallels between the social harm approach and critical drug scholarship, and second to advocate for the adoption of a social harm lens in drug policy scholarship. In the paper, we draw out the similarities between social harm and drug policy literatures, as well as outline what the study of social harm can bring to an analysis of drug policy. This includes a discussion on the ontology of drug crime, the myth of drug crime and the ineffective use of the crime control system in response to drug use. The paper then discusses how these conversations in critical criminology and critical drugs scholarship can be brought together to inform future drug policy research. This reflection details the link between social harm and the impingement of human flourishing, explores the role of decolonizing drug policy, advocates for the centralization of lived experience within the research process and outlines how this might align with harm reduction approaches. We conclude by arguing that the social harm approach challenges the idea that neutrality is the goal in drug policy and explicitly seeks to expand new avenues in activist research and social justice approaches to policymaking.
在本文中，我们探讨了如何在毒品政策研究中采用社会危害方法。自 2000 年代中期以来，一群批判犯罪学家已经超越了犯罪和犯罪学的概念，转而研究社会危害。这种转变源自几十年的研究，这些研究强调了刑事法律制度内部的不平等、保护特权阶层和惩罚弱势群体的法律的形成，以及报应和惩罚在解决社区危害方面的有效性所面临的系统性挑战。本文的目的首先是确定社会危害方法与批判毒品研究之间的相似之处，其次是倡导在毒品政策研究中采用社会危害视角。在本文中，我们提炼出社会危害与毒品政策文献之间的相似之处，并概述了社会危害研究可以为毒品政策分析带来的益处。这包括对毒品犯罪本体论、毒品犯罪神话以及犯罪控制系统在应对吸毒方面的无效性的讨论。然后，本文讨论了如何将批判犯罪学和批判毒品研究中的这些对话结合起来，为未来的毒品政策研究提供信息。这种反思详细说明了社会危害与人类繁荣的冲击之间的联系，探讨了毒品政策去殖民化的作用，主张在研究过程中以生活经验为中心，并概述了这如何与减少危害方法保持一致。最后，我们认为，社会危害方法挑战了毒品政策中立性是目标的观点，并明确寻求扩大激进主义研究和社会正义方法在决策制定中的新途径。
