SSAC’s Social and Legal Studies of Addiction Concepts research symposium (held on Friday October 7^th) reported on the many research projects currently underway in the program. The symposium was hosted by Associate Professor Helen Keane, who is based at the Australian National University, and was divided into three sessions: presentations by program research students, presentations by program staff and a presentation by program leader Professor Suzanne Fraser which synthesised the preceding presentations with her own work. Topics included: Australian drug courts, marginalised youth and AOD treatment; addiction screening tools, compulsory drug detention in China, and drug-related ‘public opinion’. All sessions can be accessed here.

To navigate the videos of the sessions, please refer to the program.

Session 1: Postgraduate studies in addiction concepts

Session 2: Researching social and legal addiction concepts

Session 3: Thinking ‘addiction’: Critique and composition

Since it began in 2013 SSAC has conducted research on a wide range of topics including Australian, Canadian and Swedish alcohol and other drug policy, personal experiences of addiction in Australia, addiction concepts on Twitter, legal interpretations of addiction, the Victorian drug court, compulsory drug treatment in China, and young people in drug treatment. Drawing on a range of social scientific research methods such as in-depth interviewing, policy analysis, cultural studies, ethnographic observation and international comparative collaborative techniques, these projects aim to advance scholarship, inform policy, and tackle the stigma and discrimination associated with drug use in Australia and elsewhere. Many of the projects in the program are now well advanced and the team was pleased to share its progress and findings at its 2016 symposium, held at the Monash University Law Chambers, Melbourne.