A new article by DruGS Program Lead Dr Adrian Farrugia examines how drug education professionals understand and respond to the relationship between alcohol and other drug consumption, sex and harm. This new article builds on previous research that demonstrated how drug education curriculum resources constitute sex in the context of alcohol and other drug consumption as intrinsically dangerous and wrong. Offering insight into how such approaches come to inform drug education curriculum, this article examines data generated during in-depth interviews with professionals experienced in the design and delivery of drug education programs.

Reflecting the importance of agency when understanding experiences of harmful or pleasurable sexual encounters in alcohol and other drug consumption settings, the drug education professionals who participated in this research routinely emphasised specific agencies as the locus of harm related to consumption and sex. As the article explores, most focussed on individual human agency and sought to intervene in the actions of young people when designing and implementing drug education responses to consumption and sex. Other professionals primarily addressed the agency of alcohol and other drugs themselves and constituted harms such as sexual violence as drug effects. The analysis suggests that both approaches struggle to respond to other significant agencies that shape experiences of alcohol and other drugs and sex such as, for example, the agency of gender. In contrast, some participants expressed misgivings about focusing primarily on people or the substances they consume when responding to these practices. Instead, these professionals gestured towards approaches that addressed other agencies such as understandings of gender and sexuality when developing drug education initiatives. Informed by Karen Barad’s relational concepts of agency and response-ability, the article offers some suggestions for drawing young people’s attention to a broader array of agencies when teaching about the relationship between alcohol and other drug consumption, sex and harm.

As Dr Farrugia says,

Drug education is already a challenging part of the curriculum and this becomes especially complex when issues related to sex are addressed. This research suggests that drug education approaches may need to offer a more expansive account of the different issues or agencies young people need to consider when negotiating consumption events where sex may or may not be involved.