Project Team

Chief Investigator:

Professor Suzanne Fraser, National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University

Contact Person:

Professor Suzanne Fraser, National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University

Project

Australian federal and state governments spend billions of dollars per year responding to alcohol and other drug consumption. In doing so, they operationalise a wide range of prevention, education and treatment measures, all of which are the subject of intense public scrutiny and controversy. Prevention education initiatives, for example, attract criticism for reproducing social stigma. Government rhetoric on alcohol and other drug use is criticised for being at odds with program funding. Drug consumers are urged to seek treatment yet some experts have pointed out that its effectiveness is modest. As these debates suggest, alcohol and other drug policy and practice is a complex arena shaped in no small part by social and political forces, as well as longstanding unexamined assumptions about the origins, nature and meaning of drug use and addiction. Using an international comparative method involving qualitative interviewing, policy analysis and other methods across three sites: Australia, Canada and Sweden, this research will analyse a key concept underlying much of the political struggle over AOD policy and service provision: addiction. This analysis will better inform policy, and help develop clearer concepts and more productive approaches for improving alcohol and other drug-related health and social outcomes in Australia.

Books

Fraser, S., Moore, D., & Keane, H. (2014). Habits: Remaking addiction. Palgrave Macmillan.

Journal Articles

Fraser, S. (2017). The future of ‘addiction’: Critique and composition. International Journal of Drug Policy, 44, 130-134. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2017.05.034

Dwyer, R., & Fraser, S. (2017). Engendering drug problems: Materialising gender in the DUDIT and other screening and diagnostic ‘apparatuses’. International Journal of Drug Policy, 44, 135-144. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2017.05.049

Farrugia, A., & Fraser, S. (2017). Prehending addiction: Alcohol and other drug professionals’ encounters with ‘new’ addictions. Qualitative Health Research, 27(13), 2042-2056. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1049732317731539

Dwyer, R., & Fraser, S. (2017). Celebrity enactments of addiction on Twitter. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517714168

Fraser, S. (2017). Do practice approaches go far enough in shifting focus away from the individual? Addiction, 113(2), 215-216. https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14018

Fraser, S., Pienaar, K., Dilkes-Frayne, E., Moore, D., Kokanovic, R., Treloar, C., & Dunlop, A. (2017). Addiction stigma and the biopolitics of liberal modernity: A qualitative analysis. International Journal of Drug Policy, 44, 192-201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2017.02.005

Seear, K., & Fraser, S. (2016). Addiction veridiction: Gendering agency in legal mobilisations of addiction discourse. Griffith Law Review, 25(1), 13-29. https://doi.org/10.1080/10383441.2016.1164654

Fraser, S., valentine, k., & Seear, K. (2016). Emergent publics of alcohol and other drug policymaking, Critical Policy Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2016.1191365

Fraser, S. (2016). Articulating addiction in alcohol and other drug policy: A multiverse of habits. International Journal of Drug Policy, 31, 6-14. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.10.014

Dwyer, R., Fraser, S., & Dietze, P. (2016). Benefits and barriers to expanding the availability of take-home naloxone in Australia: A qualitative interview study with service providers. Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, 23(5), 1-9. https://doi.org/10.3109/09687637.2016.1150964

Dwyer, R., & Fraser, S. (2016). Making addictions in standardised screening and diagnostic tools. Health Sociology Review, 25(3), 223-239. https://doi.org/10.1080/14461242.2016.1184581

Dwyer, R., & Fraser, S. (2016). Addicting via hashtags: How is Twitter making addiction? Contemporary Drug Problems, 43(1), 79-97. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091450916637468

Seear, K., Fraser, S., Moore, D., & Murphy, D. (2015). Understanding and responding to anabolic steroid injecting and hepatitis C risk in Australia: A research agenda. Drugs: Education, Prevention & Policy, 22(5), 449–455. https://doi.org/10.3109/09687637.2015.1061975

Moore, D., Fraser, S., Törrönen, J., & Eriksson Tinghög, M. (2015). Sameness and difference: Metaphor and politics in the constitution of addiction, social exclusion and gender in Australian and Swedish drug policy. International Journal of Drug Policy, 26(4), 420-428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.01.011

Fraser, S. (2015). A thousand contradictory ways. Addiction, neuroscience, and expert autobiography. Contemporary Drug Problems, 42(1), 38-59. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0091450915570308

Dwyer, R., & Fraser, S. (2015). Addiction screening and diagnostic tools: ‘Refuting’ and ‘unmasking’ claims to legitimacy. International Journal of Drug Policy, 26(12), 1189-1197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2015.08.016