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.