SOCI3707: Drugs and Society

• At least 20 credits of level 2 modules offered by the Department of Sociology.

• None.

• To provide students with a sociological framework for understanding the legal and health dimensions of illicit drug use and drug policy.
• To develop students sociological reasoning to critically analyse media and popular culture accounts of substance use, abuse, and trafficking.
• To familiarise students with the modern history of, and dominant theoretical perspectives on, substance use and regulation and the major critiques of these paradigms.

• The social construction of substance use: Thinking critically about licit drug use, illicit abuse, and addiction.
• The history of substances and substance use regulation.
• Moral panics and substance use.
• Drug and alcohol prohibition.
• Racism, gender, and class in drug use.
• Models of addiction: moral models, disease models, social models.
• Medicalisation and criminalisation of illicit drug use.
• Drugs and youth culture.
• Drug use and pleasure.
• Drug trafficking, drug markets, and borders.
• Drug treatment, biopower, and disciplinarity.
• Harm reduction approaches, public health, and the debate over drug legalisation.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• At the end of the course students will:
• Understand key concepts and debates about the sociological study of drug use and policy.
• Be able to draw on the history of drug use and policy to understand contemporary debates about drug use, addiction, prohibition, legalisation, and harm reduction.
• Be able to articulate arguments about drug use and policy employing findings from empirical studies of past and present drug use and policy from a variety of geographical settings.

Subject-specific Skills:

• By the end of the module the typical student will be able to:
• Evaluate sociological arguments and evidence about drug use and policy.
• Employ the conceptual apparatus of Sociology in relation to drug use and policy.
• Undertake and present drug use and policy related work in a scholarly fashion.
• Apply theoretical and empirical knowledge to an appropriate sociological question in the field of drug use and policy.
• Employ theoretical and methodological expertise as appropriate in drug use and policy related area.
• Be able to convey, both orally and in writing, the meaning of abstract methodological concepts in ways which are meaningful to others.
• Perceive the relevance of, and relate their sociological knowledge to contemporary issues in drug use and policy and related issues.

Key Skills:

• Demonstrate a range of communication skills including the ability to: evaluate and synthesize information obtained from a variety of written sources; communicate relevant information in different ways.
• Demonstrate competence in the use of IT resources, including the ability to word-process, use and interpret basic statistical tables and graphs, and use web-based resources (Virtual Learning Environment).
• Demonstrate a capacity to improve own learning and performance, including the specific ability to manage time effectively, work to prescribed deadlines, engage in different ways of learning including both independent and directed forms of learning, gather necessary information from a range of bibliographic sources.

• Lectures provide students with substantive information, indicate the main issues to be considered and introduce the main themes, interpretations and arguments of the subject material. They encourage students to develop skills in listening, selective note-taking and an appreciation of how information may be structured and presented to others.
• Seminars will be organised around themes for discussion and will have designated reading. They provide the opportunity for students to present and develop their own understanding of relevant materials, encourage them to develop transferable skills (e.g. oral communication, group work skills, information retrieval skills), subject-specific skills (e.g. competence in using theoretical perspectives and concepts in Sociology, the ability to formulate sociologically-informed questions) and general skills (e.g. judging and evaluating evidence, assessing the merits of competing arguments and explanations, making reasoned arguments).
• Students will also spend time in self-directed study as they prepare for specific seminar and essay assignments.
• A formative essay requires students to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of module topics. The feedback provided on formative essays enables students to reflect on their knowledge and understanding, and to improve their performance where appropriate.
• A summative essay requires students to demonstrate more detailed and extended knowledge of module topics. It also provides an opportunity for feedback.

Students will have the option of submitting an outline of the summative essay (up to 500 words) to obtain guidance and feedbacks from the module conveners.

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