Table of Contents

PART ONE: TYPES OF DRUGS AND PATTERNS OF USE
What Is a Drug/Medicine?
Prevalence and Trends in Illicit Drug Use
Why Do People Take Drugs?
Addiction
Legal Drugs: Alcohol and Tobacco
Polydrug Use/Polysubstance Use
Common Illicit Drugs
Typologies of Drug Use: Use-Misuse-Abuse and Problematic-Recreational Use
Binge-Drinking
Raves and Circuit Parties
Dance Drugs/Club Drugs
Cross-cultural and Traditional Drug Use
Gender, Ethnicity and Social Class
Normalisation
PART TWO: DRUG EFFECTS
Drug Effects: Drug, Set and Setting
Medical Marijuana and Other Therapeutic Uses of Illicit Drugs
Prescribed and Over-the-Counter (OTC) Drugs
Novel Psychoactive Substances
The Gateway Hypothesis/Stepping Stone Theory
Drug-related Violence
Drugs and Crime
Drug Risks and Health Harms
Injecting Drug Use
HIV/AIDS and Other Blood-borne Viruses
PART THREE: DRUG POLICY, TREATMENT AND PERCEPTIONS OF THE DRUG PROBLEM
Drug Treatment and Quasi-compulsory Treatment (QCT)
Harm Reduction
Substitute Prescribing
The New Recovery Approach
Prevention: Primary, Secondary and Tertiary
International Drug Control History/Prohibition
Drugs in Sport
Drug Scares and Moral Panics
Drug Dealers
Drug Markets: Difference and Diversity
Drug Trafficking
Crop Eradication, Crop Substitution and Legal Cultivation
War on Drugs
Drug Testing in Schools and Workplaces
Drug Courts
Decriminalisation, Legalisation and Legal Regulation
Liberalisation

About the Author

Professor Ross Coomber is teaches Criminology at Griffith University, Australia.  Professor Karen McElrath is a Professor of Criminal Justice at Fayetteville State University.

Reviews

This is a great resource that does what it promises and reflects the huge expertise of the authors. It will be welcomed by students, researchers and indeed anyone wanting critical but comprehensive coverage of key issues and trends concerning drugs and society - locally and globally, historically and today.
*Nigel South*

This highly accessible book provides informative, balanced and contextualized insights into the relationships between people and drugs. Whatever your background and however knowledgeable you feel you are about contemporary drug issues, I guarantee that you will learn something unexpected and new from this valuable text.
*Joanne Neale*

This broad and thorough text provides the reader with great insight into the reality of substance use in society. It eagerly challenges the readers′ assumptions and beliefs about drug use and drug users with sound international evidence. All of us who work in areas relating to drug use, whether that be pertaining to education, legislation, criminal justice or clinical practice would do well to read this book and remember the historical and socio-political context in which we work. A pleasurable and page turning read!
*Anna Nelson*

The authors’ presentation of this vast amount of material is lucid, up-to-date and very student-friendly. Coomber and his colleagues have done well: this is an excellent text which should prove useful to third-level teachers and their students for years to come.
*Shane Butler*

While its structure lends itself to dipping in and providing a veneer of understanding and insight into some of the thorny issues which surround drugs, it is also very readable, and the links between various headings are clearly flagged... it provides a great deal of information and clarity, and provides an excellent basis for common understanding and meaningful debate. We could all benefit from more of that.
*David MacKintosh*

Scholars, students or even a lay audiences, will find this useful for grounding themselves in a broad understanding of the roles that drugs play in human society... a welcome addition to the tool box: it helps restore a learning style that has been largely displaced by an MTV-style of learning that blasts factoids in a pastiche of information with no apparent rhyme, reason or theoretical foundation to support it. Key Concepts covers a prodigious amount of intellectual terrain in a relatively small amount of space, making it a book that people might both buy and carry around. It could very well become the "Key Words" of the drug field.
*Ric Curtis*