The Department of Public Policy brings you the Policy Talks Series as a way to engage critically with today's global and local issues. Our speakers range from policy practitioners and researchers to diplomats and agency leaders to NGO and social responsibility leaders. The events typically feature a lecture or panel discussion, followed by a Q&A session, and a reception where drinks and snacks will be offered.
Overview
Is twentieth-century drug prohibition effective in eradicating narcotics and psychotropic substances? Recent debates challenge its efficacy, leading to shifts toward harm reduction and decriminalization in certain regions. In this policy talk, Dr. Lisa Williams and Dr. Meropi Tzanetakis offer insights into drug prohibition's historical roots and contemporary challenges. Drawing on the normalization thesis and extensive research on recreational drug use, Dr. Williams argues that the unintended consequences of punitive legal frameworks outweigh its benefits, advocating alternative regulatory approaches due to persistent substance demand. Dr. Tzanetakis explores the digital realm's influence on drug markets and drug-using social practices, highlighting the harm reduction potential of darknet markets and their socio-economic implications. Together, these perspectives on the supply and demand sides of drug markets contribute to a nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding drug prohibition.
About the speakers
Lisa Williams is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology, at the Department of Criminology, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester. She has been researching drugs for over 25 years. Her interests revolve around: recreational drug taking, including why people take drugs and how their drug taking changes over the life course; dependent drug use, recently publishing about synthetic cannabinoids consumption among vulnerable populations; and creative research methods, especially arts-based and visual techniques. Since 1999, she has been working on the Illegal Leisure longitudinal study exploring changing drug patterns from adolescence to adulthood. The findings have been published in Illegal Leisure Revisited and Changing Lives, Changing Drug Journeys. Her most recent research, a visual ethnography of recreational drug taking in the home, collected images of where and how people store their recreational drugs in the home and has been exhibited nationally and internationally.
Meropi Tzanetakis is an Assistant Professor (Lecturer) in Digital Criminology at the University of Manchester. Meropi is also a Senior Research Fellow of the interdisciplinary research platform Governance of Digital Practices at the University of Vienna. Her research interests include digital drug markets, platformisation, and associated harms. Meropi’s work has been published in high impact journals including the International Journal of Drug Policy and Qualitative Research. She recently edited the collections ‘Digital Transformations of Illicit Drug Markets: Reconfiguration and Continuity’ with Nigel South (Emerald 2023) and ‘Drugs, Darknet and Organised Crime. Challenges for Politics, Judiciary and Drug Counselling’ with Heino Stöver (Nomos 2019). Meropi is Editorial Board Member of the Kriminologisches Journal, Elected Board Member of the Economic Sociology Research Network of the European Sociological Association (ESA) and Series Editor of the Emerald Studies in Digital Crime, Technology and Social Harms.