THE SOCIOLOGY OF INTOXICATION 1
What the course is about 2
Lecture Outline 4
Assessment 9
SSPS Extended Common Marking Scheme 15
The Sociology of Intoxication
Angus Bancroft
Course code SCIL10054
Lecture and seminar: Thursday 11.10am-1pm,
Seminar Room 4, Chrystal Macmillan Building. A
seminar will also take place Friday, 14.10-15.00 in
Seminar Room 4 for those unable to attend
immediately after the lecture. Please sign up to a
seminar slot through the link on Learn.
Email me about most things,
[email protected], or drop in my office, CMB
6.23. My guidance and feedback hours are
Wednesday 11-1
Follow me on twitter: @socintox
What the course is about
“The best of life is but intoxication.” Lord Byron
Political and media discourses only consider intoxication when it manifests as a social problem,
treating its effects as accidental or incidental. This course aims to address two significant gaps in our
thinking on this topic. First, we mostly think of the experience of intoxication – being drunk, getting
high and so on – as happening largely at physiological and psychological levels. The content and
construction of the experience of intoxication itself seems to be thought of as off-limits to sociological
investigation and theorising, as irrelevant, or as an unfortunate and unwanted side effect. The course
will explore the social factors involved in the generation of different experiences of intoxication.
Second, when we do consider intoxication as worthy of study we turn it into a problem, rather than
seeing it as a normal social practice, as much bounded by rules and norms as any other activity. This
course draws on sociology, anthropology, history, psychology, neuroscience and other disciplines to all
you to examine intoxication as a practice embedded in social life.
The course is hands-on. You will conduct your own research into intoxication and write it up for
assessment.
Aims
In the course you will …
Examine the patterns and behaviours of drug, alcohol and tobacco users internationally.
Examine how some private substance use troubles become public problems, with regard to:
addiction; alcoholism; binge drinking; smoking hazards.
Discuss the uses and merits of different forms of drug control.
Examine the strengths and weaknesses of various sociological, psychological, biological and
anthropological approaches to and theories of substance use.
Explore the research base, the methods used to research substance use and limitations with them.
Produce your own fieldwork journal reflecting on the issues raised in the course.
Optionally, produce a video documentary of your interests
Readings
I encourage you to read across disciplines, and some of the best work on intoxication is historical,
anthropological and journalistic. A few examples are: Marshall, Mac (1979) Beliefs, Behaviors, &
Alcoholic Beverages: A Cross-cultural Survey, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan; Schivelbusch, W.
(1992) Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants, and Intoxicants , London,
Vintage/Random House; Walton, Stuart (2001) Out of It: A Cultural History of Intoxication , London,
Penguin; and Courtwright, David (2001) Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World ,
London, Harvard University Press.
For more sociological texts you can look at Bancroft, Angus (2009) Drugs, Intoxication and
Society, Cambridge, Polity Press, which emerged from teaching this course. Two good sociological
texts on regulation and control of illicit drugs are Blackman, Shane (2004) Chilling Out: The Cultural
Politics of Substance Consumption , Maidenhead, Open University Press; and Barton, Adrian (2011)
Illicit Drugs: Use and Control, London, Routledge. Two wide ranging edited collections are: Goldberg,
Ray (ed.) (2008) Taking Sides: Clashing views in drugs and society , 8th ed. Boston, McGraw-Hill
Higher Education; and Manning, Paul (2007) Drugs and Popular Culture: Drugs, Media and Identity
in Contemporary Society, Cullompton, Willan Publishing.
Key readings and slides/prezis are posted on Learn, but please also make use of the Zotero shared
library.
Zotero Shared Course Library
Rather than you having to dig up all the readings yourself, I have created a shared library online for
the course using Zotero. Zotero is a free bibliographic management programme and is the single most
useful application I use. It is available as an extension for the Firefox web browser or as a standalone
beta programme. You can download it from: http://www.zotero.org/. You have to sign up for a Zotero
account in order to use the shared library. I will send all students on the course an email inviting them
to join the group. You can annotate articles and also add references you come across that are not on the
reading list. It is a useful tool to have for your studies.
Fieldwork and Field Trip
Each week has a fieldwork task set for it, detailed in the timetable below. These are practical or
reading tasks I expect you to conduct outside of the class, which will form the basis for class discussion
and also the online journal (see Assessment).
There will also be a field trip to the drug education service, Crew, during the term. Sign up on
Learn.
Class conduct
At times we will be discussing potentially sensitive issues around drug and alcohol use and their
associated problems. You are free to discuss anything you like but do not feel obliged to share any
personal experiences you do not want to. Please treat all personal information mentioned by your peers
as confidential. If you find any aspect of the course difficult or upsetting for any reason please feel free
to discuss with me in confidence.
Lecture Outline
1. Introduction: How Drugs Become Drugs
In this session we will discuss the questions: What is a drug? Why do people use them? How do
some substances become drugs and others do not? What is intoxication?
Reading:
Bancroft, Angus. 2009. Drugs, Intoxication and Society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chapter 1,
‘Defining Drugs in Society’.
*Becker, Howard. 2001. “ Drugs: What are They?” Pp. 11-20 in Qu’est-ce qu’une Drogue? Anglet:
Atlantica.
Courtwright, David. 2001. Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World . London:
Harvard University Press. Chapter 1.
Fieldwork for next week: Read Dennis, P. A. 1975. “ The Role of the Drunk in a Oaxacan
Village.” American Anthropologist 77(4):856-863. Take one intoxicant - this could be tea, coffee,
chocolate, cigarettes, or alcohol. Describe what roles are associated with it. Next week we will be
using what you have written to examine the ways in which the effects of drugs are culturally
experienced and mediated.
2. Cultures of Intoxication
In this session we examine the uses to which intoxicants are put and the ways their effects are
shaped by material culture. We will be conducting an experiment in class so let me know if you are
allergic to alcohol.
Reading:
Becker, Howard. 1967. “ History, Culture and Subjective Experience: An Exploration of the Social
Bases of Drug-Induced Experiences.” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 8(3):163-176.
*Dennis, P. A. 1975. “ The Role of the Drunk in a Oaxacan Village.” American Anthropologist
77(4):856-863.
MacAndrew, Craig, and Robert B Edgerton. 1969. Drunken Comportment. London: Nelson.
Chapter 2, ‘Some People Can Really Hold Their Liquor’, pp13-36.
Fieldwork for next week: Read Schivelbush, Wolfgang (1993), Tastes of Paradise: A Social
History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants, New York: Vintage. Chapter 6: Rituals. Find an
example of a ‘drug’ use ritual, and describe what it involves and what it does – what is achieves, its
purpose, its effect on participants. This may be a one-off rite of passage, or a recurrent event.
3. Ritual, Distinction and Obligatory Intoxication
This session examines the uses of drugs in rituals and in binding social groupings and affirming
social bonds.
Reading:
*Grund, Jean-Paul C. 1993. Drug Use as a Social Ritual: Functionality, Symbolism and
Determinants of Self-Regulation. Rotterdam: Instituut voor Verslavingsonderzoek. Esp. ‘The Concept
of Ritualisation’ and ‘Heroin Rituals’
Jarvinen, Margaretha. 2003. “ Drinking rituals and drinking problems in a wet culture.” Addiction
Research and Theory 11(4):217-233.
Fieldwork for next week: Read Dingelstad, David, Richard Gosden, Brian Martin, and Nickolas
Vakas. 1996. “ The Social Construction of Drug Debates.” Social Science & Medicine 43(12):1829 and
Klein, Axel. 2011. “ Khat deaths – or the social construction of a non-existent problem? A response to
Corkery et al. ‘Bundle of fun’ or ‘bunch of problems’? Case series of khat-related deaths in the UK.”
Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy 1-2. Retrieved July 25, 2011.
Do a Google (or other) news search on a particular drug. Look at the risk terminology that
surrounds it. Who is at risk? Where does the risk emerge? How is it expressed? Who has responsibility
for avoiding or minimizing risk? Think widely about this: for instance, much of the danger involved in
drug use comes at the point of production, rather than consumption.
4. Drug Problems or Problem Drugs?
This session explores the moral regulation of problem drugs and the discursive generation of
problem people.
Reading:
Dingelstad, David, Richard Gosden, Brian Martin, and Nickolas Vakas. 1996. “ The Social
Construction of Drug Debates.” Social Science & Medicine 43(12):1829.
*Corkery, John M. et al. 2010. “ ‘Bundle of fun’ or ‘bunch of problems’? Case series of khat-related
deaths in the UK.” Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy 100907083627021-18. Retrieved
September 21, 2010.
Gusfield, Joseph R. 1996. Contested Meanings: The Construction of Alcohol Problems . Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press. Chapters 2: ‘Contested Meanings and the Cultural Authority of Social
Problems’, 5, ‘Benevolent Repression’ and pp. 122-124.
*Klein, Axel. 2011. “ Khat deaths – or the social construction of a non-existent problem? A
response to Corkery et al. ‘Bundle of fun’ or ‘bunch of problems’? Case series of khat-related deaths in
the UK.” Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy 1-2. Retrieved July 25, 2011.
Fieldwork for next week: Watch Nils Gilman’s Youtube video on deviant globalisation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Jz4E2FRslg
Then choose an intoxicant and look at how it uses the infrastructure of licit globalization. Come
prepared to discuss the distinction between licit and illicit globalisation.
5. Illicit Drugs, Human Capital and the Context of Globalisation
This is a special guest lecture by Mei-Ling McNamara, journalist and documentary maker.
“ It must be acknowledged that forms of slavery and human trafficking are not just outcomes of
globalization; they are part of the globalization process itself that involves a functional integration of
dispersed economic activities.” – D. Brewer, “ Globalization and Human Trafficking,” (2009)
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that the profit turnover from the illicit
drug trafficking trade is now worth an estimated $US 320 billion. Transnational criminal groups derive
nearly one-quarter of their revenue from the trade, laundering $1.5 trillion dollars each year through
companies posing as legitimate businesses.1 There seems to be no lessening of demand either: in 2010,
it was estimated between 153 million and 300 million people aged 15-64 had used an illicit substance
at least once in the last year. 2
Following closely behind drugs is the international trafficking in human beings. The ILO estimates
nearly 12.3 million people are enslaved in the world today, more than there has ever been in human
history.3 Forced labour bolsters black economies, abets organised crime, traumatises victims and raises
complex questions on criminality and human rights violations in national and international law. Every
year, 8.1 million people lose $21 billion in lost wages through labour exploitation alone.4
It has been argued that globalization, broadly defined as: “ the process by which businesses or other
organisations develop international influence or start operating on an inte rnational scale”5, is the
force driving the informal economy where illicit trade flourishes. As our livelihoods rely on an ever-
increasingly integrated global economy where the free market means sourcing ever cheaper foreign
labour suppliers, criminal networks have caught on quickly. With relative speed and unencumbered
ease, illicit trade easily surpasses nation-state boundaries aided by historical trade routes, improved
1 “Estimating Illicit Financial Flows Resulting from Drug Trafficking and other Transnational Organized Crime”,
http://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/Studies/Illicit_financial_flows_2011_web.pdf 2 “Recent Statistics and Trend Analysis of Illicit Drug Trafficking”, UNODC, https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-
analysis/WDR2012/WDR_2012_Chapter1.pdf 3 http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/forced-labour/lang--en/index.htm
4 http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/05/12/idUSLC785640
5 Oxford English Dictionary, http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/globalization
infrastructure and modern technology. And while human migration is experiencing its highest peak in
history, moving 200 million people6 across borders, some of it is happening deceptively, forcibly and
criminally. This class will examine the intersection between the illicit drug market and human
exploitation, looking at instances where globalization, socio-economic disparity and criminal
opportunism collide.
Some questions to consider:
Does globalization promote illicit trafficking? If so, in what ways?
At which points can illegal drug trafficking and human trafficking intersect in the global economy?
How has illicit drug trafficking responded to global pressures? In what ways has it adapted?
What impact does globalization and trafficking have on human rights?
In what ways could illegal trafficking impact you as an every day consumer of licit goods?
What does it mean to have a transparent supply chain?
Suggested Reading:
Gilman, Nils, Jesse Goldhammer, and Steve Weber. Deviant Globalization: Black Market Economy
in the 21st Century. New York: Continuum, 2011.
Watch 2011 talk: http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=_Jz4E2FRslg
House of Commons Home Affairs Committee. “ Drugs: Breaking the Cycle”. Ninth Report of
Session (2012-2013): 15-18.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmhaff/184/184.pdf
"How Crime Took on the World." World Service Documentaries. BBC. 28 Apr. 2008. Radio.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2008/04/080424_how_crime_took_on_world_o
ne.shtml
Naim, Moises. Illicit: how smugglers, traffickers and copycats are hijacking the global economy .
New York: Doubleday, 2005.
*Seddon, Toby. "Drugs, the informal economy and globalization." International Journal of Social
Economics 35.10 (2008): 717-728.
Silverstone, Daniel, and Stephen Savage. "Farmers, factories and funds: organised crime and illicit
drugs cultivation within the British Vietnamese community." Global Crime 11.1 (2010): 16-33.
Pakes, Francis, and Daniel Silverstone. "Cannabis In The Global Market: A Comparison Between
The UK And The Netherlands." International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice 40, Issue 1 (2011):
20-30.
Fieldwork for next week: Read Phillipe Bourgois, “ Disciplining Addictions: The Bio-Politics of
Methadone and Heroin in the United States,” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 24 (2000): 165-195,
and Gerda Reith, “ Consumption and its Discontents: Addiction, Identity and the Problems of
Freedom,” British Journal of Sociology 55, no. 2 (2004): 283-300. Consider: what defines an ‘addict’
and an ‘addiction’? In what ways are addicts disciplined, how and by whom? What are the problems
involved in defining addiction as a disease? Are addicts created, and if so by what?
6. Addiction – Triumph of Body over Mind?
It is possible to speak of some forms of dependency as socially sanctioned, caffeine addiction being
a fairly benign example. Much recent academic writing on drugs has taken care to separate ‘problem’
from ‘recreational’ drug use. However, it has not really examined where the boundary between the two
lies, and has tended to treat that separation as quite rigid whereas it is a mutable, porous boundary
which is studied in this session.
6 http://www.unfpa.org/pds/migration.html
Reading:
Phillipe Bourgois, “ Disciplining Addictions: The Bio-Politics of Methadone and Heroin in the
United States,” Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 24 (2000): 165-195.
*Gerda Reith, “ Consumption and its Discontents: Addiction, Identity and the Problems of
Freedom,” British Journal of Sociology 55, no. 2 (2004): 283-300.
Howard F. Stein, “ In what systems do alcohol/chemical addictions make sense? Clinical ideologies
and practices as cultural metaphors,” Social Science & Medicine 30, no. 9 (1990): 987-1000.
Fieldwork for next week: observe and record, or write down your recollections of, intoxicant use
in one of the following situations; a party, pub, nightclub, coffee house, or similar intoxication space.
In the class we are going to be discussing how our experiences of intoxication are socially shaped. So
that you can be ready to discuss this, after you have written your account I want you to think about the
literature you have read so far and think about how your account could be a sociological one. For
guidance read Cameron Duff, “ The pleasure in context,” International Journal of Drug Policy 19, no. 5
(October 2008): 384-392.
7. Alcohol and Economies of Pleasure
This week we will also be visiting the drug education charity ‘Crew’ on October 22nd, 2pm.
Society is often said to be one where experiences are consumed, rather than lived. This session
examines the political economy of intoxication experiences. Please note, alcohol is just one focus of
this and you do not have to concentrate on that in your fieldwork task.
Reading:
Cameron Duff, “ The pleasure in context,” International Journal of Drug Policy 19, no. 5 (October
2008): 384-392.
European Centre for Monitoring Alcohol Marketing, The Seven Key Messages of the Alcohol
Industry (EUCAM, 2011).
Fiona Hutton, Risky Pleasures?: Club Cultures and Feminine Identities (Ashgate Publishing
Limited, 2006). Pp29-48 "Gendered Experience of Club Experiences".
Ben Malbon, Clubbing: Dancing, Ecstasy and Vitality (London: Routledge, 1999) pp. 199-202, “ A
Night on E”.
Fieldwork for next week: Read Andy Letcher, “ Mad Thoughts on Mushrooms: Discourse and
Power in the Study of Psychedelic Consciousness,” Anthropology of Consciousness 18, no. 2
(September 1, 2007): 74-98. Consider: what boundaries do hallucinogenic drugs transgress? Is this
different from other drugs and if so why?
8. Special Guest Lecture by Danny Diskin
Outline to follow.
Reading:
*Andy Letcher, “ Mad Thoughts on Mushrooms: Discourse and Power in the Study of Psychedelic
Consciousness,” Anthropology of Consciousness 18, no. 2 (September 1, 2007): 74-98.
Fieldwork for next week: Read Philippe Bourgois, “ Just Another Night in a Shooting Gallery,”
Theory, Culture & Society 15, no. 2 (May 1, 1998): 37 -66. What ethical, moral and methodological
problems are there in research, especially ethnographic research, with heroin and crack users?
9. Heroin, Crack and Street Ethnography
In this session we examine ethnographies with heroin and crack users. We discuss why heroin and
crack are especially stigmatised drugs, the different subcultures that surround them, and the limits of
research with users.
Reading:
Philippe Bourgois, “ Just Another Night in a Shooting Gallery,” Theory, Culture & Society 15, no. 2
(May 1, 1998): 37 -66.
Tom Carnwath and Ian Smith, Heroin Century (London: Routledge, 2002).
Contreras, R. (2013). The stickup kids: race, drugs, violence, and the American dream. Berkeley,
Calif.: University of California Press. https://www.dawsonera.com/abstract/9780520953574
A Taylor, Women Drug Users: An Ethnography of a Female Injecting Community (New York:
Clarendon, 1993).
Nicole Vitellone, “ The Syringe as Prosthetic,” Body & Society 9, no. 3 (2003): 37-52.
Fieldwork for next week:
Read Robin Bunton, “ Knowledge, Embodiment and Neo-Liberal Drug Policy,” Contemporary
Drug Problems 28 (2001): 221-243. Observe an aspect of drug control/regulation in action. This might
be surveillance, a ‘technology of suspicion’, prohibition of use, regulation of users or any other form of
regulation. Consider: do we have the right to use drugs?
10. The Pharmacy Society: Drug Control and Cognitive Liberty
In this session we discuss the present and future of drug use and drug control.
Reading:
Richard Glen Boire, “ On Cognitive Liberty,” The Journal of Cognitive Liberties 1, no. 1 (1999): 7-
13.
Robin Bunton, “ Knowledge, Embodiment and Neo-Liberal Drug Policy,” Contemporary Drug
Problems 28 (2001): 221-243.
Dossey, L. 2006. “ Listerine’s Long Shadow: Disease Mongering and the Selling of Sickness.”
EXPLORE: The Journal of Science and Healing 2:379-385.
D. Manderson, “ Possessed: Drug Policy, Witchcraft and Belief,” Cultural Studies 19, no. 1 (2005):
35-62.
Fiona Measham et al., “ Tweaking, bombing, dabbing and stockpiling: the emergence of
mephedrone and the perversity of prohibition,” Drugs and Alcohol Today 10, no. 1 (2010): 14-21.
Parry, V. (2003), ‘The Art of Branding a Condition’, Medical Marketing & Media, 38, 5, 42-49.
Assessment
Assessment will be by an online journal (25%) and either a long essay or a video essay (75%). The
online journals and long essay are marked anonymously so do not put your name on it, just your exam
number.
See the ‘Journal Advice’ document on Learn for more information on how to approach the
assessment.
Journal - Submit 12pm October 27 th – to be returned on November 17 th
The journal is your account of the fieldwork tasks. As this is a new form of assessment you can
submit a formative journal which will not be assessed but which I will give feedback on so you can
learn what is expected.
The formative journal should be 500 words long. Submit the formative journal by 12pm noon, -
Week 5, Tuesday 14th October.
The journal itself should be 1400-1600 words long. It should contain an account of at least two of
the fieldwork tasks.
You can submit a video or audio file along with the journal.
Journals above 1,600 words will be penalized using the Ordinary level criterion of 1 mark for every
20 words over length: anything between 1,601 and 1,620 words will lose one point, between 1,621 and
1,640 two points, and so on. Note that the lower 1400 figure is a guideline for students which you will
not be penalized for going below. However, you should note that shorter essays are unlikely to achieve
the required depth and that this will be reflected in your mark.
You can submit a video and a shorter journal of 700-800 words if you are planning to do the video
ethnography. This allows you to keep the option of taking the long essay open. Word count penalties
apply as with the journal above.
Long Essay - Submit 12pm December 8 th – to be returned on January 12 th
Long essays should be 3,500-4,500 words long, excluding bibliography.
You must include a word count (which your word processing software can produce) on the title
page.
Essays above 4,500 words will be penalized using the Ordinary level criterion of 1 mark for every
20 words over length: anything between 4,501 and 4,520 words will lose one point, between 4,521 and
4,540 two points, and so on. The same penalties apply to the journal.
Note that the lower 3,500 figure is a guideline for students, which you will not be penalized for
going below. However, you should note that shorter essays are unlikely to achieve the required depth
and that this will be reflected in your mark. I advise you to use most of the word count.
So that you can get feedback before you submit the essay, submit a draft essay by the end of week
9.
Video essay - Submit 12pm December 8th.
This will consist of a short ethnographic or documentary video made by you in place of the essay.
To take this option, take video diaries and documentary material when you are doing the fieldwork
task. The final video should be 10-15 minutes long, along with a 1600-1800 word reflective review
highlighting key themes and linking them to the literature.
You can look here for an example: http://goo.gl/LhqMNS. This was produced by myself and a
group of Sociology students. I am not looking for anything as polished, but some of the same
techniques might be involved.
I will have a special session to introduce students who are interested in this assessment to it.
ELMA: Submission and return of coursework
Coursework is submitted online using our electronic submission system, ELMA. You will not be
required to submit a paper copy of your work.
Marked coursework, grades and feedback will be returned to you via ELMA. You will not receive
a paper copy of your marked course work or feedback.
For information, help and advice on submitting coursework and accessing feedback, please see the
ELMA wiki at https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/SPSITWiki/ELMA. Further detailed guidance on
the essay deadline and a link to the wiki and submission page will be available on the course Learn
page. The wiki is the primary source of information on how to submit your work correctly and
provides advice on approved file formats, uploading cover sheets and how to name your files correctly.
When you submit your work electronically, you will be asked to tick a box confirming that your
work complies with university regulations on plagiarism. This confirms that the work you have
submitted is your own.
Occasionally, there can be technical problems with a submission. We request that you monitor your
university student email account in the 24 hours following the deadline for submitting your work. If
there are any problems with your submission the course secretary will email you at this stage.
We undertake to return all coursework within 15 working days of submission. This time is needed
for marking, moderation, second marking and input of results. If there are any unanticipated delays, it
is the course organiser’s responsibility to inform you of the reasons.
All our coursework is assessed anonymously to ensure fairness: to facilitate this process put
your Examination number (on your student card), not your name or student number, on your
coursework or cover sheet.
Suggested Long Essay Questions
I have presented some of these essay questions as propositions and provocations for you to argue
one way or another on. There is no ‘right’ answer to any of them – far from it. I encourage you to think
about the implications of these statements. I have given you some points to start with.
For all questions, it is up to you how you define ‘drug’, so you can include alcohol, cigarettes,
medicines etc., unless I have specified ‘illicit drugs’ or ‘medicines’. I’ve added suggesting starting
points to each question, and you can ask me for more, but I also want you to explore the literature
yourself and decide what’s worth including and what is not.
1. Drug and alcohol problems are largely a matter of definition.
This question is about how some troubles are defined as public problems – and who has the power
of definition. You can examine a specific drug/alcohol problem, or compare between them, or look at
the overall processes by which this happens. It links to sociological discussions of deviance and
medicalization. One theme would be the different and competing definitions that exist: medical,
criminal, cultural, personal, and the kinds of knowledge they draw on.
Start with: Dingelstad, D., Gosden, R., Martin, B. and Vakas, N. (1996), 'The social construction
of drug debates', Social Science & Medicine, 43, 12, 1829.
2. Addiction is not a disease.
Like question 1, this question asks you to look at the debate about how a set of behaviours is
defined, and also look at how it is defined. In this case it is about a longstanding discussion in medical
and drug research circles about whether there is a single, disease-like biological entity called
‘addiction’.
Start with: Valverde, M. (1998), Diseases of the Will: Alcohol and the Dilemmas of Freedom, New
York, Cambridge University Press.
3. We are governed through pleasure.
You are being asked to examine a contradiction. Pleasure is often seen as pure freedom. One way in
which illicit drug users have been defined as deviant is by denying that they get pleasure from drug use,
which is clearly not the case. Societies spend a lot of effort on defining some pleasures as legitimate
and others not, as a way of controlling deviant populations. However, increasingly there are whole
industries devoted to promoting pleasurable consumption. Is this still freedom, or a form of social
control?
Start with: Luik, J. (1999), 'Wardens, Abbots, and Modest Hedonists: The Problem of Permission
for Pleasure in a Democratic Society', in Peele, S. and Grant, M. (eds.), Alcohol and Pleasure: A Health
Perspective, Philadelphia, Brunner/Mazel; Duff, C. (2008) “ The pleasure in context,” International
Journal of Drug Policy 19, no. 5: 384-392.
4. Methadone maintenance is largely concerned with making addicts safe, but not with ending
their addiction.
The controversy here is with a common form of treatment for heroin dependence, methadone. Many
addicts perceive it to be a way of managing their behaviour rather than helping them out of
dependence. You may want to consider other forms of drug treatment to. As ever, think about the kinds
of knowledge and power being applied to addicts’ behaviour, and the ethics of treatment.
Start with: Bourgois, P. (2000), 'Disciplining Addictions: The Bio-Politics of Methadone and
Heroin in the United States', Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, 24, 165-195.
5. Drugs do not by themselves make you high.
Culture and ritual are an important part of how people experience and learn to use drugs. This
question asks you to look at some examples of people experiencing drug use and look at the relative
important of the drug as a substance and the social learning that goes on around it.
Start with: Becker, H. (1953), 'Becoming a Marihuana User', American Journal of Sociology, 59, 3,
235-242.
6. We should accept drug surveillance as a necessary part of life.
There is a lot of criticism of the surveillance society and the fact that we learn to internalise the ‘eye
in the sky’. The question asks whether surveillance is so embedded in many systems we use all the time
that it has become an unavoidable part of the fabric of social life, and how works sociologically – for
example, how it reinforces power and inequality.
Start with: Campbell, N.D. (2004), ‘Technologies of Suspicion: Coercion and Compassion in Post -
disciplinary Surveillance Regimes’, Surveillance & Society, 2, 1, 79-92.
7. A ‘pill for every ill’ makes everybody a patient.
The popularity of lifestyle medication implies a change in human subjectivity, where we consider
ourselves to be constantly at risk, which can be mitigated by medication. The question asks you to
consider this critically: is it really the case? Is it necessarily a negative thing?
Start with: DeGrandpre, R.J. (2000), Ritalin Nation: Rapid-fire Culture and the Transformation of
Human Consciousness, New York, WW Norton.
8. Drug producers and traffickers are not primarily criminals, but entrepreneurs.
Use the readings from the illicit globalisation lecture to look at both the actions and motivations of
illicit drug producers and distributors, and the processes and systems they take advantage of.
Start with: Seddon, Toby. "Drugs, the informal economy and globalization." International Journal
of Social Economics 35.10 (2008): 717-728.
9. Psychedelics show that scientific knowledge about drugs is just another kind of social
knowledge.
This question asks you about the status of difference kinds of knowledge about psychedelics.
Consider why psychedelics are treated as a special case, the different tropes drawn on by users and
researchers, and the nature of spiritual, scientific and personal knowledge and experience.
Start with: Andy Letcher, “ Mad Thoughts on Mushrooms: Discourse and Power in the Study of
Psychedelic Consciousness,” Anthropology of Consciousness 18, no. 2 (September 1, 2007): 74-
98.
10. Intoxication is a cultural, not chemical, phenomenon.
The starting point for this question is the different cultural influences on intoxicated behaviour. The
question asks you to look the evidence about cultural differences, and also to reflect on how ‘culture’
shows itself in this kind of research. Is it an internalised set of shared values, a performance, or
something else?
Start with: Heath, D.B. (2000), Drinking Occasions: Comparative Perspectives on Alcohol and
Culture, New York, Brunner-Routledge.
11. Drug rituals allow users to make sense of drug use and make it safer.
The question is about the rituals that users develop around drugs and what they do to the drug, the
user and the context they are using it. Consider what these rituals do – sharing knowledge, managing
people’s behaviour, and other functions.
Start with: Grund, Jean-Paul C. 1993. Drug Use as a Social Ritual: Functionality, Symbolism and
Determinants of Self-Regulation. Rotterdam: Instituut voor Verslavingsonderzoek. Esp. ‘The Concept
of Ritualisation’ and ‘Heroin Rituals’
12. Drug laws might not be perfect but they are necessary.
You will need to select an aspect of the legal framework governing drugs – this might be the
various global prohibitions on illicit drugs, or the licensing of alcohol or medicines. Consider
arguments and evidence about these laws and regulations, their impact and effectiveness.
Start with: RSA (2007), 'Drugs - Facing Facts: The Report of the RSA Commission on Illegal
Drugs, Communities and Public Policy', London, RSA.
External Examiners
The External Examiners for this course for session 2013-2014 are as follows:
Professor Bernadette Hayes, University of Aberdeen
Dr Michael Halewood, University of Essex
The Operation of Lateness Penalties (Honours Students):
Unlike in Years 1 and 2, NO EXTENSIONS ARE GRANTED WITH RESPECT TO THE
SUBMISSION DEADLINES FOR ANY ASSESSED WORK At HONOURS LEVEL.
Managing deadlines is a basic life-skill that you are expected to have acquired by the time you reach
Honours. Timely submission of all assessed items (coursework, essays, project reports, etc.) is a
vitally important responsibility at this stage in your university career. Unexcused lateness can put
at risk your prospects of proceeding to Senior Honours and can damage your final degree grade.
If you miss the submission deadline for any piece of assessed work 5 marks will be deducted for each
calendar day that work is late, up to a maximum of five calendar days (25 marks). Thereafter, a
mark of zero will be recorded. There is no grace period for lateness and penalties begin to apply
immediately following the deadline. For example, if the deadline is Tuesday at 12 noon, work
submitted on Tuesday at 12.01pm will be marked as one day late, work submitted at 12.01pm on
Wednesday will be marked as two days late, and so on.
Failure to submit an item of assessed work will result in a mark of zero, with potentially very serious
consequences for your overall degree class, or no degree at all. It is therefore always in your
interest to submit work, even if very late.
Please be aware that all work submitted is returned to students with a provisional mark and
without applicable penalties in the first instance. The mark you receive on ELMA is
therefore subject to change following the consideration of the Lateness Penalty Waiver
Panel (please see below for further information) and the Board of Examiners.
How to Submit a Lateness Penalty Waiver Form
If there are extenuating circumstances beyond your control which make it essential for you to submit
work after the deadline you must fill in a ‘Lateness Penalty Waiver’ (LPW) form to state the
reason for your lateness. This is a request for any applicable penalties to be removed and will be
considered by the Lateness Penalty Waiver Panel.
Before submitting an LPW, please consider carefully whether your circumstances are (or were)
significant enough to justify the lateness. Such circumstances should be serious and exceptional
(e.g. not a common cold or a heavy workload). Computer failures are not regarded as justifiable
reason for late submission. You are expected to regularly back-up your work and allow sufficient
time for uploading it to ELMA.
You should submit the LPW form and supply an expected date of submission as soon as you are able to
do so, and preferably before the deadline. Depending on the circumstances, supporting
documentation may be required, so please be prepared to provide this where possible.
LPW forms can be found in a folder outside your SSO’s office, on online at:
http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/undergrad/on_course_students/assessment_and_regulations/coursework_requi
rements/coursework_requirements_honours
Forms should be returned by email or, if possible, in person to your SSO. They will sign the form to
indicate receipt and will be able to advise you if you would like further guidance or support.
Please Note: Signing the LPW form by either your SSO or Personal Tutor only indicates
acknowledgment of the request, not the waiving of lateness penalties. Final decisions on all
marks rest with Examination Boards.
There is a dedicated SSO for students in each subject area in SPS. T o find out who your SSO is, and
how to contact them, please find your home subject area on the table below:
Subject Area Name of SSO Email Phone Office
Politics Ruth Winkle [email protected] 0131
650 4253
Room 1.11,
Chrystal
MacMillan
Building
International
Relations
Rebecca
Shade rebecca.shade@ed. ac.uk
0131
651 3896
Room 1.10,
Chrystal
MacMillan
Building
Social
Anthropology
Vanessa
Feldberg [email protected]
0131
650 3933
Room 1.04,
Chrystal
MacMillan
Building
Social Policy Louise Angus [email protected] 0131
650 3923
Room 1.08,
Chrystal
MacMillan
Building
Social Work Jane Marshall jane.marshall@ed. ac.uk 0131
650 3912
Room 1.07,
Chrystal
MacMillan
Building
Sociology Karen
Dargo [email protected]
0131
651 1306
Room 1.03,
Chrystal
MacMillan
Building
Sustainable
Development
Sue
Renton [email protected]
0131
650 6958
Room 1.09,
Chrystal
MacMillan
Building
If you are a student from another School, you should submit your LPW to the SSO for the subject area
of the course, Karen Dargo.
Plagiarism Guidance for Students:
Avoiding Plagiarism:
Material you submit for assessment, such as your essays, must be your own work. You can, and
should, draw upon published work, ideas from lectures and class discussions, and (if appropriate) even
upon discussions with other students, but you must always make clear that you are doing so. Passing
off anyone else’s work (including another student’s work or material from the Web or a published
author) as your own is plagiarism and will be punished severely. When you upload your work to
ELMA you will be asked to check a box to confirm the work is your own. ELMA automatically runs
all submissions through ‘Turnitin’, our plagiarism detection software, and compares every essay
against a constantly-updated database, which highlights all plagiarised work. Assessed work that
contains plagiarised material will be awarded a mark of zero, and serious cases of plagiarism will also
be reported to the College Academic Misconduct officer. In either case, the actions taken will be noted
permanently on the student's record. For further details on plagiarism see the Academic Services’
website:http://www.ed.ac.uk/schoolsdepartments/academicservices/students/undergraduate/discipline/
plagiarism
Learning Resources for Undergraduates:
The Study Development Team at the Institute for Academic Development (IAD) provides resources
and workshops aimed at helping all students to enhance their learning skills and develop effective study
techniques. Resources and workshops cover a range of topics, such as managing your own learning,
reading, note making, essay and report writing, exam preparation and exam techniques.
The study development resources are housed on 'LearnBetter' (undergraduate), part of Learn, the
University's virtual learning environment. Follow the link from the IAD Study Development web page
to enrol: www.ed.ac.uk/iad/undergraduates
Workshops are interactive: they will give you the chance to take part in activities, have discussions,
exchange strategies, share ideas and ask questions. They are 90 minutes long and held on Wednesday
afternoons at 1.30pm or 3.30pm. The schedule is available from the IAD Undergraduate web page (see
above).
Workshops are open to all undergraduates but you need to book in advance, using the MyEd
booking system. Each workshop opens for booking 2 weeks before the date of the workshop itself. If
you book and then cannot attend, please cancel in advance through MyEd so that another student can
have your place. (To be fair to all students, anyone who persistently books on workshops and fails to
attend may be barred from signing up for future events).
Study Development Advisors are also available for an individual consultation if you have specific
questions about your own approach to studying, working more effectively, strategies for improving
your learning and your academic work. Please note, however, that Study Development Advisors are not
subject specialists so they cannot comment on the content of your work. They also do not check or
proof read students' work.
To make an appointment with a Study Development Advisor, email [email protected]
(For support with English Language, you should contact the English Language Teaching Centre).
SSPS Extended Common Marking Scheme
A+ (90-100%) An answer that fulfils all of the criteria for ‘A’ (see below) and in addition shows
an exceptional degree of insight and independent thought, together with flair in tackling issues, yielding
a product that is deemed to be of publishable quality, in terms of scholarship and originality.
A (80-89%) An authoritative answer that provides a fully effective response to the question. It
should show a command of the literature and an ability to integrate that literature and go beyond it. The
analysis should achieve a high level of quality early on and sustain it through to the conclusion.
Sources should be used accurately and concisely to inform the answer but not dominate it. There
should be a sense of a critical and committed argument, mindful of other interpretations but not afraid
to question them. Presentation and the use of English should be commensurate with the quality of the
content.
A- (70-79%) A sharply-focused answer of high intellectual quality, which adopts a
comprehensive approach to the question and maintains a sophisticated level of analysis throughout. It
should show a willingness to engage critically with the literature and move beyond it, using the sources
creatively to arrive at its own independent conclusions.
B B- (60-63%) B (64-66%) B+ (67-69%)
A very good answer that shows qualities beyond the merely routine or acceptable. The question and
the sources should be addressed directly and fully. The work of other authors should be presented
critically. Effective use should be made of the whole range of the literature. There should be no
significant errors of fact or interpretation. The answer should proceed coherently to a convincing
conclusion. The quality of the writing and presentation (especially referencing) should be without
major blemish.
Within this range a particularly strong answer will be graded B+; a more limited answer will be
graded B-.
C C- (50-53%) C (54-56%) C+ (57-59%)
A good answer with elements of the routine and predictable. It should be generally accurate and
firmly based in the reading. It may draw upon a restricted range of sources but should not just re-state
one particular source. Other authors should be presented accurately, if rather descriptively. There
should be no serious weaknesses in the coverage of the topic and the relevance of the material. Factual
errors and misunderstandings of concepts and authors may occasionally be present but should not be a
dominant impression. The quality of writing, referencing and presentation should be generally good.
Within this range a stronger answer will be graded C+; a weaker answer will be graded C-.
D D- (40-43%) D (44-46%) D+ (47-49%)
A passable answer which understands the question, displays some academic learning and refers to
relevant literature. The answer should be intelligible and in general factually accurate, but may well
have deficiencies such as restricted use of sources or academic argument, over-reliance on lecture
notes, poor expression, and irrelevancies to the question asked. The general impression may be of a
rather poor effort, with weaknesses in conception or execution. It might also be the right mark for a
short answer that at least referred to the main points of the issue. Within this range a stronger answer
will be graded D+; a bare pass will be graded D-.
E (30-39%) An answer with evident weaknesses of understanding but conveying the sense that
with a fuller argument or factual basis it might have achieved a pass. It might also be a short and
fragmentary answer with merit in what is presented but containing serious gaps.
F (20-29%) An answer showing seriously inadequate knowledge of the subject, with little
awareness of the relevant issues or literature, major omissions or inaccuracies, and pedestrian use of
inadequate sources.
G (10-19%) An answer that falls far short of a passable level by some combination of short
length, irrelevance, lack of intelligibility, factual inaccuracy and lack of acquaintance with reading or
academic concepts.
H (0-9%) An answer without any academic merit which usually conveys little sense that the
course has been followed or of the basic skills of essay-writing.