Drug policy research at the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research

Abstract

The Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research (CRF) has since its foundation in 1991 had a strong tradition for research in drug control. However, researchers at CRF have also started to study drug policy not only from a control perspective but also from a perspective of health and welfare issues. From 2005, CRF has developed a particular interest in how welfare policies related to drug issues come into being and how they are implemented in practice in different welfare institutions. These studies, in opposition to more established drug policy studies based primarily on quantitative and statistical data, use a broader variety of empirical data collected using qualitative interviews and ethnographic observations. The article investigates the development of drug policy studies at CRF and discusses the theoretical and analytical implications of this development. The development is related to, first that the organization of the Danish drug field has changed and a variety of new social and health initiatives have emerged, necessitating a thorough investigation; and, second that more anthropologists and sociologists have been employed at CRF, complementing researchers trained primarily in legal studies.

Notes

Notes

1. Our use of the concept of policy space is an elaboration of Dorn's (1995) and Benoit's (2003) use of the term.

2. Before this reform the bureaucratic and legal management of the Danish welfare state was placed on three levels: the State, 13 counties and 271 municipalities, after 2007 we have the State, 5 regions and 98 municipalities. Overall, the re-organization was made in order to make the welfare state more efficient and closer to the citizen in line with international NPM trends (for further discussion, see Bjerge, 2008, 2009).