ATS2278 Drugs, harm and crime

This unit introduces students to the implications of licit and illicit drug use on the individual and the broader society. It considers the regulation of drugs and drug laws and their application, with emphasis on legal, illegal and prescription drugs. Students will examine the history of drug use and drug regulation in Australia and internationally, which includes discussions around individual offenders to organised crime. Students will examine different responses to drugs such as decriminalisation, harm minimisation and more traditional punitive criminal justice approaches, as well as the US War on Drugs and its consequences. Students will study principal policies and implications of offences of possession, manufacture, self-administration, importation, prescription offences and supply. Students will analyse the ways in which the state and the criminal justice system responds to different types of drugs and drug offences, and why criminalisation of the production and consumption of drugs varies over space and time. Students will explore the challenges presented to society through drug use such as addiction, stigma and crime and contrast this with the challenges presented by legal drug use. The unit will also consider where drugs are grown or manufactured, and the challenges this raises for law enforcement and border control nationally and internationally. Finally, this unit will also introduce students to how illicit drug is researched, as well as the role of supranational structures such as the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.