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,

angus.bancroft@ed.ac.uk, 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 ruth.winkle@ed.ac.uk 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 vanessa.feldberg@ed.ac.uk

0131

650 3933

Room 1.04,

Chrystal

MacMillan

Building

Social Policy Louise Angus L.Angus@ed.ac.uk 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 Karen.Dargo@ed.ac.uk

0131

651 1306

Room 1.03,

Chrystal

MacMillan

Building

Sustainable

Development

Sue

Renton sue.renton@ed.ac.uk

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 iad.study@ed.ac.uk

(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.