Ideation, social construction and drug policy: A scoping review

The IPEDs assemblage: Tracing the entanglements of biomedicine, technology, enhancement and anti-doping policies in sport and society

The US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) recently ended their anti-doping partnership amidst controversy. We treat this decision, and the motivations underpinning it, as a means of exploring the complexities of anti-doping norms and the blurred lines between image and performance enhancing drug (IPED) use in sport and wider society. Drawing ideas from assemblage thinking, we analyse the evolving power dynamics surrounding IPED use, anti-doping policy, and the role of popular athletes in shaping societal perceptions of the use of, and potential harms associated with IPEDs. The study offers a case analysis of recent controversies in the UFC to investigate the entanglements of biomedicine, technology and celebrity culture in what we call the IPED assemblage. The 2023 termination of the USADA-UFC partnership has sparked debates about shifts in anti-doping standards, raising concerns about weaker testing protocols and perceptions of IPED normalisation. The case of Conor McGregor's injury recovery and alleged IPED use underscores the blurred lines between therapeutic and enhancement drug use within the IPED assemblage, challenging conventional distinctions between 'good' and 'bad' drugs in the context of sports management and anti-doping policy making. We highlight the inadequacy of current doping policies in responding to the IPED assemblage and highlight the need to shift public discourse to foster a more critical understanding of therapeutic and enhancement strategies to drive innovation in anti-doping frameworks.

Noticed and then Forgotten: Gender in Alcohol Policy Stakeholder Responses to Alcohol and Violence

In this article, we analyse interview data on how alcohol policy stakeholders in Australia, Canada and Sweden understand the relationship between men, masculinities, alcohol and violence. Using influential feminist scholarship on public policy and liberal political theory to analyse interviews with 42 alcohol policy stakeholders, we argue that while these stakeholders view men's violence as a key issue for intervention, masculinities are backgrounded in proposed responses and men positioned as unamenable to intervention. Instead, policy stakeholders prioritise generic interventions understood to protect all from the harms of men's drinking and violence without marking men for special attention. Shared across the data is a prioritisation of interventions that focus on harms recognised as relating to men's drinking but apply equally to all people and, as such, avoid naming men and masculinities as central to alcohol-related violence. We argue that this process works to background the role of masculinities in violence, leaving men unmarked and many possible targeted responses unthinkable.

Nanocytometer for smart analysis of peripheral blood and acute myeloid leukemia: a pilot study

We realize an ultracompact nanocytometer for real-time impedimetric detection and classification of subpopulations of living cells. Nanoscopic nanowires in a microfluidic channel act as nanocapacitors and measure in real time the change of the amplitude and phase of the output voltage and, thus, the electrical properties of living cells. We perform the cell classification in the human peripheral blood (PBMC) and demonstrate for the first time the possibility to discriminate monocytes and subpopulations of lymphocytes in a label-free format. Further, we demonstrate that the PBMC of acute myeloid leukemia and healthy samples grant the label free identification of the disease. Using the algorithm based on machine learning, we generated specific data patterns to discriminate healthy donors and leukemia patients. Such a solution has the potential to improve the traditional diagnostics approaches with respect to the overall cost and time effort, in a label-free format, and restrictions of the complex data analysis.

Atmospheres of engagement within a German drug consumption room

Drug consumption rooms directly attempt to intervene in and govern the place and time of drug use. Whilst the risk-reducing potentials of these interventions have been thoroughly evaluated, the consumption room literature offers fewer insights into the embodied, affective and situated dynamics that underscore service delivery. In this paper, we take up the notion of atmosphere to explore these dynamics in greater depth. Drawing on 12 months of ethnographic research in a German drug consumption room, we describe the manner in which atmospheres came to pervade and condition service encounters. More than simply providing texture to activities within the consumption room, we show how atmospheres gave rise to a distinct range of bodily capacities and therapeutic effects. Critically, these atmospheric affordances exceeded the risk-reducing objectives of the consumption room to encompass an emergent capacity to find repose, enact respite and foster modes of sociality and care. Our analysis further highlights the contextual contingencies through which the atmospheres of the consumption room emerged, including the efforts of both staff and clients to cultivate and control particular atmospheric qualities. We conclude by considering how closer attention to the atmospheric and affective dimensions of service delivery may challenge how consumption room interventions are enacted, valued and researched. This is to gesture towards a novel, atmospheric mode of harm reduction that has effects by transforming embodied potentials for both staff and clients.

Problematisation and centralised assessment in drug treatment sector reform

In the construction of drug use as a 'social problem' (Bacchi, 2015), ease of access to drug treatment aims to enable an immediate response when people seek help. However, as treatment demand exceeds supply, establishing qualifications with regards to efficiency and effectiveness of access, it has been argued, will improve treatment pathways for those most in need. In 2014, drug sector reform in Victoria, Australia introduced policies that supported centralised intake and assessment (CI&A). In 2016, a significant change of policy saw assessment being disaggregated to treatment services. This paper explores the problematisations at these two points to clarify the processes impacting drug treatment governance. Policies, reviews, and allied documents have been explored using an application of Bacchi's (2009) 'what's the problem represented to be' analytical approach. This application aims to stage an encounter between day-to-day policy as a socio-material practice (Bacchi, 2012) and problematisation in the development of contrasting 'realities' at each point. At Time 1, problematisation was about access and navigating treatment. CI&A were introduced as part of sector reform, however an independent review documented disruption to client flow and stakeholder concerns. At Time 2, the policy focus was on quickly establishing a therapeutic relationship with clients. Across these two policy events, the problem representation of uncertainty regarding service effectiveness and efficiency was maintained. This may reflect a deeper characterisation whereby 'drug problems' are accepted and understood as value neutral, and government and services are obliged to take responsibility for their amelioration. The power differential in so called 'collaborative' approaches to policy development may have contributed to silences regarding the salience of organisational factors, such as funds redistribution and recommissioning, and the limited involvement of clients in policy making processes. The shift in emphasis from system design to clinical practice across the two policy events appeared to elevate the status of treatment providers and affirm government's legitimacy in governing.