Towards ‘sensible’ drug information: critically exploring drug intersectionalities, ‘Just Say No,’ normalisation and harm reduction

Aim: This article examines the impact of new psychoactive substances (NPS) on drug service interventions using a case study of professional practitioners in South East England. We assess how professionals seek to develop an innovative approach towards providing ‘sensible drug information.’

Methodology: The research methods include observations, and individual and collective ethnographic interviews with 13 professionals who work with young people across the region.

Results: The article theorises sensible because it is a key element in contemporary drug education with a harm reduction approach. Therefore, we take up this challenge and use the ideas of Gilles Deleuze, which according to Mazzei and McCoy ‘prompts the possibilities of new questions and different ways of thinking research’. We identify a series of drug intersectionalities between ‘traditional’ illegal drugs and NPS and through social class differences between young affluent and more socially disenfranchised drug users. This article assesses the delivery of ‘sensible drug information’ as part of a harm reduction approach, which may not always be supported by other agencies. In responding to these challenges we explore Deleuze’s ideas as a foundation for ‘sensible’ drug information which incorporates Matza?s theory of drift, to explain young people?s changing pattern of drug consumption.