Improving alcohol and other drug policy by focusing on values

This NHMRC-funded program of work provides a multi-disciplinary multi project focus on studying the role of values in policy decisions, policy development, and for actors within policy processes. 

There are three streams of work:

1. Uncovering current policy values (for example in decriminalisation or cannabis policy) and interrogating the value positions taken up during policy development processes
2. Analysing values in research and researchers
3. Integrating community values into policy to increase democratic responsiveness of alcohol and drug policies

Drawing on public policy theory and political science, the program employs qualitative, sociological and anthropological methods alongside quantitative research and documentary analyses to surface and analyse the role of values across the many spaces of drug policy.