Towards a multifaceted approach to drugs

The ever-intensifying "illicit drug problem" defies easy explanation.


Since the 2016 UNGASS process, the international community has acknowledged the limits of a one-size fits-all and the need to develop more holistic approaches to drugs.  

In addition to the subterranean nature of the phenomenon, the realities of "illicit drugs" are necessarily plural, for they are linked to contexts, variables, and risk factors that go beyond substance availability and illicit market dynamics. 


This includes socio-economic conditions, stigmatization or/and marginalization of involved and affected people, state presence, access to essential services, instability and vulnerabilities etc. 


The problems associated with illicit drugs cannot be solved until these linkages are made, and their role better understood. 


To make progress, researchers, experts and policy-makers alike must rethink the conventional interpretative grids, and adopt a more nuanced, holistic and empirically informed approach.

Our project 

  
With an open door as its symbol, Daleth-research is an independent initiative to broaden the perspectives on drug-related issues and to document, explore and inform the evolutions of illicit drugs phenomenon and policy landscape from a multi-dimensional and development-oriented approach. 

Using social sciences methods and conceptual tools, the project ambitions to bridge academic research, policy analysis and public debate on drugs. Based in Paris and still in its early stages, the project aims at: 
  • Developing and encouraging research projects and scientific activities with a pluri-disciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspective; 
  • Reflecting and contributing to the scientific and policy debates on emerging avenues for more policy coherence on drugs, sustainable development, and human rights. 
  • Supporting dialogue and networks dynamics across social science researchers and drug policy actors to bridge evidence-building and policy-processes on drugs and development.
Daleth research is building a network of contributors of scholars and young researchers in social and political sciences working on drug-related issues from French and European universities and research centers. 

 Our Work

Research

 Contributing to the growing scientific evidence base on the linkages between drugs, development and human rights, through the development of research projects and scientific activities using social sciences methodologies.

Debate

Exploring what a development-oriented approach to drugs could mean through increased visibility of scientific and policy debates on the matter, and dialogue stimulation across interested communities of practices

Policy

Proposing policy assessments and program evaluations to interested public or private actors (including technical expertise, programme evaluations, and focused studies) to document impacts, lessons, trials, and best practices