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Drugs Across Cultures
Undergraduate | MAQ-ANTX106 | 2019
Course information for 2019 intake
Sort through social and cultural issues surrounding legal and illegal drugs. Visit the front line of the war on drugs. Look at the physical, social and psychological features of addiction. Consider the economics of the pharmaceutical drug industry.
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Entry requirements
- Prior study needed
- Duration
- -
HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Drugs Across Cultures
About this subject
At the completion of this subject students will be able to:
- acquire a basic understanding of the pharmacology of legal and illicit drugs, and the physical, psychological and social aspects of addiction
- gain familiarity with ethnographic approaches to the study of drug use
- understand the impact of broad social, political and economic forces on drug use and on social perceptions of drugs
- clarify the student’s own position on drugs, allowing informed and responsible decisions about social policies and strategies relating to drug use
- apply and adapt anthropological knowledge to real world issues.
- Introduction to the unit - Drugs, pharmaceuticals and anthropology
- Ethnographies of drug use
- Pharmacology, drug use and drug addiction
- Ethnographies of injecting drug use
- Alcohol and Aboriginal Australia
- Sacred tobacco in Native America
- Commercial tobacco: the European vector
- From tears to hope: a family perspective on drugs
- Political economy of opiates
- Political economy of cocaine
- The war on drugs
- Drug policy reform
- Cannabis
- Hallucinogens in the West
- Hallucinogens in non-Western societies
- Pharmaceuticals and drug trials - Viagra
- Pharmaceuticals - Emergency contraception
This subject was previously known as ANT110 Drugs Across Cultures.
Using anthropological and ethnographic studies, this subject focuses mainly on the social and cultural contexts of drug use, both legal and illegal. The subject is also concerned with economic and political factors influencing the production and distribution of drugs and the way in which these processes are enmeshed in a global economy.
Topics include: the international traffic in opium/heroin and cocaine in the Golden Triangle of mainland South-east Asia and in South America and the way this traffic intermeshes with regional politics and local tribal, peasant and commercial systems of production and exchange; the social history of drugs in the US, UK and Australia; youth culture and drugs in the West; AIDS and intravenous drug use; addiction and treatment; drugs and the law; the global political economy of pharmaceuticals, particularly contraceptives, erectile dysfunction drugs, antiretrovirals in the age of AIDS; and the placebo effect.
- Essay (40%)
- Non-Invigilated Exam (40%)
- Quiz 1 (5%)
- Quiz 2 (15%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
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Entry requirements
Equivalent subjects
You should not enrol in this subject if you have successfully completed any of the following subject(s) because they are considered academically equivalent:
MAQ-ANT110 (Not currently available)
Others
If you have no prior university experience, you should complete BAR100 Academic Learning Skills or COM10006 Academic Literacies: Learning and Communication Practice before starting this subject.
Additional requirements
No additional requirements
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
Equivalent full time study load (EFTSL) is one way to calculate your study load. One (1.0) EFTSL is equivalent to a full-time study load for one year.
Find out more information on Commonwealth Loans to understand what this means to your eligibility for financial support.
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