The empirical war on drugs

In a special issue of the journal Addictions (1995) academics, researchers and health care professionals debated the status of the empirical in socially orientated drugs research. A number of researchers noted that our knowledge and understanding of drugs and drug users has changed significantly since the 1990s. Post AIDS this shift is identified as a consequence of the development of qualitative research methods. The qualitative turn in drugs research has involved a shift away form traditional epidemiological approaches and the pursuit of more socially focused methods. Whilst qualitative research has yielded important empirical data on risk behavior the pursuit of these methods has not been without controversy. In addressing the debate on methods in the drugs field this article investigates the effects of social science methods for research on injecting drug use. In so doing I examine what counts and what gets left out of research on injecting beaviour. Drawing on Actor Network Theory (ANT) I suggest Bruno Latour's methodological approach offers critical insights for addressing the empirical objects of injecting drug use.