Advisory Board

Julia is based at the Department of Criminology at the University of Manchester after success in a British Academy Global Professorship grant application. The grant funds four years of research that will variously examine the impact of Brexit on illicit drug markets in the UK, and the extent to which drug policy reform in other countries has enabled a wider diversity of stakeholders to engage with drug policy processes. Previously Julia was Professor of Comparative Politics in the School of Public Policy at the Central European University, Budapest and was Senior Research Officer at GDPO 2013-2014. She researches on narcotic drug markets, with a specific focus on the inter-relationship between illicit drug economies, conflict, peacebuilding, and economic and democratic transitions. She has a particular interest in the impacts of counter narcotics strategies on gender, social justice and development. In addition to a number of GDPO policy reports, her drug related publications include The Political Economy of Narcotics (Zed, 2006), the edited collection The Politics of Narcotic Drugs (Europa 2010), ‘Opportunity Lost: Alternative Development in Drug Control’ in J. Tokatlian (ed) Old Wars: New Thinking, (Libros Zorazal, 2010); ‘A History of Drug Control’ in P. Keefer and N. Loayza (eds) Innocent Bystanders, (World Bank Publications, 2010) and ‘The UK drug problem in global perspective’, Soundings, Issue 42, Summer 2009.

Twitter @BuxtonJulia

Rick is a Professor of Criminology and Human Rights in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. He has been called ‘a key figure in the emerging field of human rights and drug policy’ and is known for his research and teaching on subjects including international drug control law, prisoners' rights, HIV and human rights, capital punishment and harm reduction.  Rick is former Executive Director of Harm Reduction International (2010-2018) and the Irish Penal Reform Trust (2003-2007). He is the co-founder and Chair of the International Centre on Human Rights and Drug Policy at the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex and a member of the Advisory Board of the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association. Rick is the author of Drug Control and Human Rights in International Law (CUP, 2017) and is currently editing a new book, After the War on Drugs: Harm Reduction and Human Rights in Post-Prohibition Scenarios, to be published by Routledge in 2022.

View Rick’s full Swansea University staff profile here

Alex Stevens is a Professor in Criminal Justice and Deputy Head of the University of Kent’s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. He has a PhD in Social Policy from the University of Kent, an MA in Socio-Legal Studies from the University of Sheffield and a BA in French (in the School of European Studies) from the University of Sussex. He has worked on issues of drugs, crime and health in the voluntary sector, as an academic researcher and as an adviser to the UK government. His principal research interests focus on illicit drug policies and how they affect drug use, crime and public health. He has an on-going interest in how evidence is used in making policy and in the effects of drug treatment interventions. Current research projects involve working on the subterranean structuration of gang life in London, and on the links between social policies and drug-related harms.

His peer reviewed journal articles  include Stevens, A., & Ritter, A. (2013) ‘How can and do empirical studies influence drug policies? Narratives and complexity in the use of evidence in policy making’, Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy, 20(3), 169-174; Hughes, C., & Stevens, A. (2012) ‘A resounding success or a disastrous failure: Re-examining the interpretation of evidence on the Portuguese decriminalisation of illicit drugs[30]’, Drug and Alcohol Review, 31(1) 101—113; and Stevens, A. (2011) ‘Sociological approaches to the study of drug use and drug policy[31]’, International Journal of Drug Policy, 22(6).