Contested domains: regulating responses to volatile substance misuse in the Alice Springs town camps

Abstract

Volatile substance misuse has received increased public attention over the past few decades. The misuse of otherwise innocuous domestic products as vehicles to intoxication is considered dangerous and threatening to mainstream users of these substances, and is a clear deviation from their intended purpose (MacLean 2003). However, such perceptions have hampered the formation of innovative and reflexive policy. In Australia, volatile substance misuse is not a criminal offence, and new legislation has been developed in all Australian jurisdictions to allow police and responding agencies greater authority for responding to substance misuse. Although there is an increasing body of literature surrounding volatile substance misuse, there is limited empirical research on the regulatory responses with a focus on drug abuse prevention. Of the literature that does exist, much is concerned with reviewing interventions without empirical analyses or consideration of the conceptual issues that surround volatile substance misuse.

Consequentially, this research is concerned with examining the current regulatory responses to volatile substance misuse, with a specific focus on drug abuse prevention. Using a mixed-method case study design, this thesis draws on 34 interviews with four participant groups and five weeks of observation of a responding agency, to examine the assumptions of agency and capacity of regulatory subjects made by policy and regulatory strategies, as well as policy motivations. Further, the thesis considers the extent to which the findings have implications for the potential success of regulatory programs. These assumptions, although examined in this thesis primarily within the context of volatile substance misuse strategies, are also considered within the broader context of Indigenous policy.

By moving beyond general policy discussions and considering issues of empowerment, ownership and community control and how these affect the potential success of regulatory strategies, this thesis contributes to current debates on Indigenous policy. In other words, this thesis argues that Indigenous policy should be based on the assumption that its regulatory subjects are empowered agents, which speaks to the way in which Indigenous policy should be approached across Australia.