The International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP) is a society of scholars committed to advancing drug policy research.
18th Annual ISSDP Conference
Save the date: ISSDP 2025 in Manchester, UK, June 11 to 13.
ISSDP trustee Rebecca Askew will be hosting the ISSDP conference at Manchester Metropolitan University from the 11 to 13 June 2025. We look forward to seeing you there.
The 18th annual ISSDP conference 11-13 June 2025, hosted by the Drugs, Policy, and Social Change (DPSC) research group at Manchester Metropolitan University, envisions a transformative dialogue on drug policy grounded in social justice. Our aim is to foster an inclusive platform where diverse voices from affected communities, practitioners, and policymakers converge to explore and address the complexities of drug policy processes and formation.
The call for abstracts for the ISSDP 2025 conference has now closed. Thanks to everyone who submitted abstracts. We will be reviewing them shortly and look forward to releasing a program in due course.
ISSDP Drug Policy Resource Table at CND68
ISSDP is running a drug policy resource table at CND68, with books and journal articles covering a broad array of drug policy topics and contexts. Please come and say hi if you are at CND.
Here is a list of key resources available.
ISSDP UNODC Side Event at CND68
ISSDP is running at side event at the 68th United Nations Commission on Narcotics Drugs Meeting titled “A Scientific Analysis of Harm Reduction in Drug Policy”on Friday 14 March 2025 11:30-12:30 CEST. The event is co-sponsored by the UNODC Research and Trend Analysis Branch. Please join us in person or online.
ISSDP is also organising a drug policy resource table at CND68 to showcase drug policy resources for policy makers.
Methods Matter – 2025 ISSDP Conference Workshop on Drug Policy Research Methods
On 10 June 2025 two workshops are being held ahead of the 2025 ISSDP Conference in Manchester, UK. The first workshop “Methods Matter: A Workshop on Drug Policy Research Methods” is being hosted by the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy in collaboration with the Centre for Criminological Research of the University of Sheffield and the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Manchester.
Registration for workshops will occur through the main conference registration system.
The full agenda is now accessible at:
https://www.issdp.org/Methods-Matter-Workshop-ISSDP-2025-Conference-Final.pdf
Call for Nominations: The ISSDP Excellence in Research Award for 2025
The ISSDP Excellence in Research Award is an annual recognition sponsored by the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy. First conferred in Leuven, Belgium, in 2023, the award aims to recognize a piece of research published in the past 3 years that has made a substantial innovation in how we think about or conduct research in the area of drug policy. Eligible topics include (but are not exclusively limited to) the methods and data used for conducting drug policy analysis, the theoretical models of or frameworks guiding work on the agents (consumers, suppliers, regulators) or systems (drug markets, health providers, criminal justice system, social services) that influence drug policy, and/or practical understanding of drug policy in the world today.
Award
The awardee/s will receive a formal certificate from the society, a monetary award of at least US $3000, an allowance to cover travel and conference costs, as well as the opportunity to give a 30-minute presentation at the annual ISSDP meeting (For 2025, this will be in Manchester, UK, on June 11 to 13). If the publication has multiple authors, they will have to choose one person to come to the meeting and accept the award
Eligibility criteria
- Any English-language research publication (article, book, or report), published in the past three years, is eligible for consideration. For 2025, the publication must have been published from January 2022 to December 2024.
- For the purposes of the award, “research” should be interpreted broadly and inclusively to refer to original and relevant scholarship in any subfield within the domain of drug policy, broadly construed. The award is open to both quantitative and qualitative research methods.
- The author/s of the nominated publication may or may not be an ISSDP member and will be considered regardless of their institutional affiliation or nationality.
Nominations
Anyone who wishes to nominate a paper for consideration (self-nominations are welcome) should send their nominations to Gideon Lasco (pdlasco@up.edu.ph) by March 31, 2025.
ISSDP will name an awards jury of five members from among its board members and drug policy scholars to evaluate the nominations. The decision of the committee will be relayed via email to the authors of the winning publication by April 15, and announced to the public during the annual ISSDP conference, both on-site and electronically.
