Drugs, addictions and hidden populations
Research on drugs, addictions and hidden populations represents Episteme’s initial and genuine line of work. In Spain, since the transition to democracy, with the emergence of compulsive heroin use, drug use, especially among young people, has aroused concern, if not considerable alarm. Episteme’s professionals began their research career at the beginning of the century, when heroin use was no longer causing so much social alarm, although at that time the media and preventive attention had shifted towards recreational drug use, especially ecstasy, as well as other so-called ‘synthetic’ substances (speed, ketamine, GHB…).
Recreational drug use is the backbone of our doctoral theses. The normalisation of drug use is the subject of ‘Without crossing the line. La normalización de los consumos de drogas’, the doctoral thesis of David Pere Martínez Oró. Cocaine consumption in the city of Reus, studied using the ethnographic method, is the subject of Antoniu Llort Suárez’s doctoral thesis ‘El pájaro está en el nido. Cocaine, culture and health’. The drug policies applied to tackle the ‘problematic’ of recreational drug use are the central focus of Ricard Faura i Cantarell’s doctoral thesis ‘Políticas de drogas en transformación. Between the essential fact and the relational fact’.
During all these years we have carried out, as can be seen below, dozens of research studies on recreational drug use, with the consequent associated publications. We have used both qualitative and quantitative methodologies to conceptualise the phenomenon of drugs and addictions, as well as different research methods and techniques: ethnographic method, surveys, individual interviews, discussion groups, etc. The substances dealt with have been diverse: alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, amphetamine, and recently, we have returned to study the more marginal consumption of opioids, in the first instance with ‘Opioids in Spain. Ni repunte de heroína ni crisis de opioides a la americana’ and in 2024, ’Fentanyl in Spain. Evidencias, percepciones y realidades’ (Fentanyl in Spain. Evidence, perceptions and realities) with a great media impact. We have also studied different groups, especially young people, but also ageing addict populations in ‘Empowerment processes’, women sex workers in Diké or unaccompanied minors in Ícaro. In this field of work, Episteme is now focusing on methamphetamine use worldwide and in Spain.
The results, the media impact, our methodological solvency and, above all, our publications, make us a leading research group in the field of drugs and addictions. Below, you can visit the page of different researches of this line of work and the publications derived from it.
Evaluation and quality
During the 1980s, the emergence of compulsive heroin use made it clear that prevention was the best strategy to avoid addiction and the associated damage. With more good intentions than knowledge, the first preventive actions centred on fear and exaggeration of the consequences of drugs began to be implemented. These actions were totally ineffective and even iatrogenic. During the 1990s, the first prevention programmes centred on information began to be institutionalised, although they lacked any evaluative action and, by extension, any effectiveness. For years, addiction prevention programmes have been living with, with greater or lesser anguish, the extent to which they were effectively preventive or even counter-preventive.
Since the beginning of the century, although with greater intensity in the last decade, prevention science has established itself as the hegemonic paradigm in the field of addiction prevention. Broadly speaking, it establishes that prevention programmes must meet a set of formal requirements and, above all, have positive effects on the target population in order to be considered effectively preventive and to be able to continue operating. Evaluation is the only tool available to prevention science to certify that programmes are preventive.
Within this epistemological framework, Episteme has been developing in recent years an intense work in the field of evaluation and quality of addiction prevention programmes. At Episteme we use the most robust evaluation designs to evaluate the prevention programmes of both organisations and public administrations. We especially use quantitative methodology, as required by the science of prevention, without renouncing, when the programme requires it, to qualitative methodology. At all times we apply the ‘European Quality Standards for the Prevention of Addictions’ (EMCDDA) and the ‘Standards for the Prevention of Addictions’ (WHO/UNODC). The line of ‘evaluation and quality’ represents the biggest daily challenge in Episteme. We have externally evaluated different prevention programmes, we have created the Tékne system, an online platform to support the quality and evaluation of prevention programmes, we have carried out research on quality in Spain (HIGIEA) and we have advised many local addiction prevention plans. All this work makes Episteme Social the reference entity in the field of evaluation and quality in Spain.
Below you can see a sample of programmes and publications of our ‘Evaluation and quality’ line. For any question related to ‘Evaluation and quality’ you can write to davidpere@epistemesocial.org
Behavioural addictions
Sports betting and gambling have been with mankind since the beginning of the socialisation process. Archaeologists have found traces of gambling at sites in ancient Babylon from the sixth millennium BC. In the territories that make up today’s Spain, gambling has been fully implemented since Roman times. Roman law regulated games of chance and gambling until the 19th century. Despite the historical presence, both sports betting and gambling generated little damage. The reason for this is the chronotope, i.e. the times and contexts in which gambling took place. For centuries, in order to bet, people had to travel to the Roman amphitheatre, to the tavern, to the hippodrome or to any other place where a competitive event was taking place. Moreover, such events were held on specific days of the annual calendar, either during the Roman Saturnine or during the patron saint festivals. Thus, gambling was a one-off event during the annual cycle.
The digital revolution at the turn of the century began to spawn the sports betting and gambling revolution, which reached its zenith in the last decade. Digital culture has made it possible for people, if they have an internet connection, to gamble anytime and anywhere without leaving home. This contextual decoupling of gambling has led to an exponential increase in the risks and harms associated with sports betting and gambling. As a result, Spanish society has perceived sports betting as a superlative threat, especially since the Alamania 2018 men’s World Cup.
In the current preventive architecture, the issue of behavioural addictions in general, and sports betting and gambling in particular, has fallen to drug prevention professionals, now reconverted into professionals of both pharmacological and behavioural addictions. In this new scenario, Episteme opened the line of study and evaluation in the field of behavioural addictions in general and sports betting in particular. As a result of the first studies, Episteme published in 2021 the first book on sports betting in Spain from a sociocultural perspective: ‘Ludomorphin: the phenomenon of sports betting in Spain’.
Since then, Episteme has continued to work on behavioural addictions through various training programmes, such as ‘Training on sports betting in Aragon’ and ‘Calliope’, various research projects, as well as consultancy services for behavioural addiction prevention programmes. Behavioural addictions represent a superlative challenge for European societies. At Episteme we have the tools to tackle them with rigour, efficiency and quality.
Drug Policy
Globally, drug policies are undergoing a constant transformation. Increasingly, models centred on punishment and incarceration are losing prominence to give way to a model centred on Human Rights. Episteme contributes its drug policy expertise to the COPOLAD and CADAP programmes.
COPOLAD is a delegated cooperation programme financed by the European Union with a budget of 15 million euros and an implementation period of 4 years from February 2021. In the framework of the principles underpinning the new EU drug strategy, the programme will accompany Latin American and Caribbean countries in improving their drug policies. The objective is to support the achievement of better results in relation to the promotion and defence of human rights, gender equity, public health, citizen security and other dimensions of sustainable development. These aspects are crucial and urgent in addressing the challenges that the health, economic and social crisis caused by COVID-19 is generating in the region. The third edition started in 2021, led by the Fundación Internacional y para Iberoamérica de Administración y Políticas Públicas (FIIAPP), in consortium with the International Italo-Latin American Organisation (IILA), and in coordination with Die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA). Episteme collaborates in COPOLAD line 2, treatment and harm reduction.
The Central Asian Drug Action Programme (CADAP) is an initiative of the European Union which, since 2003, promotes the development of effective drug demand reduction policies, based on evidence and good practices, to strengthen the capacities of the governments of Central Asian countries to address the drug phenomenon in a comprehensive and sustainable manner . In its seventh phase (2021-2024), led by FIIAPP, CADAP works to reduce drug use in Central Asia through a human rights-based approach and gender mainstreaming. It works in collaboration with the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) and the Spanish PNSD. The programme will focus in particular on new psychoactive substances, the spread of HIV, care for migrants, prevention of violence and drug use among young people, alternatives to incarceration for drug-related crimes and analysing the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic is having on the drug market and consumption patterns of the population in Central Asian countries. Episteme is responsible for ‘Result 1: drug policy’.