Fiona Measham
Biographic Data
| ID | 281334 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Fiona Measham |
| GIVEN NAMES | Fiona |
| FAMILY NAME | Measham |
| SIGNATURE | MEASHAM F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lancaster University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9322-1931 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 37 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 235 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Poppers, the Politics of Exemption and the Characteristics of Poppers Users in the annual English Festival Study, 2014–23
This paper explores the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics, self-reported alkyl nitrite (‘poppers’) use and sexual behaviours against a backdrop of UK policy change and ambiguity surrounding legal status. In 2024, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommended a unique, government-initiated, legal exemption from the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 for poppers, because of its use by gay and bisexual men to reduce the …
Building Back Queerer? Mainstreaming, Commodification, and Intersectional Inequalities in London's Queer Nightlife Post-Covid-19
Queer nightlife occupies a contradictory position of operating in the spheres of mainstreaming and marginality simultaneously, alongside broader challenges of gentrification, technological innovation, and major shocks such as COVID-19. Yet, mainstreaming is a nebulous concept, and its role and impact on queer nightlife is often unclear sociologically. Drawing on a mixed-method study of queer creatives who are part of London’s queer nightlife, thi…
Jump-starting the conversation about harm reduction: Making sense of drug effects
This paper describes the history of the development of taxonomies of psychoactive drug use, and discusses the conceptualization of three recent taxonomies: comparing their features, and considering their application in education, treatment, and harm reduction settings. Firstly, the Drugs Wheel was created in 2012, prompted by the emergence of New Psychoactive Substances and rapid developments in their legislative control. It was created in collab…
Criminal Women: Gender Matters
Criminal Women: Gender Matters
Accounts of female offenders’ journeys into the criminal justice system are often silenced or marginalized. Featuring a Foreword from Pat Carlen and inspired by her seminal book ‘Criminal Women’, this collection uses participatory, inclusive and narrative methodologies to highlight the lived experiences of women involved with the criminal justice system. It presents studies focused on drug use and supply, sex work, sexual exploitation and experie…
Perceptions of safety and experiences of gender-based violence at UK music festivals
Crime and safety at UK music festivals is a subject of growing concern for festival management, police and festival-goers, bolstered by increasing media coverage of incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault. To date, however, there has been limited evidence regarding festival-goers’ experiences and perspectives concerning safety, particularly in relation to gender-based violence at music festivals. Using data from a mixed methods pilot st…
Cannabis adulterated with the synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonist MDMB-4en-Pinaca and the role of European drug checking services
Kink in an English Field: The Drinking, Drug use and Sexual Practices of English Festival-Goers Who Engage in Kink
Little is known about the other leisure activities of people who engage in kink, including sexual practices and the use of alcohol and other drugs. This article examines the drinking, illicit drug use and sexual practices of people who engage in kink from a novel sample of attendees at an English festival. Of 966 respondents, 64 reported having engaged in kink within the past 12 months. We provide evidence of these respondents' self-reported demo…
A multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) for evaluating and appraising government policy responses to non medical heroin use
Intentions, actions and outcomes: A follow up survey on harm reduction practices after using an English festival drug checking service
The Normalization of Leisure Sex and Recreational Drugs: Exploring Associations Between Polydrug Use and Sexual Practices by English Festival-Goers
The relationship between drug use and sexual practice is complex. Significant focus has been placed on risky practices, yet the broader associations between drug use and sexual activities remain elusive outside such contexts. This is despite similar trends of liberalizing attitudes and practices being identified in each area, theorized as the normalization of recreational drug use and the liberalization of consensual sexual practice. In this arti…
How do online and offline sampling compare in a multinational study of drug use and nightlife behaviour?”
Drug safety testing, disposals and dealing in an English field: Exploring the operational and behavioural outcomes of the UK’s first onsite ‘drug checking’ service
A new approach to formulating and appraising drug policy: A multi-criterion decision analysis applied to alcohol and cannabis regulation
The MCDA process allowed the participants to deconstruct complex drug policy issues into a set of simpler judgements that led to consensus about the results
New drugs, new directions? Research priorities for new psychoactive substances and human enhancement drugs
The utility of drug checking services as monitoring tools and more: A response to Pirona et al
Alcohol Use and Abuse
Legally flawed, scientifically problematic, potentially harmful: The UK Psychoactive Substance Bill
This journal has often analysed legislation in the field of drug policy. Rarely has it discussed a proposed law that has such deep problems in its legal and scientific bases. The Psychoactive Substances Bill, which is currently proceeding through the UK Parliament, will (if enacted) create a ‘blanket ban’ on the production, importation, exportation and supply of all psychoactive substances for human consumption, except for those that are specific…
The outsourcing of control: Alcohol law enforcement, private-sector governance and the evening and night-time economy
England and Wales have experienced a decade of transformation concerning the legislative governance of urban public drinking spaces, yet the Evening and Night-time Economy (ENTE) retains its position at the top of ‘community safety’ agendas. This article reflects upon our research on alcohol law enforcement. We explore how some alcohol laws are ill-fit-for-purpose, whilst others are considered too difficult, or costly, to pursue. Subtle negotiati…
Repositioning the cultural: Intoxicating stories in social context
Illegal Leisure Revisited: Changing Patterns of Alcohol and Drug Use in Adolescents and Young Adults
This book updates the progress into adulthood of the cohort of fourteen-year-olds who were recruited and tracked until they were eighteen years old. Illegal Leisure (1998) described their adolescent journeys and lifestyles, focusing on their early regular drinking and extensive ‘recreational’ drug use. This new edition revisits these original chapters, providing commentaries around them to discuss current implications of the original publication,…
The Silent “G”: A Case Study in the Production of “Drugs” and “Drug Problems”
This article focuses on “G” in the United Kingdom (UK), G being the collective term for gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and gammabutyrolactone (GBL). Drawing on empirical data and taking a critical drug studies perspective, we use G as a case study in how drug cultures move through phases whereby a diffuse and contested network of emergent practices, agencies, and processes become progressively ordered into a more stable and conventional set of probl…
Marriage, mortgage, motherhood: What longitudinal studies can tell us about gender, drug ‘careers’ and the normalisation of adult ‘recreational’ drug use
Questioning the method and utility of ranking drug harms in drug policy
After the Act: Alcohol licensing and the administrative governance of crime
Binge’ drinking, British alcohol policy and the new culture of intoxication
Against the backdrop of a long-standing British ‘binge and brawl’ pattern of alcohol-based weekend leisure and concomitant recurrent anxieties in the media surrounding youth and young adults at play, this article considers the cultural distinctions of contemporary British leisure and the evidence for a ‘new’ culture of intoxication. Four key changes are identified which together, the authors argue, suggest significant change is underway in respec…
Doing Gender”—“Doing Drugs”: Conceptualizing the Gendering of Drugs Cultures
Women's illicit drug use has been increasing rapidly in the 1990s in the UK and elsewhere in the developed world. Lifetime prevalence rates show that gender is no longer a significant predictor of, or protector from, illicit drug use. The concentration on lifetime prevalence in the academic debate, however, has been to the detriment of the wider cultural context of drug-related attitudes and behavior in drug-using groups and wider society. This p…
The legacy of 'normalisation: The role of classical and contemporary criminological theory in understanding young people's drug use
The Normalization of Recreational Drug Use amongst Young People in North-West England
An anonymous self-report survey of drug use among a cohort of 776 14-15 year olds in North-West England was conducted at the end of 1991, aiming to estimate prevalence and profile users. Six in 10 reported being offered drugs, and 36 per cent to using drugs (20 per cent in the past month). Over half of those offered drugs had tried them. Lifetime prevalence was highest for cannabis (32 per cent), with five other drugs each being used by 10-14 per…
Repertoires of distinction: Exploring patterns of weekend polydrug use within local leisure scenes across the English night time economy
Presented here are the first findings of self report surveys of prevalence of illicit drug use by customers in the night time economy of a large English city. Five random sample surveys conducted with dance club customers and three similar surveys with bar customers identified an association between illicit drug use, entertainment type and venue type. First, club customers were significantly more likely to report lifetime, past month and fieldwor…
The outsourcing of control: Alcohol law enforcement, private-sector governance and the evening and night-time economy
England and Wales have experienced a decade of transformation concerning the legislative governance of urban public drinking spaces, yet the Evening and Night-time Economy (ENTE) retains its position at the top of ‘community safety’ agendas. This article reflects upon our research on alcohol law enforcement. We explore how some alcohol laws are ill-fit-for-purpose, whilst others are considered too difficult, or costly, to pursue. Subtle negotiati…
Shaping the night: How licensing, social divisions and informal social controls mould the form and content of nightlife
The Normalization of Leisure Sex and Recreational Drugs: Exploring Associations Between Polydrug Use and Sexual Practices by English Festival-Goers
The relationship between drug use and sexual practice is complex. Significant focus has been placed on risky practices, yet the broader associations between drug use and sexual activities remain elusive outside such contexts. This is despite similar trends of liberalizing attitudes and practices being identified in each area, theorized as the normalization of recreational drug use and the liberalization of consensual sexual practice. In this arti…
The Silent “G”: A Case Study in the Production of “Drugs” and “Drug Problems”
This article focuses on “G” in the United Kingdom (UK), G being the collective term for gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and gammabutyrolactone (GBL). Drawing on empirical data and taking a critical drug studies perspective, we use G as a case study in how drug cultures move through phases whereby a diffuse and contested network of emergent practices, agencies, and processes become progressively ordered into a more stable and conventional set of probl…
In defence of home and hearth? Families, friendships and feminism in mining communities[1]
This article examines some of the effects of the 1984–1985 coal dispute on the lives of women in four mining localities. It challenges some of the dominant stereotypes of mining communities and gender relations within them produced by social scientists, including some feminists, and by the media. Using the findings from interviews with women in 1986 it makes visible the ‘inactive’ majority and argues that the concepts of activism, politics and fe…
After the Act: Alcohol licensing and the administrative governance of crime
Poppers, the Politics of Exemption and the Characteristics of Poppers Users in the annual English Festival Study, 2014–23
This paper explores the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics, self-reported alkyl nitrite (‘poppers’) use and sexual behaviours against a backdrop of UK policy change and ambiguity surrounding legal status. In 2024, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs recommended a unique, government-initiated, legal exemption from the Psychoactive Substances Act 2016 for poppers, because of its use by gay and bisexual men to reduce the …
Building Back Queerer? Mainstreaming, Commodification, and Intersectional Inequalities in London's Queer Nightlife Post-Covid-19
Queer nightlife occupies a contradictory position of operating in the spheres of mainstreaming and marginality simultaneously, alongside broader challenges of gentrification, technological innovation, and major shocks such as COVID-19. Yet, mainstreaming is a nebulous concept, and its role and impact on queer nightlife is often unclear sociologically. Drawing on a mixed-method study of queer creatives who are part of London’s queer nightlife, thi…
Kink in an English Field: The Drinking, Drug use and Sexual Practices of English Festival-Goers Who Engage in Kink
Little is known about the other leisure activities of people who engage in kink, including sexual practices and the use of alcohol and other drugs. This article examines the drinking, illicit drug use and sexual practices of people who engage in kink from a novel sample of attendees at an English festival. Of 966 respondents, 64 reported having engaged in kink within the past 12 months. We provide evidence of these respondents' self-reported demo…
The Normalization of Recreational Drug Use amongst Young People in North-West England
An anonymous self-report survey of drug use among a cohort of 776 14-15 year olds in North-West England was conducted at the end of 1991, aiming to estimate prevalence and profile users. Six in 10 reported being offered drugs, and 36 per cent to using drugs (20 per cent in the past month). Over half of those offered drugs had tried them. Lifetime prevalence was highest for cannabis (32 per cent), with five other drugs each being used by 10-14 per…
In defence of home and hearth? Families, friendships and feminism in mining communities[1]
This article examines some of the effects of the 1984–1985 coal dispute on the lives of women in four mining localities. It challenges some of the dominant stereotypes of mining communities and gender relations within them produced by social scientists, including some feminists, and by the media. Using the findings from interviews with women in 1986 it makes visible the ‘inactive’ majority and argues that the concepts of activism, politics and fe…
Doing Gender”—“Doing Drugs”: Conceptualizing the Gendering of Drugs Cultures
Women's illicit drug use has been increasing rapidly in the 1990s in the UK and elsewhere in the developed world. Lifetime prevalence rates show that gender is no longer a significant predictor of, or protector from, illicit drug use. The concentration on lifetime prevalence in the academic debate, however, has been to the detriment of the wider cultural context of drug-related attitudes and behavior in drug-using groups and wider society. This p…
The decline of ecstasy, the rise of ‘binge’ drinking and the persistence of pleasure
Recreational drug use has changed rapidly over the last 15 years in the UK. This article considers access, availability and desirability in relation to contemporary recreational drug use, current trends and future indicators, drawing on a range of academic and official studies. The relationship between the decline in self-reported use of cocaine powder and particularly ecstasy pills and an increase in sessional consumption of alcohol is explored.…
Play space: Historical and socio-cultural reflections on drugs, licensed leisure locations, commercialisation and control
Binge’ drinking, British alcohol policy and the new culture of intoxication
Against the backdrop of a long-standing British ‘binge and brawl’ pattern of alcohol-based weekend leisure and concomitant recurrent anxieties in the media surrounding youth and young adults at play, this article considers the cultural distinctions of contemporary British leisure and the evidence for a ‘new’ culture of intoxication. Four key changes are identified which together, the authors argue, suggest significant change is underway in respec…
The new policy mix: Alcohol, harm minimisation, and determined drunkenness in contemporary society
The Social and Cultural Uses of Ketamine
INTRODUCTION: Pregnancy is a crucial period which ultimately directly impacts two individuals health and wellbeing. Within the UK, a standardised pattern of care is established with collaborations across disciplines to the benefit of women and babies. During the COVID19 pandemic, this pattern of care was disrupted to align with protective protocols which until now, has not been formally reported. METHODS: A retrospective, mixed methods study of U…
It's the most fun you can have for twenty quid”: Motivations, Consequences and Meanings of British Ketamine Use
Whilst ketamine use in clubbing contexts has recently been the focus of British media attention, little quantitative or qualitative data is available on its use amongst those young people participating in Britain's contemporary post-rave electronic dance music (EDM) ‘scenes’ as clubbers. Drawing on data from in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with 12 current regular ketamine users, this article explores user accounts of their motivatio…
Repertoires of distinction: Exploring patterns of weekend polydrug use within local leisure scenes across the English night time economy
Presented here are the first findings of self report surveys of prevalence of illicit drug use by customers in the night time economy of a large English city. Five random sample surveys conducted with dance club customers and three similar surveys with bar customers identified an association between illicit drug use, entertainment type and venue type. First, club customers were significantly more likely to report lifetime, past month and fieldwor…
Shaping the night: How licensing, social divisions and informal social controls mould the form and content of nightlife
The legacy of 'normalisation: The role of classical and contemporary criminological theory in understanding young people's drug use
After the Act: Alcohol licensing and the administrative governance of crime
Marriage, mortgage, motherhood: What longitudinal studies can tell us about gender, drug ‘careers’ and the normalisation of adult ‘recreational’ drug use
Questioning the method and utility of ranking drug harms in drug policy
The Silent “G”: A Case Study in the Production of “Drugs” and “Drug Problems”
This article focuses on “G” in the United Kingdom (UK), G being the collective term for gamma-hydroxybutyrate (GHB) and gammabutyrolactone (GBL). Drawing on empirical data and taking a critical drug studies perspective, we use G as a case study in how drug cultures move through phases whereby a diffuse and contested network of emergent practices, agencies, and processes become progressively ordered into a more stable and conventional set of probl…
Illegal Leisure Revisited: Changing Patterns of Alcohol and Drug Use in Adolescents and Young Adults
This book updates the progress into adulthood of the cohort of fourteen-year-olds who were recruited and tracked until they were eighteen years old. Illegal Leisure (1998) described their adolescent journeys and lifestyles, focusing on their early regular drinking and extensive ‘recreational’ drug use. This new edition revisits these original chapters, providing commentaries around them to discuss current implications of the original publication,…
Repositioning the cultural: Intoxicating stories in social context
Alcohol Use and Abuse
Legally flawed, scientifically problematic, potentially harmful: The UK Psychoactive Substance Bill
This journal has often analysed legislation in the field of drug policy. Rarely has it discussed a proposed law that has such deep problems in its legal and scientific bases. The Psychoactive Substances Bill, which is currently proceeding through the UK Parliament, will (if enacted) create a ‘blanket ban’ on the production, importation, exportation and supply of all psychoactive substances for human consumption, except for those that are specific…
The outsourcing of control: Alcohol law enforcement, private-sector governance and the evening and night-time economy
England and Wales have experienced a decade of transformation concerning the legislative governance of urban public drinking spaces, yet the Evening and Night-time Economy (ENTE) retains its position at the top of ‘community safety’ agendas. This article reflects upon our research on alcohol law enforcement. We explore how some alcohol laws are ill-fit-for-purpose, whilst others are considered too difficult, or costly, to pursue. Subtle negotiati…
New drugs, new directions? Research priorities for new psychoactive substances and human enhancement drugs
The utility of drug checking services as monitoring tools and more: A response to Pirona et al
A new approach to formulating and appraising drug policy: A multi-criterion decision analysis applied to alcohol and cannabis regulation
The MCDA process allowed the participants to deconstruct complex drug policy issues into a set of simpler judgements that led to consensus about the results
Drug safety testing, disposals and dealing in an English field: Exploring the operational and behavioural outcomes of the UK’s first onsite ‘drug checking’ service
Political science (25 works) · Psychology (23 works) · Sociology (22 works) · Medicine (20 works) · Law (19 works) · Psychiatry (19 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Business (11 works) · Drug (11 works) · Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes (11 works)