Social Conditions, Clinical Logics: Rethinking Young People's Engagement with Drug Treatment

CALL FOR PAPERS

Social Conditions, Clinical Logics: Rethinking Young People's Engagement with Drug Treatment

Journal: International Journal of Drug Policy

Publisher: Elsevier

Submission Deadline: 15 August 2026

Introduction

When substance use becomes problematic for young people, this is often linked with profound social problems in their lives — poverty, homelessness, poor mental health, and intersecting forms of structural oppression. Yet treatment and care systems often attempt to address problematic substance use through biomedical and psychologised approaches that seek to "diagnose and fix" what is seen as an individual problem or disorder.

This Special Issue focuses on young people's problematic substance use and their engagement with health care and treatment systems — examining how the social conditions of young people's substance use shape their engagement in drug treatment. It prioritises papers that explore social structural conditions and the experiences of First Nations, LGBTQ+, and other marginalised youth — including those in Global South settings.

Scope & Significance

This Special Issue invites critical, empirical, and practice-oriented contributions that challenge dominant clinical logics and foreground the social, structural, and cultural dimensions of young people's substance use and treatment engagement. Contributions co-authored with young people are especially welcome.

List of Topic Areas

Manuscripts are invited on themes including, but not limited to:

1. Young people's experiences of alcohol and drug treatment — including how these are experienced differently by First Nations, LGBTQ+, refugee, migrant, and racialized youth

2. How contexts of crisis and social inequity shape young people's substance use and their engagement with drug treatment

3. How problematic substance use and mental health challenges intersect among youth navigating treatment and care systems

4. Novel models of treatment and care for working with First Nations, LGBTQ+, refugee, migrant, and racialized youth — including evaluations of unique approaches

5. Novel models of treatment and care from Global South settings

6. How youth substance use, care, and treatment are understood across different cultures — including Western, First Nations, and other cultural contexts

7. Social constructions of "youth" and "being young" and how these play out in treatment and care systems

8. Structural determinants of youth substance use — poverty, homelessness, and intersecting forms of oppression

9. Trauma-informed and culturally responsive approaches to youth drug treatment

10. Peer-led, community-based, and participatory models of care for young people

11. Policy analysis and advocacy — rethinking youth drug treatment frameworks

12. Stigma, discrimination, and marginalization in youth drug treatment experiences

Guest Editors

Prof. Joanne Bryant University of New South Wales, Australia

Dr. Danya Fast Department of Medicine, The University of British Columbia, Canada

Dr. Trevor Goodyear School of Nursing, The University of British Columbia, Canada

Dr. Teneale Lavender University of New South Wales, Australia

Prof. Sarah MacLean La Trobe University, Australia

Key Deadlines

Manuscript Submission Deadline: 15 August 2026

Submission Guidelines

Papers should be submitted via Editorial Manager, the official online submission system for the International Journal of Drug Policy:

https://www.editorialmanager.com/drugpo/default.aspx

When submitting, please select the appropriate Article Type from the dropdown menu:

For Research Articles: "VSI: Young people and drug treatment (Research Article)" For Review Articles: "VSI: Young people and drug treatment (Review Article)"

Once submitted, papers will be assigned for the peer review process.

All submissions must be original and must not be under review elsewhere at the time of submission.

For preparation guidelines, visit the official author guidelines page on the Elsevier ScienceDirect website.

About the Journal

The International Journal of Drug Policy, published by Elsevier, is a leading international peer-reviewed journal with a CiteScore of 7.7 and Impact Factor of 4.4. It supports open access publishing and is dedicated to advancing research on drug use, drug policy, and drug-related health and social issues — providing a global platform for interdisciplinary scholarship exploring the social, clinical, policy, and public health dimensions of substance use across diverse populations and contexts.

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