Meet the Drug Use and Drug Policy Group
Get in touch with the Research Group members
Dr Helen Beckett Wilson
Helen’s main research interests are the social theorisation of, and responses to, drug use; critical research methods; the impact of social capital on social problems; and the ‘justice’ of community punishment interventions and drug policy.
She has worked at LJMU since 2007. Her interest in drugs and policy stem from her past as a Housing Support officer, working with at-risk populations and homeless people to secure tenancy, and a Hostel Worker with women leaving prison. Her last practice role was as a Drug Worker in the Criminal Justice System, offering support to people whose drug use and offending was connected. Helen has undertaken Home Office research investigating young people’s drug use and service uptake and her PhD was about the justice implications of legal interventions for drug users who commit crime. Her recent research addressed contemporary changes in cannabis markets and her current project considers the health (in)justice of cannabis prescribing in the context of hegemonic prohibition.
Helen is a member of the Drugs: North West research alliance.
Dr Lindsey Metcalf McGrath
Lindsey Metcalf Mcgrath has a background in Criminology, Sociology and Voluntary Sector research. She has been a member of the Centre for the Study of Crime Criminalisation and Social Exclusion since 2014. Her current research interests are focused on the experiences of people being prescribed cannabis in the UK. She has a particular interest in the stigma and social harms arising from drugs policy.
Lindsey is a member of the Drugs: Northwest research alliance.
Dr Steve Wakeman
Steve is a cultural criminologist who has been based in the Centre since 2014. His expertise surrounds heroin and other drugs of addiction, and the ways in which alternative policy/treatment models may or may not help problematic drug users.
Steve is a member of the Drugs: North West research alliance.
Contact us
To find out more about our drug use and drug policy research please feel free to email the following members of the Research Group:
