Book Launch: Kojo Koram on The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs

When: Wednesday, November 11, 2026, 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Where: Online or in-person at Room 313, Third Floor, School of Law Building, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS

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Please join us on Wednesday 11 November at 4 pm, in Room 313 Laws building, at the Mile End campus of Queen Mary University of London, for a panel discussion, Q&A, and drinks celebrating Professor Kojo Koram's new book, The Next Fix: The Winners and Losers in the Future of Drugs.

The event is jointly hosted by the Criminal Justice Centre and the Centre for the Critique of Law and Society.

About the Book:

The Next Fix tracks a seismic shift in global drug policy: criminalised substances are being rebranded as commodities in a new billion-pound industry. Legal cannabis dispen­saries now trade in what once led to life sentences. Psychedelics have become fertile ground for biotech. But for all these developments, prisons still swell with underprivileged users and addicts, and enforcement falls hardest along lines of race and class. Kojo Koram's new book offers a powerful, clear-eyed reckoning with how we got here—and what kind of future is taking shape in a world addicted to economic 'fixes' every bit as much as it is troubled by drugs. Combining report­age, political analysis, and vivid personal testimony, The Next Fix tells the untold story of drugs, capital­ism, and inequality in the 21st century.

The panel:

Professor Kojo Koram (Author) is Professor in Law and Political Economy at Loughborough University. His work examines law's relationship to political economy, with a particularly focus on two areas: first, the economic legacy of imperialism, and second, the criminalisation and commodification of drugs. His debut book, Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire, won the English PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize and was shortlisted for both the Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the Bread and Roses Award for Radical Publishing.

Dr Rebecca Askew (Discussant) is Reader (Associate Professor) in Criminology at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she leads the Drugs, Policy, and Social Change (DPSC) research group. Her research critically examines drug practices (including use and supply) through a critical social science lens, challenging dominant criminal and medical narratives. Her work has been published in the International Journal of Drug Policy; Environment and Planning A; Policy and Politics; and Criminology and Criminal Justice; among others.

Dr Simon Flacks (Discussant) is Associate Professor in Criminal Justice (Law) at University of Sussex. His research focuses on issues including harm reduction and the law, youth justice, criminology, drug use/policy, and human rights. He has a multidisciplinary background and draws on a range of theoretical approaches, including: Science and Technology Studies; feminist theory; posthumanism; and new materialisms. Among his publications is the monograph Law, Drugs and the Politics of Childhood: From Protection to Punishment, and the co-edited collection Judging Drugs: Key Issues in Law and Society.

Dr Hedi Viterbo (Chair) is Reader in Law at Queen Mary University of Law. His research examines legal issues concerning childhood, state violence, and sexuality from an interdisciplinary and global perspective. His latest book, Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine, received awards from the Socio-Legal Studies Association and the American Political Science Association.

Dr Tanzil Chowdhury is Senior Lecturer in Public Law at Queen Mary University of Law and the Co-Director for the Centre for the Critique of Law and Society (CCLAS). His work is in the fields of law and political economy, with a particular focus on Marxist jurisprudence and constitutional / administrative law. Among his publications is the monograph Time, Temporality, and Legal Judgment, and the co-edited collection Legal Workers' Inquiry: Worker Writing from Across the Sector in Britain.