Kev Dertadian (He/Him) 🍉

I'll be talking to @davidshoebridge.bsky.social about drug policy on August 6 for UNSW Greens Society. Details are below:

How to silence academic speech on Palestine Jillian Segal’s proposal seeks to mobilise the IHRA definition of antisemitism and would have far-reaching implications for students and staff across Australian universities.

In this excellent peice, @Na'ama Carlin writes about how the report seeks to silence speech on Palestine on university campuses.
www.crikey.com.au/2025/07/15/i...

It's a strategy based on special treatment, rather than based in solidarity with the broader project of anti-racism.

It's another tactic in a long line of attempts to stop academics calling attention to one of the most pressing events in modern times, the current genocide in Palestine.

The recent report from the special envoy to combat anti-semitism asks for censorship and funding restrictions on public institutions that criticise Israel and its violence towards Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian people.

Victorian Substance Use Research Forum Visit the post for more.

Our next *online* seminar will be on July 18th with George (Kev) Dertadian @kdertadian.bsky.social from UNSW. Kev will be presenting his discourse analysis of Australian media coverage of pharmaceutical dependence. See the link below for more details: vicsubstanceuseresearchforum.wordpress.com

Reclaiming Public Safety | 39 | How lessons from harm reduction can he The prohibition of alcohol and other criminalised substances is a cornerstone of contemporary law and order politics and a major driver of criminalisation. This

You can read the chapter here: www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edi...

We argue that in time, with careful planning & cooperation with communities who understand local dynamics, we may find new ways to co-produce safety in other settings or, as Hassan has said 'invest in the people you love, and who love you for all of your flaws and fuckups'

The chapter breaks the illusion that public safety can only be realised through state policing & explores alternative approaches to the production of safety that is not reliant on police & state control — what Mariam Kaba describes as a movement towards the abolitionist horizon

Contemporary harm reduction allows the approach to operate at scale in each of these case studies (through needle exchange, drug consumption rooms, peer user and harm reduction organisations involved in planning festivals), but also places people who use in proximity to police

Professionalisation of informal peer user community organising in the 1980s, in part because of the HIV/AIDs crisis, helped to transition harm reduction into government policy - but often in ways that were divorced from original concern about reducing contact with the state

We explore how, around the same time, dance parties with strong cultures of drug use and dance music saw the development of clandestine locations to shield participants from police intervention.

We emphasise the way harm reduction among people who inject emerged in practice through the work of trans women of colour, and those doing street-based sex work, who developed some of the most enduring public health initiatives which were at the time entirely 'unsanctioned'

The chapter explores mutual aid practices among communities of people who use drugs, who developed strategies to save their own lives in response to prohibition & increased policing surveillance through two case studies: among those who inject & rave/freeparty communities

New chapter in ‘International Handbook of Critical Policing Studies’ with Phillip Wadds exploring historical and contemporary case studies of harm reduction to reflect on how we might get to a police-free future

Yoliswa Dwane Lecture: the war on Palestinian children “A nuclear power considers a sick baby to be a security concern.”

There is a war on children in Gaza, and this incredibly powerful and heartbreaking piece outlines the legal structures that make it possible, and the devastating impact it is having on an entire generation.

“A nuclear power considers a sick baby to be a security concern.”

Thanks @ingridm.bsky.social! Lovely words from a great colleague :)

Prioritising harm reduction in an overdose crisis By reframing the problem of growing drug-induced deaths in Australia as an “overdose crisis”, policymakers can prioritise harm reduction strategies that draw on the experiences of people who use drugs...

I focus on overdose prevention sites and spotting services as examples that are best placed to address overdose and related harm.

You can read the article here: thepolicymaker.jmi.org.au/prioritising...

I make the case that recent discussion of an 'opioid crisis' narrows the focus of public policy, and ignores how criminalisation and stigmatisation of people who use drugs create and exacerbate the conditions most likely to lead to overdose.

New op ed out today with The Policymaker about the need to prioritise low-threshold, community-led and run harm reduction services during the current overdose crisis.

I make the case that recent discussion of an 'opioid crisis' narrows the focus of public policy, and ignores how criminalisation and stigmatisation of people who use drugs create and exacerbate the conditions most likely to lead to overdose.

White wine and lorazepam: the 'innocent' face of addiction ANU research shows not all addictions are treated equally by the media. Less stigmatised reporting could save lives.

ANU media piece out now, where my awesome colleague Helen Keane is interviewed about a recent paper we published together, and how our findings relate to depictions of addiction and whiteness in the recent season of White Lotus.

You can read the article here: reporter.anu.edu.au/all-stories/...

"today, much of the field — its scholars and institutions — has abandoned its moral stance to justify state violence, effectively becoming a defender of a nation-state’s crimes. Rather than keeping critical distance from political power, it has embraced its logic."

Academics and researchers who built their careers on the moral authority of opposing state violence have become defenders of it. It has become a deeply disingenuous and morally empty field.

Thinking in Dark Times: The End of Tradition and the Crisis of Holocaust and Genocide Studies - The Armenian Mirror-Spectator By Taner Akcam Special to the Mirror-Spectator Holocaust and Genocide Studies is in deep crisis — a profound moral and intellectual collapse. We live in dark times. At American universities, […]

Good piece exposing the logic and consequences of the cowardice currently being displayed by scholars in holocaust and genocide studies because of proximity to Israel and the Zionist project.

If you know anyone who may be eligible to participate in the study, please share the link with them.

For more information please contact me via DM or k.dertadian@unsw.edu.au

#UNSW researchers are currently working with system-impacted students to learn more about their strengths and learning needs.

Take part in our anonymous survey, designed with system-impacted people, by visiting this link: tinyurl/systemimpactedunsw

System Impacted Project UNSW on LinkedIn: #police #prison #immigration #unsw Have you (or someone you are close to) been criminalised by #police, lived in #prison, #immigration detention or out-of-home care? #UNSW researchers are…

Have you (or someone you are close to) been criminalised by #police, lived in #prison, #immigration detention or out-of-home care?

www.linkedin.com/posts/system...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

You can read the paper here: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

We argue media articles differentiate pharmaceutical dependence from ‘drug addiction’, protecting those represented from stigmatisation as ‘addicts’, but also separating them from forms of mutual aid and harm reduction developed by and for people who use drugs.

Just as the problem of pharmaceutical dependence is presented through middle-class examples & is coded as white, so too are the solutions: like yoga, centralised systems of medication surveillance.