Once the domain of the elite athlete, the use of human enhancement drugs now represents a challenge to public health more broadly and reflects a society that expects “a pill for every ill” and for some, the aim to be “better than well”. There is a blurring of the lines between the use of drugs for enhancement, therapy and pleasure, which has necessitated new harm reduction-based approaches to ensure people have engagement with human enhancement safely and with all relevant information.
This collection will look at new and emerging issues in relation to human enhancement drugs, with the aim of providing a common resource that is of value to various communities in this area. The collection will focus specifically on:
• New theories and understanding of the concept of human enhancement drug use
• Innovations in harm reduction including community led interventions
• New and emerging drugs of relevance to this area
• Communities that are under-represented in the literature, as well as collaborations and tensions between communities of people who use human enhancement drugs. This includes (but is not limited to) drug users, drug service providers and academia.
The collection is specifically looking to boost research in the following areas, but other applications for human enhancement purposes may be considered upon request:
• weight loss drugs
• drugs used to enhance sexual performance or pleasure (incl. chem sex)
• drugs used to change the appearance – skin, hair, injection of Botox, oils and fillers, including anabolic-androgenic (AAS) and associate image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs)
• microdosing of psychoactive drugs to enhance performance.
This collection is part of the Harm Reduction Journal’s Human Enhancement Drugs section.
