He is also a member of The Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy and Head of Teaching in the International Drug Policy Project within LSE IDEAS. Michael has a long-standing interest in drugs and drugs policy and has published widely in the field. His main interests revolve around the place and meaning of drug use in late industrial societies, including patterns of use and desistance; drug law enforcement; and the politics of drug policy. He is author of Drug Use and Social Change: The Distortion of History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and co-author of The Numbers in Black and White: Ethnic Disparities in the Policing and Prosecution of Drug Offences in England and Wales (Release, 2013, with Niamh Eastwood and Daniel Bear).