This article works with Connolly's (2004) concept of “emergent causality” to counter the insistence on linear expressions of cause and effect in dominant strands of drug prevention evaluation. I elaborate this concept with reference to recent controversies concerning the policing of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. The use of sniffer dogs to furnish the reasonable suspicion required to authorize police “stop and search” procedures has been a key part of this controversy. Substantiated in terms of its universal applicability, high visibility and purported deterrent effect, this practice actually forms part of the complex and evolving environment in which new and more dangerous forms of sex-related drug consumption have emerged. Emergent causality makes it possible to see how any element in a given assemblage can acquire contingent agentic capacities. Grasping these developments as events, or processes of eventuation, sets out an active, engaged and agonistic role for research practice.
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