My current research and publications focus on the critical study of drugs, drug policy, organised crime and related policing in Africa, from historical and contemporary perspectives. It questions the divide between legal and illegal substances and is interested in alternative narratives on drugs, crime and harm. At the moment, I work on three related research areas:

(1) Cannabis Africana. With colleagues in Bristol and Cape Town, I am working towards a history of cannabis prohibition in Africa, which will culminate in a book monograph. As part of this work, I have been directing a large ESRC project on Cannabis and Development in Africa that focuses on Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Zimbabwe. This work actively engages with the ongoing cannabis policy reform process in these countries: https://cannabisafricana.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/

(2) Politics of Organised Crime in West Africa. I also research and publish on the politics of illegal drugs, policing and organised criminality. With colleagues in Ottawa and Ibadan, we recently completed an ESRC project on the Hidden Narratives of Illicit Livelihoods in West Africa, exploring the criminalisation of the trade in medicines and migration in Nigeria and Niger: https://tnocwestafrica.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/

(3) Pharmaceuticals and their Regulation in the Global South. I have recently completed two projects on the politics of ‘fake medicine’, which focused on Nigeria and China and the problematisation of drug quality. I continue working and publishing in this area, including on the regulation and criminalisation of the synthetic opioid tramadol across West Africa.