Mark Adley and Guy Jones discuss three ways of visually representing drugs and their effects, and the strengths and limitations of these colourful taxonomies for education, treatment, and harm reduction.

Mark Adley is a PhD student at Newcastle University, researching the health and social care pathways of LGBT+ people who experience severe and multiple disadvantage in North East England. Guy Jones is Technical Lead at Reagent Tests UK and Senior Chemist at The Loop. The SSA’s Natalie Davies spoke to them via email about the Drugs Wheel, Drugs Pyramid, and Drugs Venn, which organise drugs into different categories, based on their effects and risks, as well as the article they collaborated on for Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy with Fiona Measham, who is Chair in Criminology at the University of Liverpool and Co-founder of The Loop.