ABSTRACT
This chapter focusses on the legislative process, and examines two pieces of proposed legislation (‘bills’) that dealt with alcohol and other drug issues. I concentrate on one aspect of the process through which bills are developed in some Australian jurisdictions: the requirement that bills take account of and incorporate human rights. I consider how this requirement plays out in practice, and what the process of bringing human rights into conversation with alcohol and other drugs does with both ‘human rights’ and ‘dependence’. The analysis I undertake sets the scene for the rest of the book in three main ways. First, it sheds light on how law and legal content is produced. Second, and in a related sense, it highlights the central role that practices of articulation and connection play in the development of legal content, and thusly in the ontology of law. Third, it suggests that the content of law can be made anew if different connections are articulated, or if connections are expressed differently. In this sense, the law is more malleable and fragile than we might assume. This presents opportunities for remaking law, and the subjects and objects shaped by it.
