Michael Agar is one of the pioneers in the use of culture and communication perspectives to investigate drug use from the user's point of view. Now a professor emeritus in linguistics and anthropology, he works out of his own consulting firm, Ethknoworks, in Maryland. He is currently involved in a NIDA funded study to develop trend theory in Baltimore.

(forthcoming). Qualitative research and drug policy. In New Directions in Drug Research. T. Rhodes (Ed.). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.(forthcoming). Ethnography. Intenational Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Vol. 3.1: Article 76. Oxon UK: Elsevier.(forthcoming). A Heroin Epidemic at the Intersection of Histories (with H.S. Reisinger). Medical Anthropology.(forthcoming). Open Marginality (with H.S. Reisinger). Journal of Drug Issues.(forthcoming). Another Complex Step: A Model of Heroin Experimentation. Field Methods.(forthcoming). Trend Theory (with H.S. Reisinger) Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.(forthcoming). A Tale of Two Epidemics (with H.S. Reisinger). Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry.(2001). Fighting the Drug War on the Wrong Battlefield. The Baltimore Sun, pg. A9, July 2, 2001(2001). Buprenorphine: "Field Trials" of a New Drug. (with Philippe Bourgois, John French, and Owen Murdoch). Qualitative Health Research 11:58-68, 2001. (2000). Read All About It: Media Construction of a Heroin Epidemic. (with H. S. Reisinger). Substance Use and Misuse 35(4):1363-1383, 2000.(2000). Explaining drug trends: heroin use in Baltimore County. In Illicit Drugs: Patterns of Use-Patterns of Response, ed Alfred Springer and Alfred Uhl. Innsbruck, Studienverlag, 2000, pp 143-166.(1999). Numbers and Patterns: Heroin Indicators and What They Represent (with H.S. Reisinger). Human Organization 58:365-374, 1999.(1998). Heroin Habit Size in Three Cities: Context and Variation. (with Philippe Bourgois, John French, and Owen Murdoch) Journal of Drug Issues 28:921-940, 1998.