Research paperFunctional fun: Legitimising adult recreational drug use
Section snippets
Adult recreational drug use: patterns and trends in the new millennium
In England and Wales, recent drug use has been in slow and steady decline since the turn of the 21st century, most notably within the 16–24 age group which has seen a 7% decrease since 1996 (Home Office, 2014). Aldridge (2008) theorises decreases in the rates of drug use in two ways. The first is through the ‘period effect’, where incidence of drug use has declined over the past few decades. The second is the ‘cohort effect’, where new generations of young people are less drug involved than
Explaining adult recreational drug use: normalisation, diversity and the clubbing generation
The 1990s initiated debate about whether recreational drug use remained a deviant activity. In response to the growing numbers of young people using drugs, academics from the University of Manchester embarked on the North-West England Longitudinal Study (NWELS). The authors argued drug use had undergone a process of normalisation, via the accommodation of attitudes and behaviour within British Youth culture (Parker et al., 1998, Parker et al., 2002). In Aldridge and colleagues latest revision
Illicit drug use within otherwise conforming lives: negotiating criminality and moral condemnation
Although there are plausible explanations for recreational drug use, several factors restrict its acceptance within adulthood that debatably, because of adults’ potential greater stake in society and conformity, become more significant. The UK 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act prohibits various psychoactive substances; users risk criminal sanctions, including custodial sentences, for their possession, supply and/or cultivation. Drug takers must therefore negotiate criminal and health risks, as well as
Discursive psychology (DP): the approach
DP assesses the purpose and performance of language, how it is described and what meaning this gives to a narrative. This method is particularly useful when participants are accounting for behaviour that challenges cultural norms and values. Riley, Morey, and Griffin (2008) used DP to examine the ways in which the substance ketamine is conceptualised, both positively and negatively by those attending rave events. On one hand, ketamine was described as a powerful dissociative that threatens the
Theoretical sampling
In-depth, loosely structured interviews were conducted with twenty-six drug takers; these took place either in the participants’ own homes, or a quiet bar or café and lasted between one and three hours. The criteria for participation was as follows, aged thirty or over; have taken drugs within the past year; do not partake in criminal activities as their main source of income; and are not seeking drug treatment. The sample were generated through initial contacts within personal networks, and
The ‘drug cultures’ framework: legitimisation through social accommodation
Drug use is associated with a particular social scene or group(s) of people in the ‘drug cultures’ framework and these drug takers situate themselves at the heart of these contexts. This was the dominant framework utilised, with 15 people drawing from it to account for their frequent drug use. Participants described drug taking as motivated by their social lives – either through the enjoyment of music, dancing and feeling of unity through a shared social pursuit, or as enhancing social
The nuances of legitimisation: understanding acceptability via control and function
These findings support similar research using discursive psychology, which highlight multifaceted representations of drug use (Riley et al., 2008, Riley et al., 2010). All twenty-six adult drug takers interviewed engage in neutralisations. Any behaviour that carries risks (whether that be to health and well-being or criminality) is likely to be neutralised in some way (Aldridge et al., 2011, Pennay and Moore, 2010), but this cannot automatically be assumed to mean that behaviour is internalised
Conclusion
There is a dearth of research focusing on ‘functional and controlled’ drug use, perhaps because this does not affect society in an adverse way and some funders maybe reluctant to attribute their tight resources to projects that demonstrate the pleasures, functions and benefits of drug use, rather than research that identifies risk and prioritises reducing harm. However, emphasising the negatives distorts public perceptions of drug use, perpetuating a culture in which drug takers are
Funding
This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council through PhD quota award funding. This was allocated by the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice, in the School of Law, at the University of Manchester.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank all of the participants for making this research possible. Special thanks to Lisa Williams and Judith Aldridge for their support in the production of this article and to the reviewers for their invaluable comments.
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