Distributing and Understanding Drugs

Abstract

In the analysis of why and how adolescents use drugs it is clear that they rely on an elaborate belief system about the immediate and long-term effects of different types of drugs and that drug-taking implies social rituals for predicting and modifying such effects. In this chapter we will review adolescents’ knowledge and beliefs about drug use. First, however, we will describe how they obtain the drugs they use. In reviewing the extensive discussions of drug-related behaviour which the subjects provided we found not only rich descriptions of their folk pharmacology but also a surprising omission: there were very few references to the difficulty of obtaining drugs or to fear of arrest when purchasing drugs. The process of obtaining drugs was taken for granted as a routine transaction which involved, for almost all purchasers, contact only with people they knew well, at least by reputation.