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Research Article

Drinking with Design: young drinkers as psychoactive consumers

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Pages 5-20 | Published online: 10 Jul 2009
 

Abstract

A significant minority of 1990s youth are drinking more alcohol, smoking more tobacco and/or using more illicit drugs despite a decade of major political and policy initiatives ranging from prevention/education to enforcement, regulation and Âzero tolerance'. These behavioural changes in youthful Âdrug' use have been effectively quantified but not well explained or understood. This paper offers an Âappreciative' analysis whereby young people's licit/illicit drug use is framed as they perceive it as consumption rather than Âabuse'. It is based on a combination of quantitative (confidential self-report questionnaire to 721 13-16-year-olds) and qualitative methods (extensive observational fieldwork with three street drinking networks and 55 semi-structured interviews with young drinkers) in one region of north-west England. It focuses on the accounts of young people as to what, where and why they drink and the impact of the drink industry's marketing of strong, smooth-tasting, image-laden designer drinks, including alcopops. This study, in line with others, found that the heaviest young drinkers were also very likely to use readily available illicit drugs and tobacco as part of a psycho-active repertoire. Young people in this study purposely sought a Âbuzz' (intoxication) from these psyco-active repertoires which they framed as a consumption decision. With this profile of apparent hedonistic/functional consumption now being found far beyond a small delinquent or damaged core of adolescents and thus in otherwise conventional, conforming youth, it is argued that policy initiatives as well as theoretical explanations should adjust to Âpost-modernity' so that such consumption can be better socially managed.

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