Drugs and style in Italy

Abstract

In some Italian cities passers-by are offered - along with the local equivalent of the ‘Big Issue’ publications whose titles would vaguely translate as ‘The Joint’, ‘The Fix’, ‘The Stuff’, ‘Syringes’. While in some European countries drug use tends to be concealed as an embarrassing sign of individual failure, in Italy some drug users display their condition with a degree of ostentation. Such public display resonates with political grass-root initiatives which were prevalent in the 1970s and from which groups of drug users have inherited a conflictual, combative memory. However, the messages conveyed by these publications contain a number of intertwined elements which I will try briefly to untangle.