‘Scripting’ risk: Young people and the construction of drug journeys

Abstract

The concept of risk, and its centrality to social life, is theoretically much discussed within late modernity. This paper examines young people's drug use and their drug transitions within a framework of risk drawing on findings from a longitudinal ethnographic study of drug use among young people in a Dublin inner-city community. Fifty-seven young people aged between 15 and 19 years, including non-users, recreational, and problematic drug users, were recruited into the study in 1998. Contact was re-established with 42 of the study's participants in 2001. Individual interviews and focus group discussions, supported by prolonged participation within the study site, were the primary methods of data collection. Drawing on the young people's situated accounts of their drug-taking events, routines, and practices across time, the findings highlight the complex social negotiations involved in the construction of drug journeys. Analyses of change in drug use behaviour over the study period demonstrate that drug transitions unfold alongside dynamic and changing perceptions of safety and risk. Responses to ‘risk’ within youth drug scenes were contextually shaped, open to situational revision over time, and, in many instances, drug taking was habitual, not calculated. Put differently, young people ‘script’ risk as they gain experience in the world. The type of calculus involved in the making of drug journeys is fluid and relational, socially contingent rather than static, and subject, at times, to constrained agency linked to social and economic marginalization. It is argued that models of risk that rely on individualistic and rationalistic assumptions struggle to accommodate the fluidity and contradiction that characterizes much drug use. Implications for strategies and initiatives aimed at reducing drug-related harm are discussed.

• Youth and drugs
• drug transitions
• risk
• individualism
• ethnography

Notes

Notes

1. Parker et al. (1998, p. 150) do not claim that cost-benefit analysis is the only component of drug decisions. For example, they state that ‘whilst rational decision making usually guides, it many not dominate’. The authors also caution against the use of the cost-benefit equation as a ‘mechanical explanation’ (Parker et al., 1998, p. 148). They do, however, advance cost-benefit analysis as a key conceptual tool for understanding young people's drug journeys.

2. All of the study's focus group participants were also interviewed individually. Due to practical problems of access (related to the fragmentation of peer groups and changes in young people's ‘hanging out’ routines), it was not possible to arrange focus groups during Phase II fieldwork.

3. The follow-up sample of 42 young people included 12 abstainers, 15 drug takers, and 15 problem drug takers.

4. A number of recent studies have, however, drawn attention to the centrality of pleasure to drug consumption (Henderson, 1993, 1997; Measham et al., 2001; Parker et al., 1998; Williams & Parker, 2000).

5. ‘Normal risk’, according to Hunt (1995, p. 442), ‘is a dynamic category which is continually negotiated’, largely in interaction with others. In the case of Hunt's (1995) deep-sea divers, the process of risk socialization involved learning, making distinctions between ‘normal’ and ‘excessive’ risk, and developing accounts and techniques that help to neutralize anxiety. Becker's (1963) account of the complex learning process involved in becoming a marijuana user has many similarities. According to Becker, the novice first learns to inhale and, at a later stage, learns to appreciate the effects of the drug. This shift from being a naïve user to becoming an experienced user strongly emphasises a process of socialization associated with the adaptation of behaviour and a subsequent acquired ability to enjoy the drug experience.

6. Ethnographic observations confirm this orientation towards some drugs. For example, when young people congregated at outdoor locations, they frequently shared a joint or rubbed speed on their gums as they chatted and engaged in routine socialization. These drug-taking activities proceeded casually and without any apparent concern for drug-related risk.