Chapter 7. Narrative Stories and Discourses in an Interview With a Former Amphetamine User

This study analyzes how an individual constructs his life as a former amphetamine user. The study has a methodological purpose, providing an example of how narrative analysis and discourse analysis can be conducted and combined. First, an interview with a former amphetamine user in his 50s was analyzed by the narrative method with a focus on identity construction. Second, it was then examined from a discourse analytical perspective. The article demonstrates how discourse analysis and narrative analysis could be combined when analyzing identity constructions.     

The role of the media in the science-policy nexus. Some critical reflections based on an analysis of the Belgian drug policy debate (1996–2003)

BackgroundDrug policy is one of the most polarised subjects of public debate and media coverage, which frequently tend to be dramatic and event-centred. Although the role of the media in directing the drug discourse is widely acknowledged, limited research has been conducted in examining the particular role of the media in the science-policy nexus. We sought to determine how the (mis)representation of scientific knowledge in the media may, or may not, have an impact on the contribution of scientific knowledge to the drug-policy making process.MethodsUsing a case study of the Belgian drug-policy debates between 1996 and 2003, we conducted a discourse analysis of specially selected 1067 newspaper articles and 164 policy documents. Our analysis focused on: textual elements that feature intra-discourse differences, how players and scientific knowledge are represented in the text, the arguments used and claims made, and the various types of research utilisation.ResultsMedia discourse strongly influenced the public's and policy makers’ understanding as well as the content of the Belgian drug policy debate between 1996 and 2003. As a major source of scientific knowledge, media coverage supported the ‘enlightenment’ role of scientific knowledge in the policy-making process by broadening and even determining frames of reference. However, as the presentation of scientific knowledge in the media was often inaccurate or distorted due to the lack of contextual information or statistical misinformation, the media may also support the selective utilisation of scientific knowledge.ConclusionsMany challenges as well as opportunities lie ahead for researchers who want to influence the policy-making process since most research fails to go beyond academic publications. Although media is a valuable linking mechanism between science and policy, by no means does it provide scientists with a guarantee of a more ‘evidence-based’ drug policy.     

网上药店药品规范化运营的不完美信息动态博弈分析

目的:规范网上药店药品运营,促进其规范化发展。方法:运用不完美信息动态博弈分析方法,建立博弈模型,分析网上药店药品运营欠规范的原因,并结合参数分析方法,就网上销售违法药品现象提出规制建议。结果:在买卖双方的博弈中,卖方为获得高额利润即违法售药的总成本小于违法收益,买方的期望收益大于无风险时的收益时,随即出现博弈均衡。但接近失败市场的稳定性较差。通过增大违法成本,可逐步规范网上药店售药行为。结论:收益大于违法成本是网上药店药品运营欠规范的内在原因。通过突出电子监管、修改法规内容、网上药店可信承诺的方式,可增加违法售药成本,完善网上药店市场。     

广东省2007年大众媒介药品广告规范性分析

目的 分析广东地区2007年大众媒介药品广告规范性情况,对药品广告违规形式进行归类分析,提出对策,指导消费者理性对待药品广告。方法 对2007年广东省药监部门公布的4期《违法药品广告公告》进行分析,分成媒介类型、违规形式、查处部门、药品种类四种形式来研究,统计违规情况。结果 （1）报纸、电视台是违规药品广告的重灾区;（2）药品广告监管机制存在问题;（3）药品广告法律法规不完善;（4）处方药在大众媒介违规发布情况严重;（5）擅自篡改批准发布内容,夸大药物疗效是目前药品广告违规的主要形式之一;（6）未经审批擅自发布药品广告现象严重;（7）中药、保健药品广告违规应引起重视;（8）县级药监部门查处力度较弱;（9）街头药品小广告应引起重视;（10）“隐性”广告应引起重视。结论 目前药品广告违规形势严峻,政府部门应加强药品广告的监管,加强药品广告知识的宣传,广大民众应理性对待药品广告。     

4-甲基甲卡西酮综述

4-甲基甲卡西酮,合成的刺激剂,是安非他明、卡西酮类物质。英文名称为Mephedrone,也称为Meph,drone,MCAT。据报道在中国合成,其化学结构和非洲东部khat植物中的卡西酮类化合物相似。有片剂或粉末,使用者可以吞服、鼻息或注射,它和MDMA、安非他明和可卡因有相似的效果。当使用Mephedrone时,产生刺激效果的同时产生副作用,磨牙最为常见。研究Mephedrone在人和老鼠中的代谢物,可以在尿液中检测到。Mephedrone潜在的神经毒性还未知,但是科学家们已经从它和其他药物的相似性中得到其可能的危害。许多人在使用Mephedrone后死亡,但是一些死亡的原因后期发现是由于其他因素引起的。Mephedrone于1929年首次合成,但是没有广为人知直到2003年重新发现。据报道2007年Mephedrone在网络销售,2008年法律强制会已经注意到这个化合物,2010年在欧洲大部分国家均有报道,尤其在英国特别流行。2008年以色列首次规定Mephedrone非法,同年瑞典也规定其非法。2010年很多欧洲国家规定其非法,同年12月欧盟规定其在欧洲非法。在澳大利亚、新西兰和美国,被认为是其他非法药物的类似物,被和FederalAnalogAct类似的法律控制。在美国,只有做为人类消费品才能出售,如标识为"植物食品"或"浴盐"就能合法出售。     

Not particularly special: critiquing ‘NPS’ as a category of drugs

Abstract

Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) have been a dominant feature of drug discourse for many years now and, in academic, policy and public discourse, have become established as a new – and by implication, distinct – category of drugs. We argue that this understanding of NPS is fundamentally problematic. Differences within the category are obscured, as are similarities between NPS and more established categories of drugs. Focusing on NPS as something new, different or particularly special is misleading and counterproductive and can have serious consequences in terms of understanding the bigger picture in relation to illegal drugs more generally. This has led to overestimations of the size of the NPS problem, obfuscation of the common underlying causes of dependent drug use and the implementation of significant and problematic policy changes. Furthermore, a failure to see the rise in NPS as just one of a number of emerging trends in contemporary drug scenes, alongside the development of online markets or the rise in domestic drug production operations, for example, impairs our ability to understand the wider societal, cultural and theoretical underpinnings of drug use. NPS are not particularly special: treating them as such can have dangerous and far-reaching consequences.     

Pre-Teen Drug Users in Scotland

Aim. To compare and contrast those SI pupils in Scotland (typically age 11 to 12) who have initiated illegal drug use with their non-illegal drug using peers. Design. Self-completion school surveys totaling 930 SI pupils. Setting. Dundee, Perth and Kinross, and Lanarkshire, Scotland. Findings. This research has identified that approximately one in ten SI pupils have already initiated illegal drug use in Scotland. Young people who reported using illegal drugs at this early age tended to have started smoking and drinking alcohol at an earlier age than their non-illegal drug using peers and to be both smoking and drinking alcohol at a higher level than those peers. The illegal drug using pupils were much more likely than their peers to have been exposed to illegal drugs, to have been involved in a range of problem behaviours and to have friends who were also involved in a range of problem behaviours. The illegal drug using young people were also much more likely to have someone in their family who was also using illegal drugs. Conclusions. There is a need to target interventions upon those young people who have initiated illegal drug use at this early age, however doing so is unlikely to be straightforward. It is suggested that there may be some merit in using an “at-risk” type register to focus upon those young people at particularly high risk of initiating illegal drug use.     

Illegal drug markets in transitional economies

The rise of illegal drug markets in transitional economies is usually conceptualized as an effect of economic transition. With the emergence of new understandings of transitional economies and contemporary thinking about global capitalism, drug markets can be understood to have a different function. In global capitalism, the illegal drug market is an apparatus of capture that choreographs a quest for pleasure, liberation, freedom and the hope for consumption promised by global media. Capitalism thrives on its own incorporative processes such that the limitative becomes constitutive. Global capitalism is defined by the dissolution of limitative boundaries such as sovereign borders, sovereign bodies, sovereign ethnic groups, and the subsequent deformation/reformation of the very boundaries to commodity markets. Illegal drug markets mediate this function through capturing bodies, markets, dreams of freedom, and the social order and subsuming them to productive capital. In transitional economies, the illegal drug market is both an effect of transition and a cause. Illegal drug markets create the possibilities for a market economy based on the capture and mobilization of affects; the introduction of new forms of consumption, and the redirection of flows of capital in an environment where capital flows are malleable and labour markets are easily re-defined. Rather than being parasitic, the modern illegal drug market is constitutive of modern liberal democracies emerging from transitional economies. The roles of harm reduction organizations are discussed in light of this theory.     

The heroin/cocaine epidemic in Switzerland 1979-1997: a mathematical analysis of law enforcement data.

The Swiss registry of charges concerning illegal trade and consumption of narcotics makes a distinction between first and subsequent charges as well as between several types of illegal drugs. It has been previously shown by using a mathematical model that changes in incidence of illegal drug use can be inferred from the time series of two indicators which are calculated from the numbers of first and subsequent charges. This method of data analysis is now refined in order to monitor the incidence of heroin/cocaine use. The conclusion is that 2,500 persons per year may have entered the population of habitual heroin/cocaine users in the early 1980s, and about 10,000 each year in 1991-93. After 1993, however, the incidence of heroin/cocaine use declined rapidly.     

“Don’t make too much fuss about it.” Negotiating adult cannabis use

Abstract

Aims: Age remains an important explanatory factor for people’s drug use, yet few studies explore the social meaning of age in relation to drug use. How adults practise and present their drug use as members of particular age groups has received little attention in research. In this article, we investigate how cannabis users from 23–40 years discuss their use and act to present themselves as adult smokers. The analysis is based on semistructured interviews with 25 experienced cannabis users. Findings: When cannabis users continue smoking in adulthood, they must negotiate their self-presentations within a discourse of adultness where maturing out of illegal drug use is expected. The participants presented themselves as adults by using three strategies: negotiating playfulness and obligations, mature narration of cannabis use and mature ways of administering cannabis. Conclusions: By continuing to smoke in adulthood, they challenge the notion that cannabis use is linked to youth. Simultaneously, they moderate their use to meet expectations of adultness, thus reproducing the idea that cannabis use belongs to the youth phase. When the participants project a mature lifestyle by under-communicating their excitement with cannabis, they simultaneously reproduce the notion of youthful smoking as driven by thrill seeking, intense highs and showing off.     

Drugs as an existential threat: An analysis of the international securitization of drugs

The stated intention behind the establishment of the global drug prohibition regime was to protect the world from the dangers of drugs. At different points in history, drug production, use and supply have all been presented as threats to security whether human, national or international security. The international relations theory of securitization can be used as a way of explaining how and why the 'drugs as an existential threat' discourse holds so much power, even today. Speech acts such as the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, the UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances and Russia's 'Rainbow-2 Plan' clearly illustrate the development of the 'drugs as an existential threat' discourse at a global level with particular reference to mankind, the State and global peace and security, respectively. Analysis of these speech acts also shows how the power of the security narrative means that the global drug prohibition regime continues to remain pre-eminent despite the wealth of unintended consequences that it causes.     

‘Alcohol short-circuits important part of the brain’: Swedish newspaper representations of biomedical alcohol research

The media has a central role in communicating and constructing health knowledge, including communicating research findings related to alcohol consumption. However, research on news reporting about alcohol is still a relatively small field; in particular, there are few studies of the reporting of biomedical alcohol and drug research, despite the assumed increasing popularity of biomedical perspectives in public discourse in general. The present article addresses the representational ‘devices’ used in Swedish press reporting about biomedical alcohol research, drawing on qualitative thematic analysis of the topics, metaphors, and optimist versus critical frames used in presenting biomedical research findings. In general, the press discourse focuses on genetic factors related to alcohol problems, on the role of the brain and the reward system in addiction, and on medication for treating alcohol problems. Metaphors of ‘reconstruction’ and ‘reprograming’ of the reward system are used to describe how the brain’s function is altered in addiction, whereas metaphors of ‘undeserved reward’ and ‘shortcuts’ to pleasure are used to describe alcohol’s effects on the brain. The study indicates that aspects of the Swedish press discourse of biomedical alcohol research invite reductionism, but that this result could be understood from the point of view of both the social organization of reporting and the intersection of reporting, science, and everyday understandings rather than from the point of view of the news articles only. Moreover, some characteristics of the media portrayals leave room for interpretation, calling for research on the meanings ascribed to metaphors of addiction in everyday interaction.     

Preteen children and illegal drugs

In this paper we report the results of research on the nature and extent of legal and illegal drug use among preteens and those factors associated with illegal drug use at this young age. The paper is based upon a survey of 2318 ten to twelve year olds in Glasgow and Newcastle. Overall around 30% of children reported having been exposed to illegal drugs and 3.9% had started to use illegal drugs. There was a significant difference in the level of illegal drug use between our two cities. In most cases the illegal drug use identified on the part of preteens related to cannabis although in a small number of instances children were using heroin, cocaine and LSD. On the basis of this research we estimate that around 60 children in the ten to twelve age range will have used heroin in Glasgow and around 34 pupils will have used the drug in Newcastle. Preteen drug use was significantly associated with frequent smoking and alcohol consumption, with preteens' involvement in a range of problem behaviours, and with family difficulties including the presence of someone else within the family using illegal drugs. The paper concludes by noting some of the challenges that are likely to be faced by services seeking to support children who are using illegal drugs by their preteens.     

Introduction to the Special Issue on Stress and Substance Use

Evaluation research of public health media campaigns to influence behavior change often bemoans the lack of relevance to target audience and an absence of integrated interpersonal and mass-mediated communication channels. The assumption that illegal drug users are disconnected from mass-mediated communication may account for this absence of media interventions. The authors used cross-tabulation, chi-square, and regression analyses to demonstrate that many out-of-treatment drug users in an HIV-prevention research project are media consumers and that participants who recalled seeing or hearing media interventions reported greater levels of positive behavior change than participants who did not recall such messages. Results suggest coordination of human and mass-mediated public health messages relevant to this population to facilitate behavior changes.     

Knowledge and perceptions of illegal drugs in a sample of Pre-teenage Children

While it has become apparent that increasing numbers of pre-teenage children are experimenting with illegal drugs, relatively little is known about the drug-related knowledge and attitudes of this age group. This paper describes the knowledge and perceptions of illegal drugs held by a sample of 216 pre-teenage children in Glasgow and Newcastle. While about a quarter of the children thought that illegal drugs were equally bad, the remainder were able to differentiate between them to varying degrees. In particular, cannabis was frequently regarded as being less harmful than other illicit drugs, especially by those who had used the drug themselves. The children's knowledge of illegal drugs as a whole was found to be limited, vague and often erroneous. The challenges which the children's knowledge and perceptions of drugs present for drug education are discussed.     

Legitimacy through scaremongering: The discursive role of alcohol in online discussions of cannabis use and policy

In Sweden, prohibitionist drug policy has contributed to making cannabis an illegal drug, viewed as dangerous, while alcohol is considered a legitimate recreational commodity. But the official Swedish cannabis discourse is now being contested on internet. In virtual environments an often employed way to try to legitimize cannabis use is by comparing it to alcohol. This indicates the importance of analyzing how substances are attributed with meaning in various contexts. This study aims to describe and analyze the discursive role of alcohol in Swedish online discussions of cannabis use and policy. Approximately 700 alcohol-related comments, posted during one year period, were retrieved from the cannabis-section of Swedish Flashback Forum (a website open for public viewing). The sample was analyzed qualitatively with analytical tools such as nodal points, analogies, distinctions and typological examples. Two concepts, danger and discrimination, were identified as nodal points in a cannabis legalization discourse, and provided a backdrop from which comparisons between alcohol and cannabis were made meaningful. We have found that cannabis and alcohol “changed places” in these online discussions. The participants drew on a prohibitionist cannabis discourse but applied its arguments to alcohol; alcohol was thereby given the role of the “ideal enemy” while cannabis was presented as a harmless plant rejected by society on moral rather than scientific grounds. The relevance of acknowledging and reflecting upon the influence that online “talk” has on young people's attitudes towards drugs is discussed.     

A community development approach to deal with public drug use in Box Hill

The use of alcohol and other drugs in public space is one that generates much heat in the public discourse and in the media. Too often the responses called for to reduce the problems of public amenity involve punitive policing and other responses that aim to engineer (mostly) young people out of these public spaces. Often local retailers are a key stakeholder group calling loudest for punitive action. In this Harm Reduction Digest Rogers and Anderson describe a community development approach taken to address these problems in Box Hill in the City of Whitehorse, near Melbourne. This approach which aimed to develop 'bridging social capital' between community retailers and other stakeholders in the area appears to have been effective in reducing harm associated with public drug use. Moreover these changes have become institutionalised and the approach has been expanded to address other public amenity problems in the area. It is a very nice example of how drug related harm can be reduced by grass roots networks of local councils, business people, law enforcement and health and welfare service providers to address these issues.     

Illegal Drug Use Among Asian American Youths in Dallas

Abstract

Asian Americans have often been perceived as the “model minority” that is relatively immune to the problem of illegal drug use. This paper examines the patterns and determinants of illegal drug use among first and second-generation Asian American youths in Dallas-an area with rapid Asian population growth. Through a targeted survey, we have found a very high rate of cumulative drug use and a significant rate of current drug use. We have also detected some intra-Asian differences in drug abuse among major Asian groups. The results of our statistical analysis identify several possible correlates of current Asian drug abuse, including gender, differential association, parental warning, GPA, type of neighborhood, and high-school quality.