Drugs in Adolescent Worlds: Burnouts to Straights

Drug use by adolescents is usually viewed as the result of personal vulnerability to peer pressures or drug pushers. This book provides a new perspective which is sociological rather than epidemiological, understanding patterns of drug-taking in the context of ordinary social interaction. In this social worlds analysis, adolescents' own concerns with boredom, depression, social identity, friendship, access to drugs, self-control and folk pharmacology replace the professionals' focus on deviant behaviour. Both drug-taking and drug-abstaining are analysed as decisions made within social worlds made up of peers and family.