Identities, Boundaries, and Accounts of Women Methamphetamine Users

Drug users often define themselves as functional users and depict others as dysfunctional (i.e. junkies). Previous research on the social identities of drug users has focused on the symbolic boundaries they create to distance themselves from stigmatized others. Investigators have yet to focus on how...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Justice quarterly 2016-01, Vol.33 (1), p.134-158
Main Authors: Copes, Heith, Leban, Lindsay, Kerley, Kent R., Deitzer, Jessica R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Behavior
Careers
Drug abuse
Drug addiction
Drug use
Females
Identity
Methamphetamine
Narratives
neutralizations
qualitative methods
Social identity
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Summary:Drug users often define themselves as functional users and depict others as dysfunctional (i.e. junkies). Previous research on the social identities of drug users has focused on the symbolic boundaries they create to distance themselves from stigmatized others. Investigators have yet to focus on how users account for their own boundary violations. Here, we examine the narratives of 30 former women methamphetamine (meth) users to determine how they make distinctions between functional and dysfunctional meth users (i.e. "meth heads"). The distinctions they make are based on users' abilities to maintain control of their lives and to hide their use from outsiders. Those who saw themselves as functional but who engaged in behaviors inconsistent with this image accounted for these behaviors to maintain desired identities. We show the complexity of drug users' identities and illustrate how anti-drug campaigns that provide grotesque caricatures of drug users may prolong drug using careers.
ISSN:0741-8825
1745-9109
DOI:10.1080/07418825.2014.897365