Drug Use Sociology

The common conception of drug users typically involves low-income minority individuals who reside in urban areas. Drug use is often thought to coincide with other social issues such as crime, sexual promiscuity, violence, and lack of employment. The National Household Survey illustrated a correlation between socioeconomic status and ethnic background in predicting the use of illicit drugs. However, the connection between racial background and drug use is more complex than it appears and the effect of socioeconomic status on drug use is often ignored.

Middle class drug users are more likely to be viewed as doing drugs “the right way”. Drug users in the middle class primarily smoke pot and snort cocaine as opposed to injecting and smoking cocaine

Women who were introduced to cocaine by a friend were more likely to request another opportunity to try the drug as opposed to women who were introduced by a male (a romantic partner or future partner). Half of the women in this study were introduced to cocaine in the context of a social gathering, to them cocaine represented having a “good time”. The other half of participants were introduced in a more private setting either by a romantic partner or by a friend under the facade of assisting with physical or mental pain. The introduction of cocaine as a “solution” made these participants view the drug as a way to forget their troubles. The context in which cocaine was first introduced to these women shaped the way they view the utility of the drug in their own lives. Participants reported being disappointed the first time they tried cocaine as the effects of the drug are typically not felt during the first experience. The “letdown” of this first experience however, gave the women the impression that snorting cocaine was not as addictive as they had previously thought and allowed them to label the activity as “safe”. This belief that intranasal cocaine use allowed for controlled use perpetuated the women’s use of the

The first women to branch out and obtain their own connection to the drug were single, childless, employed women. On the contrary the least likely to form their own connection were unemployed married women with children. This result is intuitive, the more a woman has to lose if she is discovered using, the less likely she to seek out her own source of the drug. These married women also tended to hide their use from their husbands for fear of repercussions. However, even the women who sought out their own sources often had the use of cocaine restricted by their own dealer. This is a phenomena that does not take place in low income areas. These women must maintain control over their usage or risk losing the comfortable life they are accustomed to. It is this fear and the availability of resources to reign in their drug use that allows these middle-class women to use cocaine without detection. This use of cocaine tended not to cause dysfunction in the lives of these women although some did approach the edge of losing control of their habit. A middle-class status offers them the ability to better support controlled cocaine use both financially and socially. If acknowledged, the middle-class use of drugs such of cocaine could be used to destigmatize drug use as a “poor people”