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Beyond ‘peer pressure’: rethinking drug use and ‘youth culture’

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Pilkington, Hilary. (2006) Beyond ‘peer pressure’: rethinking drug use and ‘youth culture’. International Journal of Drug Policy, Vol.18 (No.3). pp. 213-224. ISSN 0955-3959

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2006.08.003

Abstract

The study of drug use by young people in the West has been transformed over the last decade by the development of sociological approaches to drug use which take serious account of the cultural context in which young people encounter drugs. One consequence is that the notion of ‘peer pressure’, as the primary articulation of the engagement between youth culture and drug use, has been displaced by that of ‘normalisation’, which envisages ‘recreational’ drug use as one expression of consumer-based youth cultural lifestyles. In stark contrast, academic discussion of drug use in Russia remains primarily concerned with the prevalence and health consequences of (intravenous) drug use while explanations of rising rates of drug use focus on structural factors related to the expansion of drugs supply and, to a lesser extent, post-Soviet social and economic dislocation. In this article, original empirical research in Russia is used to develop an understanding of young people's drug use that synthesises structural and cultural explanations of it. It does this by situating young people's narratives of their drugs choices in the context of local drugs markets and broader socio-economic processes. However, it attempts to go beyond seeing structural location as simply a ‘constraint’ on individual choice by adopting an understanding of ‘youth culture’ as a range of youth cultural practices and formations that simultaneously embody, reproduce and negotiate the structural locations of their subjects.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Drug abuse -- Social aspects -- Russia (Federation), Peer pressure in adolescence, Teenagers -- Conduct of life, Gangs -- Russia (Federation), Russia (Federation) -- Social life and customs -- 1991-
Journal or Publication Title:	International Journal of Drug Policy
Publisher:	Elsevier BV
ISSN:	0955-3959
Date:	26 September 2006
Volume:	Vol.18
Number:	No.3
Page Range:	pp. 213-224
Identification Number:	10.1016/j.drugpo.2006.08.003
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC)
Grant number:	R000239439 (ESRC)
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/637