Eloise Dunlap

The Growth in Marijuana Use Among American Youths During the 1990s and the Extent of Blunt Smoking

Abstract Marijuana use among American youths and young adults increased substantially during the 1990s. This paper reviews that trend using data collected 1979–2003 by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The data suggest that the increase in marijuana use started first among persons age 12–20. Among 18–20 year-olds, the increase started earlier among whites and blacks than Hispanics, among males before females, and surprisingly in areas that are not part of an MSA as opposed to those with a population in excess of a million. Much of the increase in marijuana use could have been attributable to the growing popularity of blunts. Starting in 2000, the NSDUH explicitly asked youths age 12–17 (but not older respondents) about smoking blunts. Of the 9% of youths who reported past-30-day use of marijuana 2000–03, more than half reported smoking blunts. On the other hand, the data also indicate that blunts have not fully supplanted other ways that youths consume marijuana. Blunts were more common among youths that were black, older, male, and from metropolitan areas. Many blunt smokers reported they had not used marijuana, which suggests that they did not define smoking blunts as marijuana use. Even fewer reported that they had used cigars, suggesting they did not define smoking blunts as cigar use.

The setting for the crack era: macro forces, micro consequences (1960-1992).

This article provides an overview of the social history leading up to the crack era, especially 1960 to the present. The central theme holds that several major macro social forces (e.g., economic decline, job loss, ghettoization, housing abandonment, homelessness) have disproportionately impacted on the inner-city economy. These forces have created micro consequences that have impacted directly on many inner-city residents and have increased levels of distress experienced by households, families, and individuals. Economic marginality has generated high levels of alcohol and other drug abuse as well as criminality, which are exemplified in this article by one inner-city household having an extensive family history exhibiting the chronic impacts of these macro forces and their micro consequences.

Personal Safety in Dangerous Places.

Personal safety during fieldwork is seldom addressed directly in the literature. Drawing from many prior years of ethnographic research and from field experience while studying crack distributors in New York City, the authors provide a variety of strategies by which ethnographic research can be safely conducted in dangerous settings. By projecting an appropriate demeanor, ethnographers can seek others for protector and locator roles, routinely create a safety zone in the field, and establish compatible field roles with potential subjects. The article also provides strategies for avoiding or handling sexual approaches, common law crimes, fights, drive-by shootings, and contacts with the police. When integrated with other standard qualitative methods, ethnographic strategies help to ensure that no physical harm comes to the field-worker and other staff members. Moreover, the presence of researchers may actually reduce (and not increase) potential and actual violence among crack distributors/abusers or others present in the field setting.

Gender, Power, and Alternative Living Arrangements in the Inner-City Crack Culture:

Impoverished crack-abusing women are usually without a regular place to live, sleep, relax, bathe, eliminate, eat, and store possessions—but most are not homeless persons on the streets because they find alternative living arrangements. This article draws from a rich descriptive repository of field notes, field diaries, and transcribed tape-recorded interviews from two ethnographic studies in New York City, focused upon crack users and sellers. The most common alternative living arrangement was for women to live in the household of an older male with a dependable income for a period of time. Women typically provided the men with sex, drugs, cash (less often), domestic service, or companionship. Several women lived in freakhouses (locales where several women entertained sexual customers and shared crack or other drugs) but tried to avoid crack houses or shooting galleries as residential locations. These alternative living arrangements reflected the womens powerlessness and the high levels of sexual exploitation and degradation of women in the inner-city crack culture.

Cigars-for-blunts: choice of tobacco products by blunt smokers.

Abstract An important part of blunt (marijuana in a cigar shell) smoking is the ritual of the preparation process and the selection of tobacco product for the blunt. This article explores reasons for selection from the different tobacco products available in the legal commercial market. Based upon three years of ethnographic research with 92 focal subjects, the analysis focuses upon the practical, subcultural, and symbolic reasons that blunt smokers give for choosing tobacco products (cigars for blunts-CFBs) employed in the blunt preparation process. The blunt ritual also functions within the marijuana subculture to differentiate blunt smokers from joints/pipes smokers. This analysis explores the reasons users give for selecting among the most popular inexpensive cigar brands (Dutch Masters, Phillies Blunts, and Backwoods) all owned and marketed by a single cigar conglomerate. “Blunt chasing”-the smoking of a cigarillo or cigar following a bluntis an emergent phenomenon that further expands the market for tobacco products among blunt smokers. Recently, many different flavors have been added to these tobacco products in order to attract young and minority blunt consumers.

A successful female crack dealer: Case study of a deviant career

This paper traces the career of a successful female crack dealer in Harlem. “Rachel” is a deviant among deviants: a female in a male‐dominated profession who caters to the “hidden” crack user rather than the stereotypical addict, uses techniques common among middle‐class dealers rather than those more typical of her inner‐city location, and is herself a crack addict who manages to avoid both arrest and dereliction. The paper describes how Rachels career evolved around shifts in the drug market, from marijuana to cocaine to crack; illuminates an unknown side of the drug economy—the world of the older, better educated, middle class drug user; reveals how gender affects drug distribution in a profession dominated by males; and examines how those involved in deviant careers cope with social opprobrium and attempt to justify their activities. Rachels relative success in her profession is attributed to a unique combination of historical contingencies, personal qualities, and career choices.

Family and Human Resources in the Development of a Female Crack-Seller Career: Case Study of a Hidden Population

This paper is primarily concerned with resources which family and kin network bring to drug careers. The general thesis is that specific human resources available during childhood influence both the nature and extent of participation in crack use and sales. The availability of family and human resources are critical in determining the extent to which drug abusers could develop and maintain a “conventional” identity while engaging in a drug-distribution career. Although females are becoming more evident in crack-distribution roles, they remain a minority among crack sellers and usually perform the lowest roles. This case study of Rachel represents a truly hidden population, a minority female who has been a successful crack seller for several years. The paper provides insight about persons that rarely come to attention when studying drug distribution and participation. Such persons acquire skills and resources during their lives that enable them to function in two diverse worlds. Such crack sellers are “truly hidden” because they do not have criminal records, almost never come to the attention of police, and function adequately in conventional roles. By analyzing a detailed case study of a female drug seller, this paper delineates some of the human resources and skills which may account for her differential outcome in a career of drug use and sales in inner-city settings.

Projecting and Monitoring the Life Course of the Marijuana/Blunts Generation:

Since the 1990s, marijuana has been the drug of choice among American youths, especially those that tend to sustain arrests. Previous birth cohorts had greater use of crack, powder cocaine, or heroin. This paper summarizes prior research that strongly suggests drug eras tend to follow a regular course. These insights then serve as the basis for projecting trends in marijuana use both for the general population nationwide and for Manhattan arrestees. To the extent that current trends persist, the prospects for the “Marijuana/Blunts Generation” (born 1970 and later) may be relatively good. These young persons may successfully avoid “hard drugs” as well as the attendant health, social, and legal problems for their entire life, but they may experience higher levels of smoking-related ailments. The conclusion presents issues for continued drug surveillance and ethnographic research to more accurately understand the Marijuana/Blunts Era and to provide an indicator of future changes as they occur.

Crack Abusers and Noncrack Abusers: Profiles of Drug Use, Drug Sales and Nondrug Criminality

Based on more than one thousand interviews with drug abusers in 1988 and 1989, the drug use patterns, selling behavior, and other crimes (robbery, burglary theft, etc.) of crack abusers are compared with those of heroin injectors, cocaine snorters, marijuana-only users, and nondrug users. Several striking differences in the frequency of crack use and dealing emerge among the various drug user types. Crack abusers were found to be using drugs at high rates and were receiving high incomes from drug sales and nondrug criminality. Among crack abusers, crack use greatly exceeded the cost and frequency of use of other specific drugs, which they were also consuming. For all user subgroups, crack selling was the most frequent crime and generated the largest cash income. Important patterns of polydrug use were found among most drug user groups. These findings have important implications for policies directed toward drug abusers.

Organizing “Mountains of Words” for Data Analysis, both Qualitative and Quantitative

Qualitative research creates mountains of words. U.S. federal funding supports mostly structured qualitative research, which is designed to test hypotheses using semiquantitative coding and analysis. This article reports on strategies for planning, organizing, collecting, managing, storing, retrieving, analyzing, and writing about qualitative data so as to most efficiently manage the mountains of words collected in large-scale ethnographic projects. Multiple benefits accrue from this approach. Field expenditures are linked to units of work so productivity is measured, many staff in various locations have access to use and analyze the data, quantitative data can be derived from data that is primarily qualitative, and improved efficiencies of resources are developed.