Judith Aldridge

Illegal leisure: the normalization of adolescent recreational drug use.

Illegal Leisureoffers a unique insight into the role drug use now plays in British youth culture. With half this generation having tried an illicit drug and up to a quarter using drugs regularly, this study explains why, despite parental angst, universal programs and a determined war on drugs, all efforts to ban illegal leisure have failed.

The Normalization of 'Sensible' Recreational Drug Use: Further Evidence from the North West England Longitudinal Study

Five key dimensions of normalization are identified: availability/access; drug trying rates; usage rates; accommodating attitudes to ‘sensible’ recreational drug use especially by non users; and degree of cultural accommodation of illegal drug use. A review of recent UK research is provided for each measure. The NW England Longitudinal Study continues to monitor normalization based on the recapture of 465 young adults (in year 2000) of a cohort previously surveyed/interviewed across their adolescence (1991 to 1995).The availability of drugs remains high with over 90% having been in drug offer situations. Accessibility is highest for cannabis, followed by ‘dance drugs’, with cocaine showing the steepest climb. Drug trying rates have risen incrementally from 36 percent at 14 to 76 percent at 22. At 18 over half reported past year drug use and at 22 the rate is unchanged (52 percent). Past month use at 32 percent has declined slightly. Males are now slightly more likely to be drug-involved on all measures. Socio-economic differences are not significant. Cannabis dominates recent usage (average three episodes a month). Half the abstainers have friends who have used cannabis. Nearly two thirds of abstainers held tolerant or approving attitudes of drug takers. Half held different views about different drugs, with cannabis use being most tolerated. The paper concludes that ‘sensible’ recreational drug use is becoming increasingly accommodated into the social lives of conventional young adults.

Care of the Dying: Setting Standards for Symptom Control in the Last 48 Hours of Life

The hospice model of care of the dying patient is regarded as a model of excellence; however, outcomes of this care have been poorly demonstrated. Integrated Care Pathways (ICPs) provide a method of recording and measuring outcomes of care. The ICP document replaces all previous documentation and is a multiprofessional record of patient care. The aim of this study was to implement an ICP in an inpatient hospice setting in order to set standards of care for symptom control in the dying phase of a patients life. ICPs were analyzed from 168 inpatients who died over a one-year period. Symptoms of pain, agitation, and respiratory tract secretions (RTS) were monitored every four hours by nursing staff as either present or absent. For each symptom, 80% of patients had one episode or complete control of the symptom, 10% had two episodes, and 10% had three episodes or more recorded. As death neared, there was a statistically significant increase in the number of patients whose pain was controlled. The ICP has provided a means to measure symptom control in the dying patient and set standards of care, which is integrated into clinical practice.

The Teenage Transition: From Adolescent Recreational Drug Use to the Young Adult Dance Culture in Britain in the MID-1990s:

This paper gives an overview of some of the most recent research surrounding the use of prohibited or illicit drugs by young people in Britain. Current research on the prevalence of illicit drug use identifies an unprecedented rise in such use by increasingly diverse groups of young people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Presenting here for the first time 4 years of data from the University of Manchester northwest longitudinal study of English adolescent drug use, the paper looks at patterns of use of different drugs, differential experiences with these drugs, and characteristics of use and non-use throughout the mid-teens. Along with this transformation in adolescent drug use has been a similar rise in the prevalence of drug use by young adults, which is located in the context of the dance party or ‘rave’ scene in Britain, linked to the ‘dance revolution’ and to a wider youth culture that reflects an acceptance of drug use both by users and non-users as a part of young peoples leisure. This has led the authors to identify a process of ‘normalization’ of recreational drug use among young people with resulting legal, education, employment, and health implications.

Who needs enemies with friends like these? The importance of place for young people living in known gang areas

Despite a growing concern about gangs in Britain, academic research that focuses on gangs remains scarce. Drawing on data from the ESRC-funded ethnographic research YOGEC (Youth Gangs in an English City) project, this paper explores the negotiation of space and place by young people living in inner-city areas affected by gangs. Using a combination of fieldwork observations and focus group and interview data, this paper charts the experiences of non-gang-involved young people living in known gang areas. These young peoples restricted use of space, arising as a result of gang rivalries and the policing of inner-city areas, results in exclusion, marginalization and victimization. We illustrate how young people are identified as ‘high risk’, and how they continually negotiate a range of risks bound up with the territory that they inhabit and subsequent spatial boundaries that are formed. In doing so, we provide an understanding of the lives of young people who reside in places and spaces inhabited by gangs.

Everything you always wanted to know about drug cryptomarkets* (*but were afraid to ask)

For some drug policy scholars, including us, the online marketplace Silk Road and its successors are inherently fascinating. When we first discovered Silk Road in 2011, on opposite sides of the globe, we could not believe it was real: people were buying illegal drugs anonymously through a global marketplace that resembled eBay or Amazon. We were instantly hooked. Rather than addressing our fellow cryptomarket-obsessed colleagues who will no doubt already be devouring the 12 articles in the issue, we would like to address the remaining readership of the journal, who may not know much at all about cryptomarkets and may wonder what relevance cryptomarkets have to broader drug policy scholarship. We believe that there are at least five reasons that the broader drug policy scholarly community should pay attention to drug cryptomarkets. First, cryptomarkets provide us with arguably the first opportunity to analyse the supply side of a drug market in its totality: not using small and often partial samples, but as a near complete population. Second, cryptomarkets are not isolated from broader drug markets: drugs flow into and out of cryptomarkets into broader social and commercial drug supply chains. Third, cryptomarkets provide a new way of monitoring emerging drug trends. Fourth, cryptomarkets offer an illustration of criminal innovation in drug supply as a response to law enforcement efforts. Fifth, cryptomarkets have become a location in which the needs and preferences of drug users are at least partially met: a wide repertoire of available drugs, information and advice, all within a community-based regulatory system that has more or less effectively bypassed state regulation. These marketplaces may therefore provide us with lessons we can usefully apply in a possible post-prohibition world. In this editorial, we aim to demonstrate why the journal readers should care about cryptomarkets. What are cryptomarkets and how do they work? How do the papers in this special issue contribute to mapping the innovation of cryptomarkets? What are the novel methodological opportunities and ethical issues that arise in conducting these kinds of studies? And what can we say about the future of cryptomarkets?

UK Drugs Unlimited: New Research and Policy Lessons on Illicit Drug Use

This book describes the diverse nature of contemporary drug use in Britain, from club kids to addicts. It investigates why current drug policy is floundering.

Measuring gang membership in England and Wales: a latent class analysis with Eurogang survey questions

This paper examines the conceptual and empirical adequacy of the Eurogang Network’s survey measurement of gang membership. Using data from a nationally representative survey of young people in England and Wales, we employed a latent class analysis to model variation in the characteristics of peer groups. We found that while Eurogang survey items identified a distinct group of young people involved in more frequent and serious offending, this definition also extended to a separate group whose only ‘vice’ was recreational drug use. We discuss the conceptual validity of extending the ‘gang’ label to this latter group, together with the pressing need for more developmentally sensitive measures of peer networks in adolescence.

Counting Gangs: Conceptual and Validity Problems with the Eurogang Definition

In this chapter, we reflect on the utility of the Eurogang definition across a number of research projects in which it has been employed. We suggest that “street orientation” aspect of the definition might more properly be considered a descriptive—rather than defining—criterion, and raise validity concerns in relation to the key aspect of the Eurogang definition: that the group’s “involvement in illegal activity” is part of its “group identity.” In particular, using case studies, we describe three types of delinquent youth group that we argue should not be considered gangs, but which would be using the Eurogang definition. Finally, we raise for discussion and debate the possibility for an alternative definitional criterion: that gangs are groups with a reputation for violence or its threat, even if rarely enacted.

Will growth in cryptomarket drug buying increase the harms of illicit drugs

Abstract Background and aim Cryptomarkets—on‐line, anonymous market‐places for illicit goods and services that specialize mainly in drugs—account for a small but rapidly growing share of the illicit drug market in many countries. Policy responses so far are based generally on the assumption that their rise will only increase drug harms. In this contribution for debate, we question this assumption. Methods We provide a narrative review of the emerging literature connected to drug cryptomarkets. We use MacCoun & Reuters formula to understand the effect of population‐level increases in use on total harm as depending on the level of harm associated with each unit of use. We then consider the potential for cryptomarkets to increase or decrease the harms and benefits related to each unit of drug use, with specific attention to the quality of drugs sold and the non‐drug‐related harms and benefits for customers. Results It is likely that cryptomarkets will increase both the amount and the range of substances that are sold. However, we argue that the effects on harms will depend upon whether cryptomarkets also increase the quality and safety of products that are sold, provide harm‐reducing information to consumers and reduce transactional conflict involved in drug purchasing. Conclusions There is an emerging and rapidly growing evidence base connected to the macro and micro harms and benefits of cryptomarkets for drug users. Future researchers should use appropriately matched comparative designs to establish more firmly the differential harms and benefits of sourcing drugs both on‐ and off‐line. While it is unlikely that the on‐line drug trade can be eradicated completely, cryptomarkets will respond to regulation and enforcement in ways that have complex, and sometimes unanticipated, effects on both harms and benefits.