Signe Ravn

From recreational to regular drug use: qualitative interviews with young clubbers

This article analyses the process of going from recreational use to regular and problematic use of illegal drugs. We present a model containing six career contingencies relevant for young peoples progress from recreational to regular drug use: the closing of social networks, changes in forms of parties, intoxication becoming a goal in itself, easier access to drugs, learning to recognise alternative effects of drugs and experiences of loss of control. The analysis shows that these dimensions are at play not only when young people develop a regular drug use pattern but also when they attempt to extricate themselves from this pattern. Hence, when regular drug users talk about their future, it is not a future characterised by total abstinence from illegal drugs but a future where they have rolled back their drug use career to the recreational drug use pattern they started out with. Empirically, the article is based on qualitative interviews with young drug users contacted at nightclubs in Denmark.

Club studies: methodological perspectives for researching drug use in a central youth social space.

Club studies are sociological investigations of youth drug use in the social context of the club. By being present at the club, the researcher tries to gain access to a somehow hidden population of drug users who only to a lesser extent – or not at all – perceive their drug use as problematic. This is the large group of people who primarily consider their drug use as a leisure activity, and thus as a means for deriving pleasure. In spite of impressive club studies conducted in both Great Britain and the USA, it seems that, broadly speaking, previous efforts can be characterised as either very broad and/or quantitative or very particular, sub‐cultural and exclusively qualitative. Through a methodological discussion of these studies, this article suggests a mixed‐methods approach to club studies that combines quantitative data, qualitative interviews and ethnography conducted in the club space. By introducing the concept of ‘socionautics’, this article suggests that the researcher travels into the social landscape of young people, clubs and drugs and utilises her ethnographic observations in interviews. An approach like this would cast light upon this very central part of youth leisure life in a systematic and detailed way.

Managing Drug Use in Danish Club Settings: A Normalized Enterprise?

The article analyzes Danish clubbers’ strategies for taking drugs in night clubs. This exploration is framed within the discussion of a possible normalization of youth drug use. Thus, the article investigates how young drug-users experience the level of acceptability of drug use in clubs and how this perceived acceptability—or rather lack of acceptability—affects their practices around drug-taking. The analysis points towards two distinct strategies which the clubbers make use of when taking drugs in clubs: an assimilative strategy and an opportunistic strategy, and it is shown how these strategies are indicative of the level of acceptability of drugs in club settings. Through this focus on the micro-level, the article adds to the limited amount of literature on this dimension of the normalization thesis. Empirically, the article is based on a Danish mixed methods club study.

Communicating Trust Between Parents and Their Children A Case Study of Adolescents’ Alcohol Use in Denmark

This article discusses how Danish parents and their children communicate trust. Based on Niklas Luhmann’s sociological theory, the article explores new aspects of communication about alcohol-related rules. The analysis shows how the parents emphasize the importance of communicating trust, while the adolescents, on the other hand, observe the parents’ communication on the basis of their own, more instrumental, logic. Trust becomes a functional solution to the parents’ paradoxical situation, because it enables them to balance between a democratic family ideal, emphasizing the adolescents’ independence, while taking care of risk behavior. The article draws on Danish qualitative data comprising 37 focus group interviews with adolescents (14-16 years of age) and six focus group interviews with parents.

Identifying drug risk perceptions in Danish youths: ranking exercises in focus groups.

Aim: This article develops an analytical approach for understanding the perceptions of drug-related risks among youths in general. These perceptions are central for comprehending how certain drugs become popular while others do not. The method is not only suited for understanding trends but would be able to provide relevant data for targeting and developing prevention strategies as well. Methods: We develop a specific methodology that combines a ranking exercise in focus groups with discourse theory as an analytical approach. This produces detailed information and provides a relatively efficient way of investigating risk perceptions. The methodology is developed in relation to a Danish case with 12 focus group interviews with youths aged from 17 to 22 years. Findings: The analysis identifies five discourses in the discussions on risk. These discourses position specific drugs as more or less harmful. Focusing on cannabis, ecstasy and cocaine, it appears that light cannabis use is seen as both harmless and accepted, whereas ecstasy is considered very dangerous. Cocaine has an ambiguous position, being perceived as neither harmless nor very dangerous. Conclusion: It is argued that due to its unclear position, resulting from the interplay between the discourses, cocaine might be undergoing a process of partial normalization. An emphasis on risk perceptions is important for prevention purposes and the applied methodology is useful in tracking changes in the popularity of various drugs.

Contested identities: Identity constructions in a youth recreational drug culture

This article examines young recreational drug users’ identity constructions. Combining a poststructuralist theoretical framework with focus group method, the article investigates how the participants in a focus group interview position themselves and others, thereby negotiating an identity as responsible drug users. The article studies this recreational drug culture and its internal distinctions, conceptions and norms as they are expressed discursively. The analysis identifies six dimensions of the identity as a responsible, recreational drug user: drug practice, general drug knowledge, context-specific drug knowledge, practices for checking drugs, acknowledging one’s position in the surrounding drug scene and age. The analysis shows how being able to perform a coherent identity in line with these dimensions is necessary for being acknowledged as a responsible, recreational drug user.

Out of sync: Time management in the lives of young drug users

The paper analyzes young cannabis users’ experiences of time from two different perspectives, one looking at how their everyday life is related to social time structures and another looking at their actual time management strategies. The paper shows that intense drug use is a reason behind the interviewees’ underinvolvement in interaction time, institutional time, and cyclic time. Yet, drug use may also be an attempt at solving problems with time management, a strategy that again brings the users further away from the social time structures of society. We identify temporal synchronicity, or rather the lack of this, as a central challenge for the interviewees’ social identities and general feelings of a meaningful everyday life. Further, we argue that the young cannabis users are both social and temporal “outsiders” to society and that new time management strategies are key to reversing this process of social marginalization. The paper is based on qualitative interviews with 30 young cannabis users in outpatient drug treatment in Denmark.

‘Steroids, it’s so much an identity thing!’ perceptions of steroid use, risk and masculine body image

This paper explores how taste and distaste, body image and masculinity play into young people’s perceptions of risk related to steroid use. Data are drawn from a qualitative study on risk-taking among 52 Danish youths enrolled in high school or vocational training. A number of ‘risky’ practices such as drug use, fights, speeding, etc. were discussed. In contrast to these practices, which were primarily described in relation to ‘physical risks’, steroid use was understood as part of an ‘identity’ or ‘lifestyle’ in a way these other risks were not. Few interviewees had used steroids, and the large majority distanced themselves from the practice. Reasons for not wanting to use steroids were related to (1) perceiving the drug to be part of a broader lifestyle and identity that they are not interested in committing to or embodying and (2) finding the body image, physicality and associations with steroid use ‘fake’, ‘gross’ and distasteful. We draw on recent developments in feminist sociological theory related to the gendered body as both a performance and process to understand steroid use as a practice through which the body and self is produced. More than a one-dimensional ‘risky’ practice, we argue that gendered and embodied identities are crucial to understanding the dynamics of steroid use.

Explanations and expectations: drug narratives among young cannabis users in treatment.

This article analyses how young people enrolled in drug addiction treatment in Copenhagen, Denmark, explain their cannabis careers and how they view their possibilities for quitting drug use again. Inspired by Mead and narrative studies of health and illness, the article identifies four different drug use ‘aetiologies’ drawn upon by the interviewees. These cover childhood experiences, self-medication, the influence of friends and cannabis use as a specific lifestyle. A central argument of the article is that these explanations not only concern the past but also point towards the future by assigning the interviewee a more or less agential position in relation to drugs. Further, the drug narratives are viewed as interactional achievements, related to the social context in which they were produced, namely, the institutional setting of the treatment centres. The article is based on 30 qualitative interviews with young people in drug addiction treatment.

Prevalence and perceptions of ketamine use among Danish clubbers: A mixed-method study:

Aims This article describes the prevalence of ketamine use among Danish recreational drug users and provides a contextual understanding of ketamine use within this group. Methods and Data The analysis is based on a mixed-methods night club study combining a survey among guests in night clubs (N=1,632) with qualitative interviews (9 focus group interviews, 6 double interviews, 7 individual interviews; 53 clubbers in total). Results 10% of the clubbers have tried ketamine (lifetime use). The ketamine users have also tried a range of other drugs. When taken in club settings, ketamine is often part of a polydrug repertoire. When used in private settings, ketamine is often taken alone to explore its hallucinogenic effects. The users are aware of the potency of the drug, but do not pay attention to long-term negative effects of ketamine use. Conclusion Ketamine users predominantly prefer to use ketamine in private settings. This can be viewed as a strategy for risk management, but also as a way of optimising the combination of drug – place – social – body, thereby creating a drug experience that is not possible in public settings.