Segregation or Cooperation? A Social Constructionist Perspective on Drug Use and Drug Work

Abstract

The basic assumptions of a social constructionist perspective and its utility for understanding drug use and drug work are delineated. The analysis of the history of drug use and the example of Vietnam veterans and the way they dealt with opiate use show the wide variability and differences in social constructions of drug use. Current disease conceptions as well as the model of accepting drug work are explicated and their consequences for opiate users, treatment conceptions and professionals in the field are described. The image of the drug user in the disease model is very negative and deficit oriented; moreover the differences between a drug-using individual and the “normal” person are stressed and thus these worlds are segregated from one another. In contrast, accepting drug work is resource oriented and tries not to reduce the person to his or her drug use. By stressing the commonalities between the “drug” and the “normal world” the segregation between them is challenged. Some remarks about how new social constructions about drug use might be established through language and social institutions close the paper.