Dangers and Pleasures: Drug Attitudes and Experiences among Young People

TY - JOUR

T1 - Dangers and Pleasures

T2 - Drug Attitudes and Experiences among Young People

AU - Järvinen, Margaretha Maria

AU - Østergaard, Jeanette

PY - 2011/12

Y1 - 2011/12

N2 - This is a study of young people’s conceptions of illegal drug use as dangerous and/or pleasurable and an analysis of the relationship between attitudes to drugs, drinking, friends’ reported drug use and own experience with drug use and drinking. The article applies a mixed methods approach using both survey data and focus group interviews. The main statistical method is Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), which constructs a social space of young people’s attitudes to drugs and drug experiences relationally. We identify four interrelated positions on illegal drug use among 17 to 19-year-old Danes: the anti-drug position, usually held by youths who do not use illegal drugs and do not have drug-using friends; the ambivalent position, occupied by non-users who report that they have drug-using friends; the transitory position, held by cannabis users, some of whom express positive attitudes to ‘hard’ illegal drugs; and, finally, the pro-drug position, characteristic of drug users with low risk perceptions and high pleasure-orientation. We use the focus group interviews to demonstrate how youths occupying these differing positions argue for and against drugs and which risks and pleasures they associate with drug use.

AB - This is a study of young people’s conceptions of illegal drug use as dangerous and/or pleasurable and an analysis of the relationship between attitudes to drugs, drinking, friends’ reported drug use and own experience with drug use and drinking. The article applies a mixed methods approach using both survey data and focus group interviews. The main statistical method is Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA), which constructs a social space of young people’s attitudes to drugs and drug experiences relationally. We identify four interrelated positions on illegal drug use among 17 to 19-year-old Danes: the anti-drug position, usually held by youths who do not use illegal drugs and do not have drug-using friends; the ambivalent position, occupied by non-users who report that they have drug-using friends; the transitory position, held by cannabis users, some of whom express positive attitudes to ‘hard’ illegal drugs; and, finally, the pro-drug position, characteristic of drug users with low risk perceptions and high pleasure-orientation. We use the focus group interviews to demonstrate how youths occupying these differing positions argue for and against drugs and which risks and pleasures they associate with drug use.

U2 - 10.1177/0001699311422018

DO - 10.1177/0001699311422018

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0001-6993

VL - 54

SP - 333

EP - 350

JO - Acta Sociologica

JF - Acta Sociologica

IS - 4

ER -