Two Women Who Used Cocaine Too Much: Class, Race, Gender, Crack, and Coke (From Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice, P 98-112, 1997, Craig Reinarman and Harry G Levine, eds. - See NCJ-170648)

• NCJ Number: 170653
• Author(s): S B Murphy; M Rosenbaum
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 15 pages
• Grant Number(s): 1-R01 DAO4535
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Sale Source: University of California Press
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: DCC

Annotation

Two cases studies of female cocaine users indicate nonpharmacological factors such as social class are important in understanding how people develop drug problems.

Abstract

Interviews were conducted with two teenagers, one black and a member of the so-called underclass who lived in a public housing project and the other white and a member of the middle class who lived in her mother's four-bedroom home. The black teenager was born to a teenage mother and was later placed in a group home for troubled teenagers. The mother of the white teenager was a lawyer and divorced when her daughter was in second grade. Interview data indicate that being a member of the middle class means having material possessions and resources with which to acquire them and that individuals who have life options or have a stake in conventional life tend to have a greater capacity for controlling drug use. Being from the underclass means having few if any possessions, no resources with which to acquire them, and no reasonable expectation that circumstances will improve. The authors conclude social class and race profoundly shape the context in which cocaine use occurs and how individual use patterns and consequences develop. 23 references and 5 notes