Abstract
This book, based on the author’s doctoral thesis, undertakes a unique, detailed and theoretically informed analysis of the decision-making processes behind recreational drug use. The focus on all recreational drug use, across a range of social backgrounds, is refreshing in its departure from viewing drug use as a phenomenon, or something which is ‘exceptional’ (or indeed ‘subcultural’), delimited by context, drug type or user grouping (such as prisoners, class A users or ‘offenders’). Williams draws on data from the North West England Longitudinal Study (NWELS) which informed Parker et al.’s (1998) normalization thesis (later adapted and updated by Parker et al. in 2002). Williams undertook qualitative research in the form of longitudinal ethnography alongside the NWELS data collection and, consequently, the subject of the book moves away from normalization to consider the lived experiences of the young people themselves through the 1990s and into the millennium. This methodology facilitates a deep and holistic understanding of young people’s recreational drug use as it captures the impacts of social dynamics, cultural contexts and structural developmental transitions on their decision making. In particular, the analysis considers decisions to participate in recreational drug use, as well as (important and often overlooked) decisions to abstain, thereby tracing the contours of both desistance and persistence journeys and trajectories.
The book is logically structured and walks the reader through the journey of the theoretical development, empirical data collection and analysis, reflecting, finally, on the utility of the thesis. Chapter 1 outlines the origins of the field, and offers an historical account of theories of drug-taking decision making, from both sociology and cultural studies. The chapter concludes with a description of the methodology used to capture the drug journeys of young people. Chapter 2 constructs the theoretical underpinnings of the book, drawing on risk theory and life course criminology to establish the explanatory framework in which the following empirical chapters are to be located. The subsequent three chapters explore and analyse the revealing empirical findings, focusing respectively on the impacts of agency (individual cost–benefit analyses), culture (social and cultural shaping of risk understandings) and structure (developmental transitions) on decision making around recreational drug use. The agency chapter (Chapter 3) contrasts the views of individuals who abstain with those of current and previous users. Williams shows how sources of knowledge have significant impacts on drug-taking decisions insofar as those who abstain are commonly without personal experience of the benefits of drug use to offset the information they receive from external (e.g. media) information on the risks. As such, abstainers tend to generalize on the subject of drugs, assuming all to be equally dangerous and focusing on the most serious harms such as addiction and death. In contrast, users’ views were influenced by their own, and friends’, lay experiences, acknowledging shorter term risks such as ‘whities’ and ‘come-downs’ alongside a nuanced understanding of the different drugs, their benefits and likely outcomes. Resultantly, users’ decision making was informed, and they were equipped to select which drug risks to accept, which to manage and which to avoid.
Alone, these agentic considerations of risk do not fully explain drug use. Williams demonstrates that assessments of risk are fluid, with shifts influenced by culture, meaning that relationships and contexts impact on interpretations of and exposure to risk (see Chapter 4). Similarly, (in Chapter 5) structural factors in the form of life course developments are shown to alter perceptions of risk; for instance, ex-users who became abstinent due to work commitments or parenthood became aware of the longer term health consequences of drug use. Historical trends of increased drug use at times of economic instability means that this chapter could usefully be developed longitudinally to consider the influence of structure at the macro level. For example, do decreased employment opportunities, and rising housing and further education costs influence drug decision making through their capacity to increase the need for ‘escapism’ or ‘getting high’ by decreasing opportunities for developing non-user identities? Chapter 6 takes a case study approach in order to illuminate the varying influences of agency, culture and structure at an individual, personal level, offering a more nuanced understanding of the effect of demographics such as gender. Finally, Chapter 7 is a reflection on the utility both of historical theorizations and the current thesis in understanding and explaining young people’s drug-taking decisions.
This holistic, theoretical framework allows Williams to explain the apparent incongruities of a postmodern society, including posing the question of why in a risk-averse epoch people are still prepared to use drugs. She begins to answer this by exploring how drug taking is ‘perceived, assessed and managed or avoided’ (p. 3). The theoretical framework evolved from the author’s personal experience of living in a range of geographic areas across the United Kingdom, and her observation that these contexts shaped attitudes to recreational drug use. Similarly, she recognizes that changes in context through the maturation process affect decision making, including shifting terrains of opportunities, situations, social networks, relationships, risk perception and time constraints. Mapping these individual transitions with changing drug use allows Williams to shed light on the complex interaction of agency, structure and culture. This she achieves deftly using the work of Beck (1992), Douglas (1992) and Giddens (1991) to consider the postmodern ‘risk society’.
Risk theory is of marked utility and function in this analysis in its proposition that contemporary life features tend to be defined by decision making which evaluates risks with the ultimate aim of minimizing harm and maximizing opportunity. The author understands this process to be fundamental in the production of recreational drug use or abstinence. It is through the notion of decision making that traditional theoretical explanations of drug use differ. For instance, biological, psychological, addiction and sociological theories commonly suggest that, either through individual deficit or defect, or structural pressure, individuals are compelled to use. In contrast, agency-level explanations presume higher power of control in the individual, in which they choose to use (a notion taken to its extreme in the criminal ‘justice’ system by right realist principles and associated responsibilization policies). Searching for a balance between these questionable extremes, the author tries to open the ‘black box’ of young people’s decision-making processes by considering the influence, power and critical interactions of agency (individual or self), structure (institutional or organizational) and culture (contemporary ethos and values).
Williams explains that other proponents of risk theory have been in opposition in their ideas about the basis of the information which individuals use to inform their decisions—while some suggest structural supremacy, others lean more towards agentic control. Beck (1992) and Giddens (1991) suggest that analyses are based on official or expert cost/benefit data, whereas Douglas (1992) suggests the information is culturally produced through considering lay interpretations of risk, and based on individuals’ experiences of those around them. Douglas’ approach allows for the fact that some young people may indeed desire and seek out risk—something Giddens’ and Beck’s propositions may struggle to account for. In her book, Williams takes an empirically informed intermediate approach, arguing that the dichotomy between ‘lay’ and ‘expert’ production of knowledge as the basis for decision making is a false and unnecessary one since both must be considered if drug-taking decision making is to be understood fully. In her research, Williams finds that all individuals are relentlessly confronted by both types of information on a daily basis, with personal, cultural and structural contexts all having a bearing upon which information is trusted and applied to decision-making processes.
The book is highly readable thanks in equal measure to the author’s lucid writing style, the engaging nature of her findings, and the articulation of the erudite, holistic theoretical analysis which accomplishes the difficult balance between sophistication and clarity. Changing Lives, Changing Drug Journeys is a must-read for policy makers, academics, practitioners, students and indeed theorists across a range of social science fields, including criminology, substance use and cultural studies.