Publication Detail

Dwyer, R., Pennay, A., Green, R., Siokou, C., Barratt, M., J., Thomson, N. and Moore, D. (2012). The social contexts and cultural meanings of amphetamine-type stimulant use and their implications for policy and practice. In Allsop, S. and Lee, N. (eds.) Perspectives on Amphetamine-Type Stimulants. I.P. Communications, Melbourne. pp. 56-68. ISBN: 978-0-9808649-9-1 [CH171]

This chapter focuses on the social contexts and cultural meanings of Amphetamine Type Stimulant (ATS) use (e.g. amphetamine, methamphetamine, dexamphetamine, MDMA [ecstasy]). Understanding these social contexts and cultural meanings is important because they shape the ways in which ATS are understood and experienced. The effects of ATS, from experiences of intoxication to experiences of ‘dependence’, are not simply the product of pharmacology. Drugs and drug use are simultaneously the product of the interpretations and shared meanings constructed by the people who consume them and these interpretations and meanings are themselves the products of particular social, cultural, political, economic and historical contexts. Furthermore, these meanings are not fixed. Rather they are produced and reproduced in ongoing processes of social negotiation and contestation. Thus, ATS effects are produced through the interactions of pharmacology, subjectivity, micro-contexts (e.g. social relationships, symbolic meanings), and macro-contexts (i.e. the broader social, cultural, political, economic and historical contexts).

Name & Contact Details Role Research Program Location
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Professor Steve Allsop
Tel: 61 (0)8 9266 1606
s.allsop@curtin.edu.au
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Professor

Alcohol policy and strategies

Perth