Top

International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction

Published in:

01-10-2012

Heroin Abuse and Collective Identity: Correlates and Consequences of Geographical Place

Authors: R. Terry Furst, Rebecca Balletto

Published in: International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction | Issue 5/2012

Abstract

Ethnographic and qualitative research were utilized to examine how the effects of geographic place can be related to heroin abuse and collective identity in non-metropolitan areas (NMAs) in the mid-Hudson region of New York State, U.S. The socio-geographic consequences of this interrelationship are explored. In-depth interviews were conducted with 237 recent admissions to drug treatment at 28 facilities in the seven mid-Hudson region counties. The effects of geographic place and collective identity emerged in interviews through narratives relating to heroin experimentation, subsequent dependence, and the lure of New York City. Heroin experimentation and the New York City lifestyle are collectively constructed by many respondents as “cool.” They are both oriented toward city life and in conflict with what respondents believe to be a lack of community and caring among city dwellers and the dehumanizing effects of the city. The idea that heroin use is cool serves as tacit permission to experiment with heroin.

This was documented in a study of heroin abuse in the mid-Hudson region of New York State. There are negative consequences (e.g., arrest) arising from traveling long distances (100 to 130 miles roundtrip) from SMAs and NMAs to purchase higher quality and cheaper heroin in small, mid-sized, and urban heroin distributions centers, such as New York City and Paterson, New Jersey. (See Furst et al. 2004.)

There are many variables that were not explored in this research such as race, ethnicity, and class. Time and resources precluded the inclusion of these variables.

There is an ironic dimension to the lives of many respondents that reference New York City as being cool. The pace and allure of heroin and city life can be viewed as influencing heroin experimentation. But once heroin dependent, the city becomes a location to purchase affordable and higher quality heroin and less of a place to indulge in as a perceived cool world. It is riddled with deceit, violence, proactive policing, and desperate opioid dependent people who are predatory. It is hardly the existence that many of our respondents imagined. In the end, addiction precludes being cool; instead dope sickness, jail, getting defrauded, and the possibility of contracting HIV infection, replace a former vainglorious notion of being cool.

Ball, J. C., & Chambers, C. D. (1970). The epidemiology of opiate addiction in the United States. Springfield: Thomas Publishing.

Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the sociology of deviance. Glencoe: Free Press of Glencoe.

Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality: A treatise in the Sociology. Garden City: Doubleday and Company.

Blackman, S. J. (2004). Chilling out: The cultural politics of substance consumption, youth, and drug policy. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill International.

Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this “we”? Levels of collective identity and self-representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 83–93.CrossRef

Dace, J. (2001, March 19). Heroin haunts Hudson valley. Times Herald-Record. Retrieved from http://www.recordonline.com/archive/001/03/19/jgportdr.htm.

Davis, J. E. (Ed.). (2002). Stories of change: Narratives and social movements. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Ferrell, J., & Sanders, C. (1995). Cultural criminology. Boston: Northeastern University.

Fiddle, S. (1967). Portraits from a shooting gallery. New York: Harper and Row.

Fine, G. A., & Kleinman, S. (1979). Rethinking subculture: an interactionist analysis. The American Journal of Sociology, 85, 1–20.CrossRef

Finestone, H. (1964). Cats, kicks, and color. In H. Becker (Ed.), The other side: Perspectives on deviance. New York: The Free Press.

Furst, R. T., Johnson, B. D., Dunlap, E., & Curtis, R. (1999). The stigmatized image of the crack head: a sociocultural exploration of a barrier to cocaine smoking among a cohort of youth in New York City. Deviant Behavior, 20, 153–181.CrossRef

Furst, R. T., Herrmann, C., Leung, R., & Hunt, K. E. (2004). Heroin diffusion in the mid-Hudson Region of New York State. Addiction, 99, 431–441.PubMedCrossRef

Gardner, J. (2001, July 26). Drug raid yields armfuls of heroin. Times Herald-Record. Retrieved from http://www.recordonline.com/archive/2001/07/26/jgportdr.htm.

Greene, M. H., Kozel, N. J., Hunt, L. G., & Appletree, R. L. (October, 1974). An assessment of the diffusion of heroin abuse to medium-sized American cities. Series A5: Special Action for Drug Abuse Prevention. Washington, DC: Executive Office of the President.

Grossberg, L. (1994). The political status of youth and youth culture. In J. S. Epstein (Ed.), Adolescents and their music. New York: Garland.

Grossberg, L. (1997). Re-placing popular culture. In S. Redhead, D. Wynne, & J. O’Connor (Eds.), The club cultures reader: Readings in popular cultural studies. Oxford: Blackwell.

Hanson, B., Beschner, G., Walters, J. W., & Bovelle, E. (1985). Life with heroin: Voices from the inner-city. Lexington: Lexington Books.

Johnson, B. D. (1973). Marihuana users and drug subcultures. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Johnson, B. D., Dunlap, E., & Tourigny, S. C. (2000). Crack distribution and abuse in New York. In M. Natarajan & M. Hough (Eds.), Illegal drug markets: From research to prevention policy. New Jersey: Criminal Justice Press/Willow Tree Press.

Kaitlin, S., MacLean, C., Troy, A., & Littenberg, B. (2006). Driving distance as a barrier to Glycemic control in diabetes. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 21, 378–380.CrossRef

Lofland, L. H. (1998). The public realm: Exploring the city’s quintessential social territory. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.

Lyman, S. M., & Scott, M. B. (1970). The sociology of the absurd. New York: Appleton- Century-Crofts.

Matza, D. (1964). Becoming deviant. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.

Mid-Hudson Library System (MHLS) (July 2003). Across the Valley: Changes and Trends. A 2022 Project Report. Available Online http://midhudson.org/admin/Across_Valley.pdf.

New York Times (2009). Young and Suburban and Falling for Heroin by Cara Buckley September 25. Online: http://nytimes.com/2009/09/27/nyregion/27heroin.html.

Schneider, E. C. (2008). Smack: Heroin and the American city. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Somers, M. R. (1994). The narrative constitution of identity: a relational and network approach. Theory and Society, 23, 605–649.CrossRef

Spunt, B. (2003). The current New York City heroin scene. Substance Use & Misuse, 38, 1539–1549.CrossRef

Stedman, R. (2002). Toward a social psychology of place: predicting behavior from place-based cognitions, attitude, and identity. Environment and Behavior, 34, 561–581.CrossRef

Stimson, G. V. (1973). Heroin and behavior: Diversity among addicts attending London clinics. Shannon: Irish University Press.

Sutter, A. G. (1966). The world of the righteous dope fiend. Issues in Criminology, 2, 172–222.

Thornton, S. (1996). Club cultures: Music, media and subcultural capital. Hanover and London: University Press.

Tucker, J. A., & Davison, J. W. (2000). Waiting to see the doctor: The role of time constraints in the utilization of health and behavioral health services. In W. K. Bickel, & R. E. Vuchinich (Eds.), Reframing health behavior change with behavioral economics (pp. 221–226). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers.

United States Bureau of the Census. (2000). County and state data. Washington: United States Bureau of the Census.

Waldorf, D. (1973). Careers in dope. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Young, F. W. (1999). Small towns in multilevel society. Lanham: University Press of America.

Title: Heroin Abuse and Collective Identity: Correlates and Consequences of Geographical Place
Authors: R. Terry Furst
Rebecca Balletto
Publication date: 01-10-2012
Publisher: Springer-Verlag
Published in: International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction / Issue 5/2012
Print ISSN: 1557-1874
Electronic ISSN: 1557-1882
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-011-9354-1

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

Springer Medicine

Heroin Abuse and Collective Identity: Correlates and Consequences of Geographical Place

Abstract

Keynote webinar | Spotlight on medication adherence

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 5/2012

Tobacco, Caffeine, Alcohol and Illicit Substance Use Among Consumers of a National Psychiatric Disability Support Service

A Conceptual Review of Research on the Pathological Use of Computers, Video Games, and the Internet

A Non-blaming Chance and Action Approach to Therapy with Sexually Explicit Media Overuse: A Case Study

Homeless and Housed Inpatients with Schizophrenia: Disparities in Service Access upon Discharge from Hospital

Housework Metaphor for Gambling Public Health Action: An Indigenous Perspective

The Role of Therapeutic Alliance in Treatment for People with Mild to Moderate Alcohol Dependence