Illegal Leisure (Revisited)
Recreational drug use and desistance in young adults
Judith Aldridge
University of Manchester
Cultural accommodation of the illicit
‘Normalisation cannot be reduced to idea that it is
normal to take drugs: that is both to oversimplify and
overstate the case. We are concerned only with the
spread of deviant activity and associated attitudes from
the margins towards the centre of youth culture. So
normalisation need not be concerned with absolutes:
we are not even considering the possibility that most
young people will become illicit drug users’.
Key element: increasing acceptance of some kinds of
drug taking, even by abstainers – unremarkable activity
Normalisation timeline
1991-1995
Five annual surveys
of ~800 young
people from 14 to
18 years old
2004/5
1999
Follow up at age 22
Follow up at age
27/28
1998
2011
Publication of book
Illegal Leisure
Publication of book
Illegal Leisure
Revisited
First comprehensive
statement of the
normalisation thesis
Revisit the idea of
normalisation after
a decade in which
levels of drug taking
have fallen
Mad, bad, sad & poor
‘Aging out’ of deviance?
Our sample at age 28
•
•
•
•
•
Employed full time
Employed part time
In education/training
Full time caring
Unemployed
77%
12%
12%
11%
1%
• Living in own home
• Living with parents
• Living in rented
51%
20%
19%
• Cohabiting
• Married
• Single
38%
27%
18%
Drug use in our sample
Age 18
Age 22
Age 27
Past year
53%
52%
34%
Past month
35%
31%
20%
Which drugs at 28?
• Cannabis – 28%
• Cocaine powder – 16%
• Ecstasy – 9%
Settling down
• ‘It takes me about three or four days to recover
from it as well. (laughs) You just get … I just get
absolutely knackered by it now. So I think I get to
the point now where I think, ‘Well is it really
worth it for one day of running around like a
dickhead? Is it worth it being shattered for like
the next week?’ So I’d rather now have a few
glasses of wine and get a bit tipsy, you know, do
that rather than be worn out.’
• Female current drug user, age 28
Settling down
• ‘The key turning point was me getting a full
time job. When I went full-time, then it was
just like a cut off point then, because I’d work,
I’d be tired, and I’d come home. And that was
it: I didn’t want to go out.’
• Male ex-user, age 28
Settling down
• ‘She [his partner] didn’t take any drugs, she
didn’t agree with it either. [Yeah.] She wasn’t
bothered about me smoking pot, but anything
else [sharp intake of breath], that’d have been
a killer.’
• Male current drug user, age 28
Opportunistic use
• ‘…When I’m out and with people that are
doing it, but as far as myself going out to buy
for my own use, then no, I don’t do that. I’m
more a, I suppose, a blagger. Take it off other
people [laughter].’
• Male, opportunistic user, age 28
Fitting drug taking
around other priorities
• ‘When I was 18, I was loving life. It was great. I
was working hard, plenty of money, and having
an absolute scream. Where now, you see, ten
years on, my life is about providing. I provide a
home, I’m looking after my son. My priorities
have changed. So the way I have fund now is
different to what it would be ten years ago.’
• Female current drug user, 28 years old
Fitting drug taking around other
priorities
• “When you’re getting in from work anywhere
between, well half six on a good night or you
know, anything up to eight, nine o’clock really, if
we’re busy at work. […] you’ve got the washing
to do, your phone calls to make, tidying up, you
know, you have all these things to do. And
actually, when you’ve had a spliff it just makes
you not wanna do anything.”
• Female, current drug user, age 28
Implications
•
Ordinary, conforming citizens
•
More in common with moderate drinking than dependent drug use
•
Fit around priorities: children, jobs, partners
•
Usually their only ‘deviant’ activity
•
Riskiest aspect of drug taking is the fact of its illegality
–
Do not think themselves ‘above’ law, dislike legal risks
•
Worst outcome: fall out from criminal conviction: on families, jobs, relationships
•
Desistance: wanes throughout adulthood
•
My opinion: criminal convictions / custodial sentences
–
likely to have more unanticipated negative consequences than positive intended outcomes
Any questions?
Judith Aldridge
Senior Lecturer
Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCCJ)
School of Law
University of Manchester
Judith.Aldridge@manchester.ac.uk