Drug use by adolescents is usually viewed as the result of personal vulnerability to peer pressures and drug pushers. This book provides a new perspective, which is sociological rather than epidemiological, understanding patterns of drug taking in the context of ordinary social interaction. In this social worlds analysis, adolescents' own concerns with boredom, depression, social identity, friendship, access to drugs, self-control and folk pharmacology replace the professionals' focus on deviant behaviour.

List of Tables - Acknowledgements - Competing Explanations: Epidemiology, Politics, Social Worlds - A Methodology for Listening - Why do Adolescents Use Drugs? - How Adolescents Use Drugs - Distributing and Understanding Drugs - Why Adolescents Avoid Drugs: Light Users and Non-Users - Peer Pressure - Families - The Future - Seeing Defective Individuals - Seeing Social Worlds - Glossary - Appendix A: The Subjects - Bibliography - Index