Normalised recreational illicit substance use - In what circumstances?

From the results of our study conducted in Canberra, we discovered that from young adult respondents aged predominately between 21-27, 45% said that they did not mind other people taking drugs because it is their decision which is fine.

The fact that almost half of the survey respondents said that drug taking is fine, shows that there is a perception amongst young adults in society that taking drugs is normal, and is accepted. Howard Parker (1998) and his colleagues developed a Drug Normalisation Theory as a way of explaining changes in society relating to drug use. Illicit drug use used to be perceived as deviant behaviour until it started to become normal to take it recreationally. This was a big shift in society in the 1990s and something people weren’t quite used. However, the recreational use of drugs has slowly gained acceptance over the years through a growing number of shared normalised beliefs within modern society.

However, it is worth noting that despite 45% of respondents accepting others taking drugs, 30% of people said they only sometimes mind if other people take drugs because it depends on the circumstances. As such, this has made us think…what are the circumstances? And more specifically, which circumstances are those which would not be okay to consume drugs? One of the possibilities could be that certain people abuse drugs and become addicted, making it obviously alarming for others if they continue to take drugs. It is widely accepted in contemporary society that addiction is a serious health problem for many individuals. Therefore, drug addiction is definitely a circumstance where it would not be seen to be ‘fine’ to take drugs. However, without being qualified to diagnose addiction, how can we recognise if we or someone we know are experiencing addiction?

Stay tuned for our next blog post tomorrow to find out how you can recognise addiction and manage vulnerable circumstances.