ABSTRACT
Drug habits and preferences are established and maintained through human contact, and it is for this reason that the 'contagious disease' model of drug transmission proposed by Patrick Hughes and his colleague seems fundamentally important in understanding drug epidemics (Hughes and Crawford, 1972). Of course, the notion of human 'contagion' does not mean that the spread of drug habits and preferences is simply a passive biological process of 'contagion' or 'infection'. Rather, decisions whether or not to experiment with drugs of different kinds, or whether to continue using them and in what ways, are shaped both by the various social meanings which attach to drugs, and also whether or not their psycho-pharmacological properties cohere with people's lifestyle and self-image. That it to say, these are active socio-cultural and socio-economic exchanges between different sets of drug users and non-users, experimental users and committed users, past-users, part-timers and quitters – lines of interaction along which drug habits flow and which can either initiate, sustain or terminate drugs epidemics.
