ABSTRACT
This chapter will initially focus on the demonization of young people, and then outline the facts about youth consumption of drugs and alcohol. The aim will be to assess two different positions that have shaped the debate on youth and intoxication by looking, first, at functionalist theory and the concept of risk, and, second, the interpretative approach and the idea of normalization. The analysis shows contradictions and political alignments where theorists, practitioners, journalists, policy-makers, popular icons and politicians engage in hegemonic and counter-hegemonic claims focusing on the morality of intoxication and its consequences (Blackman 2004).
