ABSTRACT

The socio-political, economic and health perspectives of a nation are instrinsically linked to the issues of race, culture, ethnicity and substance misuse. The 1920s saw the ‘birth of the British drug underground’ and are associated with the popular myth that characterised ‘the Chinese population as drug dealers and sexual deviants who preyed upon vulnerable young white women’ (Kohn 1992). Nevertheless, these beliefs and stereotypes, with racial undertones, have remained in the popular or collective

j Have awareness that Black and ethnic minority communities in the UK are a heterogeneous group.