ABSTRACT

This interdisciplinary collection examines the role that alcohol, tobacco and other drugs have played in framing certain groups and spaces as ‘dangerous’ and in influencing the nature of formal responses to the perceived threat.

Taking a historical and cross-national perspective, it explores how such groups and spaces are defined and bounded as well as the processes by which they come to be seen as ‘risky’. It discusses how issues of perceived danger highlight questions of control and the management of behaviours, people and environments, and it pays attention to the way in which sanctions and regulations have been implemented in a variety of often inconsistent ways that frequently impact differently on different sections of the population.

Bringing together a range of case studies drawn from different countries and across different periods of time, the chapters collected here illustrate issues of marginalisation, stigmatisation, human rights and social expectations. It is of interest to a diverse audience of historians, philosophers, human geographers, anthropologists, sociologists and criminologists interested in substance use and misuse, deviance, risk and power among other topics.

chapter 1|13 pages

Introduction

Risk and substance use

chapter 2|16 pages

Substance use, dangerous classes and spaces

A historical perspective

chapter 3|19 pages

Methamphetamine users and the process of condemnation in Japan

Framing and influence

chapter 4|17 pages

Dangerous drugs, dangerous women

Declassé women, drugs and sapphic sexuality in 1930s London

chapter 5|22 pages

Drinking in pregnancy

Shifting towards the ‘precautionary principle’

chapter 6|21 pages

Creating safe spaces in dangerous places

‘Chicks Day’ for women who inject drugs in Budapest, Hungary

chapter 7|21 pages

Risk factors and dangerous classes in a European context

The consequences of ethnic framing of and among Turkish drug users in Ghent, Belgium

chapter 9|20 pages

Drink, drugs and the ‘dangerous poor’

Fear and loathing in contemporary cities

chapter 11|18 pages

Deviant and dangerous

Queer adults, smoker-related stigma and tobacco de-normalisation

chapter 12|21 pages

Coming out of the closet

Risk management strategies of illegal cannabis growers

chapter 13|15 pages

Framing substance use problems

Influence on key concepts, methods of research and policy orientation

chapter 14|15 pages

Conclusion

Risk, danger and policies towards psychoactive substances