Crack Cocaine Users
Crack cocaine users have significant health problems, and place a significant burden on social services, the criminal justice system and drug treatment agencies. Among policymakers, professionals and the wider section of society, they are the most poorly understood drug-using group and have the worst retention rate in prison drug programmes and community drug agencies.
This book is about their addictions and the realities of their lives. Based on ethnographic research (observation and interviewing) conducted in south London, it aims to highlight their day-to-day struggles as they attempt to survive in a violent and intimidating street drug scene while trying to make changes to their lives. The book unpacks the myths and stigma of their drug use, highlighting their fragile position in society in an effort to better understand them. With the help of several key characters, the book uses their words and experiences to take the reader on a journey through their crack addiction from a life in and out of crack houses, their experiences with law enforcement and welfare agencies to their life aspirations.
The findings have important policy implications, and are relevant and accessible to academics and students in the field of criminology, sociology, psychology and research methods. The research is equally relevant for central and local government policymakers, and frontline healthcare and drug agency staff.
Daniel Briggs is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of East London. He works with a range of social groups from the most vulnerable to the most dangerous to the most misunderstood. His work takes him inside prisons, crack houses, mental health institutions, asylum seeker institutions, hostels, care homes and hospices, and homeless services. His research interests include social exclusion, culture and deviance, and late modern identities. He has recently undertaken work in Spain on gypsies and youth risk behaviours while on holiday and is currently undertaking research on youth gangs.
Routledge Advances in Ethnography
Edited by Dick Hobbs
University of Essex and
Geoffrey Pearson
Goldsmiths College, University of London
Ethnography is a celebrated, if contested, research methodology that offers unprecedented access to peoples intimate lives, their often hidden social worlds and the meanings they attach to these. The intensity of ethnographic fieldwork often makes considerable personal and emotional demands on the researcher, while the final product is a vivid human document with personal resonance impossible to recreate by the application of any other social science methodology. This series aims to highlight the best, most innovative ethnographic work available from both new and established scholars.
1 Holding Your Square
Masculinities, streetlife and violence
Christopher W. Mullins
2 Narratives of Neglect
Commonity, regeneration and the governance of security
Jacqui Karn
3 Families Shamed
The consequences of crime for relatives of serious offenders
Rachel Condry
4 Northern Soul
Music, drugs and subcultural identity
Andrew Wilson
5 Flashback
Drugs and dealing in the golden age of the London rave scene
Jennifer R. Ward
6 Dirty Dancing?
An ethnography of lap-dancing
Rachela Colosi
7 Crack Cocaine Users
High Society and Low Life in south London
Daniel Briggs
Crack Cocaine Users
High Society and Low Life in south London
Daniel Briggs
First published 2012
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX 14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
71 I Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2012 Daniel Briggs
The right of Daniel Briggs to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Briggs, Daniel.
Crack cocaine users : high society and low life in South London / Daniel
Briggs. -- I st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Cocaine abuse--England--London. 2. Drug addicts--England--London-
Biography. 3. Drug addicts--Rehabilitation--England--London--Case
studies. 4. Addicts--England--LondonServices for. I. Title.
HV5840.G7B75 2011
362.298094216--dc23
2011022786
Typeset in Times New Roman and Gill Sans
by Bookcraft Limited, Stroud, Gloucestershire
ISBN 978-0-415-67133-0 (hbk)
ISBN 978-0-203-15415-1 (ebk)
Contents
Acknowledgements
This book is only possible because of the people involved in the crack scene in south London. I am completely indebted to Dawg, Blood, Fam and, in particular, Cuz. You and others spoke about your life experiences, dilemmas, worries and ambitions. You also allowed me into your lives and I hope what I write conveys your experiences to a broad section of society. Thank you to the professionals who participated in interviews and the local Drug Action Team (DAT) who also added direction to the project. Thanks also to Galahad Substance Misuse Solutions. I am extremely grateful to the editors of this series Emeritus Professor Geoff Pearson and Professor Dick Hobbs. Geoff, in particular read numerous chapter drafts at short notice. Initially, Brian Willan contracted me to undertake this work and his daughter, Julia, who now works at Routledge, has provided immeasurable support and guidance.
In my early university days, lectures from Professors Jock Young and John Lea provided impetus for me to further my career. I learnt much from Professor Roger Matthews with whom I later worked at London South Bank University. This book is based on my PhD fieldwork, so credit is due to my supervisors Professor Tim Rhodes and Dr Linda Cusick. Over this period, Dr Jo Kimber, Dr Chris Bonnell and Dr Cicely Marston also provided important guidance and feedback. Thanks also to experts in the field of substance use Dr Mike Shiner and Professor Joanne Neale who helped me develop the conceptual insight into this work. I called on the advice and wise words of Emeritus Professor Howard Parker, Professor David Moore and Professor Philippe Bourgois. More recent guidance and friendship I have gleaned from Tim Turner, Dave Cudworth, Dr Axel Klein, Dr Sbastien Tutenges, Dr Jennifer Fleetwood and Toby Dodson.