The social value of drug addicts : uses of the useless

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

The social value of drug addicts : uses of the useless

Merrill Singer and J. Bryan Page

Routledge, 2016, c2014

  • : pbk

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. 219-242) and index

Originally published: Left Coast Press, 2014

Description and Table of Contents

Description

Drug users are typically portrayed as worthless slackers, burdens on society, and just plain useless-culturally, morally, and economically. By contrast, this book argues that the social construction of some people as useless is in fact extremely useful to other people. Leading medical anthropologists Merrill Singer and J. Bryan Page analyze media representations, drug policy, and underlying social structures to show what industries and social sectors benefit from the criminalization, demonization, and even popular glamorization of addicts. Synthesizing a broad range of key literature and advancing innovative arguments about the social construction of drug users and their role in contemporary society, this book is an important contribution to public health, medical anthropology, popular culture, and related fields.

Table of Contents

  • Introduction
  • Chapter One Drugs, Race, and Gender in the Social Construction of Drug Consumers
  • Chapter Two Drug Users through the Ages
  • Chapter Three Representations of Addicts and the Construction of Prohibitions
  • Chapter Four Imagine That: Drug Users and Literature
  • Chapter Five Picture This
  • Chapter Six The Legal Construction of Drug Users
  • Chapter Seven Drug Users in Social Science
  • Conclusion

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