Problematizing “Drugs”: A Cultural Assessment of Recreational Pharmaceutical Use among Young Adults in the United States

Abstract

Recent trends in the recreational use of pharmaceuticals among young adults in the United States highlight a number of issues regarding the problematization of drugs. Two constructions of recreational pharmaceutical use are analyzed. On the one hand, categorical frameworks based upon epidemiological data are created by institutions and media and depict recreational pharmaceutical use as illicit in unqualified, absolute terms. This is done through discourses that equate nonmedical pharmaceutical use with culturally established forms of illicit drug use. On the other hand, users' multi-dimensional constructions of recreational pharmaceutical use emphasize social context, personal experience, and individual risk perceptions. The problematization of recreational pharmaceutical use points to intergenerational conflicts, as well as to struggles over definitions of “drug abuse” and “hard drugs,” and highlights the impact of pharmaceuticalization on recreational drug use among young people.