Artikel

Abstract

T. Richert: Injection drug using women and the means by which they support their drug use Aims and Methods The purpose of the present paper is to investigate the ways in which women who inject heroin or amphetamines procure drugs and finance their drug use. The results are based on standardised interviews conducted at the needle exchange programme in Malmö between 1 July 2005 and 30 September 2006. In total, 188 out of the 232 women who visited the programme during this period were interviewed. Results A vast majority of the women (93%) buy most of the drugs they use themselves. Among the women interviewed, the most common sources of income were; social benefits (45%), dealing (23%), prostitution (22%), theft (21%) and paid work (16%). A majority of the women (53%) reported use of both formal and informal incomes to finance their drug use over the last two weeks, just over a third of the women (36%) reported only formal incomes, and a small minority (12%) reported only informal incomes. A majority of the women also reported to have been provided with drugs by others. In most cases, the provider was a man (p>.01). Women with heroin as their principal drug more frequently reported multiple sources of income (p>.01), income through prostitution (p>.001), dealing (p>.01) or theft (p>.05), whereas women with amphetamines as their principal drug more frequently reported income through paid work (p>.05) or pensions (p>.01). Conclusions Few women correspond to the stereotypical image of the homeless and outcast street addict who supports her drug habit mainly through prostitution and illegal activities or by contacts with male addicts. The majority of the women in this study have a relatively stable housing situation, the vast majority (93%) are active actors on the drug market who buy most of the drugs they use themselves, and most of the women use incomes from both formal/legal and informal/illegal sources. For most of the women, drugs provided by others only constituted a complement to those obtained by the women themselves. A few women, however, who did not report any personal income, seem to be highly dependent on others to secure a safe supply of drugs. Some women also reported that they had had to perform sexual services in order to get access to drugs from male suppliers. For women with heroin as their principal drug, it seemed much more difficult to finance their drug use by legal incomes only.