Illegal Drug Use Through The Lifecourse: A Study Of ‘Hidden’ Older Users

Hidden older illegal drug users are a seldom researched group; most research on illegal drug users instead focusses on the young or the institutionalised. To counter this trend, this book reports on a study of current ‘hidden’ users of illegal drugs aged 40 and over. These are individuals who have sustained illegal drug use over the long term, largely away from the gaze of the authorities, whilst living otherwise ‘conventional’ lives, holding down jobs, raising families and so on. Thus they have much to tell us about how illegal substances can be integrated into life over the long term, how that integration intersects with other aspects of one’s existence, and how illegal drug use is ultimately shaped by changes in personal circumstances and wider social contexts. Utilising insights from the ‘life course perspective’, the development of the participants’ use over their lives is analysed and placed in social context. The book also details the nature of their current drug use. Thus, the book illustrates the place of illegal drugs in the lives of the participants, and how this came to be over the decades as they also juggled work, family and the everyday minutiae of life with their use. The result is a unique look at the illegal drug use of an often ignored group of older drug users, which charts the changing role that illegal drugs have played - and continue to play - in their lives.