Becoming a Prescription Pill Smoker: Revisiting Becker

• In Event: 156 - Section on Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco Paper Session. Social and Contextual Dimensions of Substance Abuse

Abstract

Background: Despite the surge in popularity of misusing prescription drugs, theoretical examinations of prescription drug misuse practices are less well developed in the literature. Experiences of those who choose to administer prescription drugs via smoking or vaporization have also been understudied. As such, this paper provides an analysis of an understudied aspect of prescription drug misuse within a framework of Howard Becker’s work on becoming a marijuana user. By reconsidering Becker’s work, we build upon previous research that grounds prescription drug misuse within a framework of social learning theory and expand its scope to analyzing the administration of prescription drugs via non-normative routes of administration.
Methods: This paper was developed from a study investigating the patterns and contexts of prescription drug use and its associated risks among young adults (ages 18-29) who are socially active in nightlife scenes. The data drawn upon for this paper are derived from 41 qualitative interviews of participants who self-reported engaging in smoking or inhaling prescription painkillers, sedatives or stimulants from a group of 206 prescription drug misusers interviewed.
Findings: Analysis of this understudied route of administering prescription drugs found support for applying Becker’s theory of becoming a marijuana user to the escalation of drug use practices, namely young adults’ becoming prescription drug smokers. Moreover, those successfully navigated Becker’s social learning steps provided unique insight into the important role that peers’ play in defining this particular route of administration as a more pleasurable experience than the normative mode of consuming prescription drugs orally.

Authors

• Mark Pawson, City University of New York-Graduate Center

• Brian C Kelly, Purdue University

• Brooke E Wells, Center for HIV Educational Studies and Training

• Jeffrey Parsons, City University of New York-Hunter College