Emerging Patterns of Crack Use in Mexico City

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

Abstract

Smoking of crack is an emerging phenomenon in Mexico and Latin America where reports of use began to appear during the last decade especially among marginalized urban residents. The importance of this phenomenon is that crack cocaine in the U.S. was highly associated with urban crime, violence and high sexual risk behaviors. This paper describes the profiles and patterns of crack use among residents in Mexico City that experienced during the last decade a dramatic increase in the use of crack. Data for the present analyses come from an on-going NIH/NIDA international research collaboration on drug research between the University of Southern California and the Instituto Nacional Psiquiatría Ramón de la Fuente Muñiz (INPRFM). Findings reveal crack use in Mexico City tends to be characterized by patterns of self-regulation and control compared to use patterns in the U.S. That is, many crack users interviewed were able to use without engaging behaviors associated with users in the U.S. and without major disruption to their lives within the context of conventional family relations, friends, and work. Discussed is how these patterns of use are linked to social environment and the boundedness of the spheres of their social lives. Within the context of these highly marginalized urban communities residents have developed highly informal economic and social systems sustained by overlapping social networks that are dependent upon each other. In these communities use and other criminal and unconventional behaviors are accepted as long as they do not disrupt the established social and economic order.

Authors

• Avelardo Valdez, University of Southern California

• Alice Cepeda, University of Southern California