Some people who first tried the new "skag" believed that smoking heroin was non-addictive since they had only previously known about the earlier injecting subcultures of London "junkies" from the 1960's and early 1970's. The sudden availability of the drug in many new communities resulted in localised "mini-epidemics" among friendship networks. Contradicting the well-publicised myth of the pusher offering free samples to schoolchildren at the school gates, the majority of new users were offered the drug by someone well known: "I was at a party with some friends, good friends that I'd known for ages. And there was some heroin going round. I'd heard about it, but I'd never actually seen it before. And, they were smoking it on foil...you know, chasing it. This friend who'd brought it with her said did I want to try? There was no pressure on me, or anything like that. They were obviously enjoying it, so I thought 'Why not?' That was the first time." (Julie, 29 years, West Yorkshire)
For many young people in Britain, their previous drug use acts as a gateway to further drug use. The sudden availabity of heroin during the 1980's stimulated curiousity and experimentation: "I just wanted to see what it was all about. I mean, we'd used other drugs and got a good hit and we just wanted to try smack to see what it was like." Peer group pressure also played a key role in the heroin "epidemic": "We just used to hang around with each other and it was just one of those things, like, that you'd never done before. We got into pot at the same time, we got into acid at the same time and then there was more smack around than pot, so we got into that."
A strong correlation has been made between poverty and drug misuse in Britain. The heroin problem throughout the 1980's was particularly experienced in areas suffering from high levels of unemployment, housing decay, and social deprivation. The arrival of heroin in abundance coincided with the economic recession that followed the 1981 budget. Johnson argues that drugs such as heroin have played a part in a vicious circle in which working class areas have been subject to deterioration as a result: "The expansion of use of hard drugs, and particularly of heroin and cocaine, is both a symptom and an important factor in the continued relative decline of inner city communities and persons who reside in those communities." Heroin was largely centred around the inner cities, where youth were engaged in street-oriented activity, suffered boredom, and had a limited lifestyle due to increasing unemployment.
Howard Parker, Keith Bakx and Russell Newcomb conducted a study of heroin users in the Merseyside city of Wirral, one of the most notorious victims of the heroin "epidemic" during the 1980's. Despite having a significant middle class population, Wirral also encompasses a large and poor working class core, and has been described as being a "microcosm of a 'two nations' contemporary England". They conducted a survey of the records of official agencies concerning known drug users (multi-agency enumeration) and interviews with natural networks of heroin users to determine the ratio of the extent of "unknown" users to those known to official agencies. The findings of this research indicate a possible range of 1,550 to 1,850 individual problem drug users in Wirral during 1984-5 out of a population of 340,000. A staggering 81 per cent of these people were opiate users, 81 per cent of whom were unemployed. The vast majority of known opiate users during this period were adults under thirty, of which over half were aged between eighteen and twenty-two. Known opiate use in Wirral was largely concentrated in socially-deprived communities. One in ten youths on the most affected estate, Ford, were known heroin users during 1984-5; Ford also had the highest rate of unemployment in Wirral during this time and its residents were suffering high levels of social deprivation.
Geoffrey Pearson, in A Land Fit for Heroin has linked unemployment with heroin use, which serves to provide the disenchanted individual with a sense of escape from the harsh reality: "The problem of heroin misuse which has recently taken a new turn in some of Britain's run-down, working-class neighbourhoods and housing estates must be set alongside the burden of mass unemployment which lies upon so many of these same localities."
Mugford and O'Malley challenge this "retreatist" explanation: "Deficit theorists see heroin use as compensation for hard times, portraying these users as victims of unemployment who resort to drug use as a compensation for the deficit." They demonstrate that despite being victims of social inequalities throughout the 1980's, a low percentage of ethnic minorities were involved in heroin use: ".
. . In spite of the higher levels of unemployment, educational disadvantage, housing deprivation, etc., experienced by Britain's black communities, black people were considerably underrepresented among known heroin users." Although heroin in Britain is linked with social factors such as poverty, unemployment and school truancy, not everyone who is poor uses drugs. Additionally, despite the fact that the heroin "epidemic" spread throughout depressed council estates in Glasgow, Manchester and Liverpool, it is fundamental to consider that other socially deprived areas such as Belfast had a low record of heroin misuse.
The 1980's under the influence of a Thatcherism saw the emergence of an entreprise culture, in which personal initiative, risk-taking and capitalism were key features. Drug consumption was to some extent another material possession in this burgeoning consumer culture, and financial rewards and the instant gratification of dealing often provided attractive alternatives to the dole.
Boredom in a mundane lifestyle and the search for excitement, escapism and recreation is a feature common to drug use, dependant largely on availability of various narcotics. In much the same way as ecstasy and amphetamines appeal to the rave generation of the late 1980's and 1990's, heroin provided an alternative: "Why not? There's nothing else to do anyway except spend all day watching the telly." Heroin provided an entire social opportunity in which users were able to meet other people, visit new locations, experience new activities, and provide organisation in their lives. Many youth may get involved in what they perceive as being a lifestyle that offers risk and excitement. The introduction of heroin into British towns and cities throughout this period offered an exciting pattern of recreation: "When the heroin first came round, there was a few into it . . . just a few . . . and they were, you know, the elite. And I just wanted to get into that, like." (Michael, 21 years, Merseyside)
Despite the widely-documented link between heroin use and unemployment amongst youth subcultures, heroin in the 1980's has b
y no means been exclusive to the working class. One user from a professional background describes her motivations for engaging in the drug: "It was for fun. And it was exciting . . . at first it was really exciting. To be so stoned that social conventions don't matter, so you can walk into a place with complete confidence or be as outrageous as you like. . . It's like stepping out on to the edge. And the first thing about heroin was this complete removal of any sense of responsibility, guilt, pressure. The ability not to care."
There is no simple explanation for the heroin phenomenon of the 1980's. Rehabilitation patient Mark Esmand outlines the numerous factors in his decision to experiment with the drug in 1981: "You can't expect people to understand if they've not taken drugs themselves. Most people take them to escape from something. I don't know what it was for me, just the boredom of existing. It's quite boring where I live, there's nowt money around, nothing to do sort of thing. No jobs. It brings some excitement to your life. I didn't have an especially unhappy childhood. Everybody seemed to be doing it, sort of a gang, used to get up to all sorts."
There are a multiplicity of factors to explain the popularity of heroin with 18-22 year olds in the 1980's in Britain. Law enforcement policy was vital in expanding the illicit market of heroin. The clinic system established in 1968 to a large extent prevented doctors from supplying their clients with heroin, and users looked to the black market rather than accept methadone treatment. The sudden availability of high-quality, cheap heroin from Southwest Asia was a significant contributer to the heroin phenomenon of the 1980's. The new form of heroin consumption known as "chasing the dragon" proved more attractive to a large number of youth than the socially taboo activity of self-injection. Myths circulated surrounding the non-addictive nature of smoking heroin, and there was little street wisdom amongst early users about the consequences of heroin use. Some people who had previously used other drugs were eager to experiment with the latest illegal substance to enter the black market. The sudden availability of the drug in many new communities resulted in localised "mini-epidemics" among friendship networks. In a mundane lifestyle, heroin provided excitement, escapism and recreation in much the same way as the rave phenomenon of the late 1980's and 1990's. Poverty has been claimed to be a key factor, as the heroin problem throughout the 1980's was particularly experienced in areas suffering from high levels of unemployment, housing decay, and social deprivation. The entreprise culture produced by Margaret Thatcher valued capitalist ideals of personal initiative, risk-taking and materialism, in which the instant rewards of heroin use and dealing often provided quick, attractive alternatives to the recession. However, it is important to remember that not everyone who was poor used drugs and that a significant number of socially deprived areas such as Belfast were barely affected by the heroin "epidemic". Additionally, various heroin subcultures of the 1980's were composed of youth from middle class backgrounds. Ethnic minorities, who suffered some of the worst social deprivation had little involvement in heroin. Perhaps the most significant condition for the spread of heroin is an established distribution programme. Whereas Glasgow, Manchester, and Liverpool had an organised system of distribution, resulting in dense areas of heroin misuse, other cities did not, resulting in a scattered and localised pattern of heroin consumption during this period. The motivations for taking heroin during the 1980's were therefore complex and diverse. The increase of heroin throughout this period has had serious implications on the future of our society, increasing drug-related crime, and needlesharing has multiplied the risk of HIV infection and AIDS.
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