Suchergebnisse

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of poor drug users and sellers who remained in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 to identify their special needs and the unique challenges they present to disaster management.Design/methodology/approachSemi‐structured, open‐ended interviews were conducted with 119 poor, predominantly African‐American, drug users and sellers. Their stories in their own words provide a mosaic of drug‐related experiences from the period immediately preceding the storm through evacuation and reveal the motivations behind their behaviors.FindingsMany drug users placed partying, maintaining their habits, and making money ahead of personal safety and evacuation. Drug use and sales led many not to evacuate before the storm, to use drugs in congregate shelters, to avoid shelters, to roam through flooded debris‐strewn streets, to loot stores and homes of drug dealers, and to use violence or the threat of violence to achieve their drug‐related aims.Originality/valueDuring a disaster, many poor drug users place risks on themselves, their families, their communities and ultimately on rescue workers. The conclusion presents pragmatic and humanitarian guidelines for successfully addressing this additional challenge. The recommendations are consistent with other suggestions concerning the special needs of indigent populations.

This paper is primarily concerned with resources which family and kin network bring to drug careers. The general thesis is that specific human resources available during childhood influence both the nature and extent of participation in crack use and sales. The availability of family and human resources are critical in determining the extent to which drug abusers could develop and maintain a "conventional" identity while engaging in a drug-distribution career. Although females are becoming more evident in crack-distribution roles, they remain a minority among crack sellers and usually perform the lowest roles. This case study of Rachel represents a truly hidden population, a minority female who has been a successful crack seller for several years. The paper provides insight about persons that rarely come to attention when studying drug distribution and participation. Such persons acquire skills and resources during their lives that enable them to function in two diverse worlds. Such crack sellers are "truly hidden" because they do not have criminal records, almost never come to the attention of police, and function adequately in conventional roles. By analyzing a detailed case study of a female drug seller, this paper delineates some of the human resources and skills which may account for her differential outcome in a career of drug use and sales in inner-city settings.

This paper examines a mismatch between the surveys used to study U.S. household composition and the dynamics of living arrangements prevailing among many lowincome African Americans. Mounting survey findings suggest that many low-income African Americans engage in a series of short cohabitations resulting in children with a succession of partners. Ethnographic data suggest these behaviors may be based within a relationship paradigm that needs to be understood on its own terms. Because of the tenuous nature of these relationships, we refer to this paradigm as transient domesticity. An original analysis of partnership and child custody statuses using the 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) presented provides an indication of the extent of transient domesticity among low-income African Americans. Multivariate analysis suggests that transient domesticity or a paradigm that results in similar characteristics is more common among low income and African American adults and not unique to low-income African Americans. Lowincome African Americans as compared to higher-income whites and other subpopulations were much less likely to be married, although most of them reported they were single as opposed to cohabiting. The majority (60%) of low-income African American females age 20-44 were single parenting. The discussion presents recommendations for improving the measurement of living arrangements that may provide greater insight into transient domesticity. The discussion also examines possible improvements to our conceptualization of transient domesticity.

Drawing on standpoint and intersectionality theories, this study explores the degree to which interactions among New York State's Rockefeller Drug Laws, educational and welfare policies have contributed to the maintenance of a culture of surveillance in which the lives of impoverished African Americans are overseen and influenced by oppressive policies and governmental institutions. Qualitative secondary analysis of longitudinal ethnographic data was conducted. Findings demonstrate multiple disadvantages that impoverished African American families struggling with substance use and/or sale experience. These disadvantages accumulated intergenerationally, in a snowball effect making it difficult for participants to maintain stable lives. Findings explored the tension between participants' experiences with oppression and the multiple ways they either assimilated or resisted their oppression. New sensitive policies informed by standpoint, intersectionality, and Afrocentric perspectives must be developed to increase the availability of meaningful employment and strengthening impoverished African American communities.

Oppression against Black women continues to be a significant problem in the United States. The purpose of this study is to use grounded theory to identify multiple dimensions of oppression experienced by impoverished Black women who use drugs by examining several settings in which participants experience oppression. Three case studies of drug using, impoverished Black women were randomly selected from two large scale consecutive ethnographic studies conducted in New York City from 1998 to 2005. Analysis revealed five dimensions of oppression occurring within eight distinct settings. While dimensions constitute different manifestations of oppression, settings represented areas within participants' lives or institutions with which participants interact. Dimensions of oppression included classism, sexism, familism, racism, and drugism. Settings included the school system, correction system, welfare system, housing and neighborhood, relationship with men, family, experiences with drug use, and employment. Findings have important implications for social justice, welfare, drug, and justice system policy.

This paper analyzes illicit drug markets in New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina and access to drug markets following evacuation at many locations and in Houston. Among New Orleans arrestees pre-Katrina, rates of crack and heroin use and market participation was comparable to New York and higher than in other southern cities. Both cities have vigorous outdoor drug markets. Over 100 New Orleans evacuees provide rich accounts describing the illicit markets in New Orleans and elsewhere. The flooding of New Orleans disrupted the city's flourishing drug markets, both during and immediately after the storm. Drug supplies, though limited, were never completely unavailable. Subjects reported that alcohol or drugs were not being used in the Houston Astrodome, and it was a supportive environment. Outside the Astrodome, they were often approached by or could easily locate middlemen and drug sellers. Evacuees could typically access illegal drug markets wherever they went. This paper analyzes the impact of a major disaster upon users of illegal drugs and the illegal drug markets in New Orleans and among the diaspora of New Orleans evacuees following Hurricane Katrina. This analysis includes data from criminal justice sources that specify what the drug markets were like before this disaster occurred. This analysis also includes some comparison cities where no disaster occurred, but which help inform the similarities and differences in drug markets in other cities. The data presented also include an initial analysis of ethnographic interview data from over 100 New Orleans Evacuees recruited in New Orleans and Houston.

Using the case of synthetic cathinones (commonly referred to as 'bath salts' in the US context), this paper analyzes structural factors surrounding novel psychoactive substances (NPS) as contributing to the unique risk environment surrounding their use. Drawing on interviews with 39 people who use bath salts from four U.S. cities and analysis of the infrastructural, social, economic, and policy contexts, we document the unique harms related to changing contexts for illicit drug regulation, manufacture, and consumption. Findings suggest that NPS and designer drug markets, which are highly reliant upon the internet, share characteristics of the entertainment industry which has come to rely more heavily upon profits derived from the 'long tail' of myriad lesser-known products and the diminished centrality of 'superstars' and 'hits'. Findings point toward increased theoretical and policy attention to changing drug market structures, more rigorous evaluations of drug 'analogues' legislation and greater involvement with NPS education and testing by harm reduction agencies.