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"New"
The High Life: Club Kids, Harm and Drug Policy (Qualitative Studies in Crime and Justice, volume 2)
Dina Perrone
(paperback)
2009, 220 pages
ISBN: 978-1-881798-46-0
$35.00

A study of New York City drug users (ages 22-33) who self-identify as (dance) “club kids” challenges stereotypes of the typical drug user and common assumptions about controlling drug-related harms. Ethnographic research illuminates the club kids’ distinctive subculture, describes their patterns of drug use, and explores the factors that protect them from harms such as arrests and illness. Richly detailed and remarkably candid interview data vividly portray how the subjects manage to maintain productive, middle-class lifestyles despite engaging in heavy drug use.

Dr. Perrone situates the club kids in a historical perspective as a subculture with distinctive rituals, styles, tastes and cultural norms. The emergence of club kid culture and the clubbing experience are in conformity with current worldwide trends in consumption, commercialization and globalization.

The data indicate that the club kids’ strive to protect themselves from harms by their choices among drugs, the settings where they use drugs, and their mindsets during use. Also facilitating controlled drug use are the subjects’ high levels of economic and social capital, ample life and job skills (human capital), extensive social networks, and maturation through the typical life-course of educated middle class Americans.

The threat of criminal justice sanctions was not a significant factor in the club kids’ moderation in drug use, efforts at harm avoidance, or eventual desistance. Instead, the club kids’ cultural norms and socio-economic statuses were the predominant influences on their drug use and experiences. Implications for national drug policy are assessed.

"Perrone provides a thought-provoking discussion that challenges the majority of literature on drug use. The study is invaluable ... as it questions current failing policy in the U.S. and offers new ways of conceptualizing the culture and context of drug use." Lucy Gibson, from a review in "Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music," vol. 1, no. 1 (2009).

"..it is beautifully written, the topic sensitively approached and the theoretical approach sophisticated and wide ranging... this book is a comprehensive account that is both nuanced, intimate and complex, which provides the reader with insights into the role of drugs within the lives of these young people." Geoffrey P. Hunt, Ph.D., Senior Research Associate, Institute for Scientific Analysis

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