The American Drug Scene: An Anthology

Now in its sixth edition, The American Drug Scene, edited by James A. Inciardi and Karen McElrath, is a collection of contemporary and classic articles on the changing patterns, problems, perspectives, and policies of legal and illicit drug use. Offering a unique focus on the social contexts in which drug usage, drug-related problems, and drug policies occur, it presents theoretical and descriptive material drawn from both ethnographic and quantitative sources.

The American Drug Scene, Sixth Edition, features forty-two selections that cover all abused drugs--amphetamines and methamphetamines, opiates, marijuana, cocaine and crack, hallucinogens, and "club drugs"--as well as such legal substances as alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs. Other topics include gender and addiction; cross-cultural research into drug use; the relationship between drugs, violence, and street crime; the symbolic meaning of drug taking; injection drug use; the social construction of drug problems and moral panics; prevention and treatment; and the drug legalization debate.

The sixth edition includes thirteen new articles that address recent and emerging patterns of drug use and policy debates, including crystal methamphetamine abuse among gay men; MDMA/ecstasy and the club scene; anabolic steroid use by bodybuilders; medical marijuana; prescription opiate abuse; the relatively recent use of khat in the U.S.; and salvia divinorum use among college students.