Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

The mini-block is made up of two items, “ecstasy helps to keep you awake” and “itis a reasonably priced drug”. We understand that the interpretation of this block is noother than ecstasy helps to keep you awake at a reasonable price. We understand thatthis mini-block forms part of the same constellation of the “effects” block. In fact, if welook at the diagram where all the significant associations at 5% can be seen, we findthat “keeps you awake” is associated more with “ecstasy relaxes you” and “it’s great forparties because you can keep going all night”. However, in this 5% diagram,“reasonable price” maintains a relationship with “causes death”.8.3.3. Social representation in Coimbra (Portugal)The initial impression on looking at the diagram for a 5% signification degree forthe consumer group (C) of the social representations in Coimbra is that it shows asituation which is different from the other cities. Two separate and unconnected blocksdo not emerge in this diagram; at first glance there is only one. The items are not strictlyseparate as in the other diagrams where we can appreciate a chain of representationscentred on the effects of ecstasy and another centred on the implied problematic ofecstasy. On the contrary, we see only one block because connections have beenestablished between items which have not been associated until now.As for the diagram of the non-consumers group (NC), once again we see twodistinctly different blocks, two chains of associations with no interconnection whichrespond to the two habitual views of ecstasy in accordance with their effects or theirproblematic, even if the distribution of items in each group is different from thedistributions found in other cities. In other words, some items which were alwayssituated in the “effects” block now become part of the “problematic” block and viceversa.We will go on to indicate the differences in the Coimbra diagrams in comparisonwith other cities, in order to see if these changes break the tendency to see ecstasy fromthe perspectives of “effects” and “problematic”. At the same time, we will also see towhat extent the differences found between the Portuguese C and NC groups differ fromthose found in other countries.As we can see in the diagram, there is apparently one single block formed of all thevariables when we establish a 5% degree of signification. But if we study therelationships established between the items in greater depth, we see that basically thesetend to relate amongst themselves in the same way as when there are only two blocks,with the difference that there are some extra relationships and an item that changeposition. There is the typical nucleus on the dangers, formed by the three items “itcauses death”, “it’s a dangerous drug because it leads to addiction” and “taking ecstasywithout taking preventive measures is dangerous”. This nucleus shows up clearly if weincrease the signification above a Kendal Tau-b of 20. The other nucleus around theeffects attributed to ecstasy is also well conserved. Basically, it deals with “it makes you113