Characteristics and social representation of ecstasy in Europe - Irefrea

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of a professional career. It is easy to get the feeling that things start at the same pointyear after year.If we take a quick look to the situation of prevention in USA the first impression,can be as problematic as in Europe, but some considerations will help to clarify thedifferences. First of all we have to take into account the important investment ofeconomic and human resources comparing to Europe. The negative side will be, fromour point of view, that most of the programs are just oriented to the total abstinence, thatthe general atmosphere of war on drugs is quite unrealistic and not allows to make otherpreventive approaches to the problem, and that the mostly used programs are not thatones that have been evaluated by professionals, but programs chosen on the bases ofideology. There is also a positive part of the American programs as it is the importantinvestment in the research of the risk and protective factors as predictors of the use ofdrugs and other deviant behaviour of young people (longitudinal studies, etc). This bigresearch effort permits to prepare programs connected to this predictors, that haveshown its efficacy after being evaluated. A similar research policy should be appliedacross Europe with the aim to establish the situation of our risk and protective factorsin the different European countries.The poor technical and professional development of prevention in Europe defines atypical situation where decisions can be made without an adequate balance. The socialalarm can carry to seek or to accept supposed solutions without scientific evidences ordiscussions to support them. The situation of prevention in Europe still needs of a longand intensive period of work to clarify positions and orientations and a big effort in thearea of basic and applied research should be made. Our bet is that the European societycould respond better to the prevention programs because the social atmosphere allowsthe implementation of programs more adapted to the needs of our young people, withoutthe exaggerated negative and deviant connotations that the use of drugs has in the USA.Given this state of affairs may be it is risky to define an exclusive preventive strategyof the ecstasy and other synthetic drugs without taking into account this more generalcontext of prevention. The ideal situation will be to have a more defined preventiveframe and then to try to fit into this general and comprehensive approach the specialcase of the designer drugs. Of course, this is not the situation and we need to give someanswers to the widespread use of designer drugs. This present study provides someresults leading to some reflections, giving us the opportunity to propose somehypothesis and even to think about some practical directions of the preventive policiesrelated to ecstasy.A UNIQUE APPROACH FOR EVERYBODY?One of the most important discoveries of this study is that there is no similarity betweenthe social representation of ecstasy users and non users. There is a consistent tendency inour survey to find out what people think, understand or interact with ecstasy through or onthe basis of two associative chains or social representation (the attributed effects and is216
implied danger), but depending on whether they are consumers or not, people arepositioned for or against.We have observed that the non XTC users have a more cautious attitude. They arein a significant way more preoccupied by the dangers associated with the use of thisdrug (for example its addictive or unforeseeable effects) and less interested in using thisdrug to have fun or to keep awake or to evade reality. We know also that the ecstasyusers are more sensation seeker and social deviant than non users.Further research must be done to understand better the nature and function of socialrepresentation. Our hypothesis is that the messages transmitted by preventivecampaigns only will be effective if they connect with the social representation schemaof young people. On the contrary, they will be ineffective or, even worse,counterpreventive if they do not connect or reinforce inadequate social representations.It looks like there should be a different approach on prevention of those who arealready users and prevention of those who have not yet used the substance since, as wehave seen, the social representations of both groups do not coincide and, therefore, anew strategy should be applied.To keep this differences in mind are important when planning prevention strategies.In the case that the target group of a campaign is very wide, we think that there shouldbe an especial interest not to weaken this “cautious” attitude of non consumers. As wehave seen in the past chapter some preventive orientations just take care of theconsumers and do not bother at all about the non consumers. We believe that a moreintegral approach should be more appropriate.IS IT A SEPARATED PREVENTIVE APPROACH FOR DESIGNER DRUGS JUSTIFIED?In a recent review of the use of stimulants (Kaplan et al., 1994) it is considered thatits use has epidemic patterns and that too many preventive efforts can becounterpreventive. Even that it is always difficult to make generalisations in the field ofdrugs or in the area of prevention, this statement can be useful as a warning that noteverything is worth.As it has been said, the ideal situation to conceive the prevention of designer drugswill be into a wider and comprehensive preventive strategy. Ecstasy is just a productthat can change through the time in its way to be used, in the amount of pills taken everytime, in the simultaneous use with other drugs, in the affinities with youth culture,..Some data of this investigation, coincident with other epidemiological studies, indicatesthat ecstasy is forming part of a wider drugs constellation, against a widely widespreadstereotype. According to this stereotype the ecstasy consumers were some exclusive anddifferentiate to the rest of persons that use or misuse of drugs. Within this cliché wasthe idea that they were youths taking exclusively ecstasy and quite capable to exercisea control over the substance. The only dangers of this consumption would come fromthe adulteration of the product and the ignorance of some procedures on its use to avoidproblems (e.g. to drink water and to rest to avoid the heat stroke).217
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ORGANISATIONS AND NATIONAL RESEARCH
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This volume is dedicated very speci
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PRESENTATIONIt’s a great pleasure
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INDEXPág.1. INTRODUCTION . . . . .
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1. INTRODUCTION1.1. DESIGNER DRUGS,
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the most widely used because its ef
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All this led to the famous English
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had used it in the preceding month.
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had used ecstasy or a similar subst
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school population found a prevalenc
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isk factors among adolescents (Cala
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make quantitative what is qualitati
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concentrated in ecstasy use. A stud
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the others versions but with less i
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3. SAMPLE DESIGN AND FIELD WORK3.1.
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Two different methods were suggeste
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according to drug use level. Finall
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We came into contact with eight ind
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4. SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC BACKGROUNDINTRO
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We did not think it would be necess
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STUDY LEVEL (% on global sample; %
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In Utrecht, most of the young peopl
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SUMMARYWe remind again that, in spi
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This classification will be used fr
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Montagne, 1992) or Rimini, in Italy
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RELIGION PRACTITIONER (% on global
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It stands out the high percentage o
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Amphetamines are often used with fr
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In the Utrecht sample, however, alt
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GLOBAL SAMPLE ANSWERSThe most popul
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These data are interesting in order
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WITH WHOM TO CONSUME ECSTASY? (In %
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As we have already seen in other ta
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6. SENSATION SEEKING SCALE (SSS)6.1
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correlation’s varies in function
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consumers sample comprises individu
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DISINHIBITION (DIS)Modena, Palma an
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y the non-consumer groups. In addit
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Once again, on the Boredom Suscepti
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this new scale. The individuals bel
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Still following psychoanalysis, Koh
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seeking scale, the hypotheses for t
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SDS results according to sexSexPunc
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understanding and explaining realit
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there would be two more or less dif
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RELATION BETWEEN ECSTASY AND SEXThe
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of medicaments. In fact, they are p
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In any case, it is true indeed that
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Well aware that these interpretatio
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with others, facilitates being able
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8.3.2. Social Representation in the
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with problems”, “the problem wi
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feel good”, “it causes euphoria
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Therefore, and taking into account
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appear in the diagram, as they have
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as one of the reasons for taking ec
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In the C diagram we see distributio
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shy people” and “escape from re
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We believe the adequate way of inte
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In the C group there are five compo
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ecause ecstasy use is connected wit
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Nowadays, three studies are being c
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can become addictive conducts and h
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therapeutic virtues that have been
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CESDIP/CNRS, Centre d’Etudes et d
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The Interior Ministry considers tha
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In spite of the methodological limi
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directed at investigating the quali
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follows; 60 % hash/marihuana, 11% e
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The results highlighted that respon
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young people interviewed considered
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In the last few years, however, in
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04) Ensuring that water is availabl
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♦ Zini G., Indagine sul consumo d
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Ossebaard, H.C. (1996). Drugspreven
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From the secondary school populatio
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Huizer, H. (1996). Rapport over het
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A related theme is to describe toda
Page 164 and 165: Verhulst, J. (1996). XTC kan altijd
Page 166 and 167: Because this review is meant to giv
Page 168 and 169: 170Mudde, L. (1997). ‘XTC is nog
Page 170 and 171: 2) The second research was carried
Page 172 and 173: Even so it is possible to make a di
Page 174 and 175: At the round table of social Analys
Page 176 and 177: 2. Press articles regarding ecstasy
Page 178 and 179: Comas Arnau D, Velázquez Andrés J
Page 180 and 181: 182estimulantes. p. 111-29.Salazar
Page 182 and 183: to the middle and upper classes. Th
Page 184 and 185: The culturally sensitive poly-consu
Page 186 and 187: SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS OF CONSUMERS
Page 188 and 189: stereotype, there was also the mess
Page 190 and 191: their habitual environment, without
Page 192 and 193: experiment with drugs such as heroi
Page 194 and 195: This policy is being received very
Page 196 and 197: SPECIFIC EUROPEAN PREVENTIVE CAMPAI
Page 198 and 199: The material used was a triptych, c
Page 200 and 201: establishments. This first initiati
Page 202 and 203: The latest campaign which formed pa
Page 204 and 205: NETHERLANDSIn Holland, there have b
Page 206 and 207: Don’t force yourself to be always
Page 208 and 209: preventive strategies related to ec
Page 210 and 211: Within the harm minimisation strate
Page 213: 11. PREVENTION PROPOSALSPREVENTION
Page 217 and 218: Despite the different policies on d
Page 219 and 220: 12. GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY001. Abric,
Page 221 and 222: 031. Díaz, A., Barruti, M. and Don
Page 223 and 224: misuse. Addiction 89.068. Kandel, D
Page 225 and 226: 102. O’Rourke, P.J. (1985) Tune i
Page 227: 137. Ureña, M.M. and Serra, F. (19
Page 230 and 231: The interview will be semi-structur
Page 232 and 233: ♦ which subjects are the most fre
Page 235 and 236: ANNEX 3QUESTIONNAIRE OF SOCIALREPRE
Page 237 and 238: 06. Birthplace (city and country):-
Page 239 and 240: 19. In the last three months, how m
Page 241 and 242: 30. Have you taken any other substa
Page 243 and 244: Next sentences are about your prefe
Page 245 and 246: SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONSINSTRUCTIONSB
Page 247 and 248: ANNEX 4PROTOCOL TO RECRUIT THE DISC
Page 249 and 250: ⇒ envelopes with stamp and addres
Page 251: I R E F R E AIREFREA is a european
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