CRUZ, Olga Souza; MACHADO, Carla    FERNANDES, Luís. O ‘problema da droga’: Sua construção, desconstrução e reconstrução. []. , 30, 1-2, pp.49-61. ISSN 0870-8231.

Negative representations regarding the use of psychoactive substances have long been prevailing, because this practice continues to be analyzed from a problematic standpoint. Alternative forms of illicit drug use persist, therefore, doomed to relative ignorance. It continues to be avoided the debate about the hedonistic dimensions of illicit drug use and about the patterns of illicit drug use that are effectively conciliated with the ‘conventional’ life. However, in the last years there has been an increase of academic work (mainly anthropological and sociological) that focus on experiences of illicit drug use that do not fit in ‘problematic’ patterns and that provide a more proper understanding about this practice and about its protagonists. Such studies have shown that the use of illicit drugs, just as it was constructed as a problem, can be deconstructed and reconstructed in alternative ways, thus defying the dominant discourses. This exercise of constructing and deconstructing the ‘drug problem’, as well as reconstructing this phenomenon in alternative ways is the main purpose of the present article.

: Illicit drug use; ‘Non problematic’ use of illicit drugs; ‘Problematic’ use of illicit drugs.

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