"Facing the Dragon" av Flore Singer Åslid

[Anonym bruker]

Dr.polit. thesis

Flore Singer Aaslid

Facing the Dragon

Exploring a conscious phenomenology of intoxication

NTNU Trondheim

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Dr.polit.thesis 2006

Department of Social Anthropology

Facing the Dragon

Just six hundred years ago,

maps of the known world contained the inscription,

"Here there be dragons," indicating

terra incognita about which we knew

nothing and hence feared to tread.

Today we find this viewpoint

exceedingly quaint. What changed?

Knowledge and information was

gathered by souls brave enough to

challenge orthodoxy and venture into

those uncharted realms inhabited by

dragons. They returned with first-hand

information that refuted "common

knowledge" and led to a revised worldview.

Today, knowledge of our physical

environment has expanded beyond

belief. Regarding our inner

environment, however, many still fear

that "here there be dragons".

MAPS in Tricycle, Fall1996

Contents

Acknowledgements i

Prologue iii

Chapter One 1

Background – Reassessing Contemporary Drug Research

1.1 – Ethnography and drug research, 1

1.2 – Intoxicology today, 4

1.3 – Hegemony and health, 8

1.4 – A critical query, 10

1.5 – Towards a more inclusive user representation, 15

Chapter Two 22

Some Epistemological Considerations

2.1 – Clarifying ambiguities, 22

2.2 – The pattern which connects, 28

2.3 – The tacit dimension, 36

2.4 – Auto-anthropology and the human-as-instrument, 41

2.5 – The field, 47

Chapter Three 56 Framework for Interpretation

3.1 – Navigating the terrain, 56

3.2 – The mythical journey, 64

3.3 – Narrative and the four gates, 66

3.4 – The map, 68

Chapter Four 74

The First Gate – Departure

4.1 – Alexis, 74

4.2 – On the brink of liminality, 76

4.3 – A room of one’s own, 81

4.4 – The voices, 88

4.5 – Summary of the first gate, 94

Chapter Five 96

The Second Gate – Crossing the Threshold

5.1 – Approaching the landscape, 56

5.2 – A cybernetic field, 101

5.3 – The mind made manifest, 106

5.4 – Betwixt and between, 113

5.5 – Summary of the second gate, 118

Chapter Six 119

The Third Gate – Chasing the Dragon

6.1 – Contemporary consumption, 119

6.2 – Out of it, 124

6.3 – Nothing left to lose, 132

6.4 – The dark sun, 136

6.5 – Autopoiesis, 144

6.6 – Summary of the third gate, 147

Chapter Seven 148

The Fourth Gate – The Alchemy of Transformation

7.1 – On addiction and recovery, 148

7.2 – Master of the two worlds, 152

7.3 – Returning with the boon, 158

7.4 – The problem of the fourth, 168

7.5 – Summary of the fourth gate, 179

Chapter Eight 181

Conclusion – A New Beginning

8.1 – The politics of consciousness, 181

8.2 – The journey through the four gates, 186

8.3 – The four quadrants and a unified model, 194

8.4 – Collective transformation, 203

Chapter Nine 211 Implications for Public Policy

9.1 – Towards an integrated society and a positive future, 211

9.2 – Prevention, 213

9.3 – Treatment, 217

9.4 – Social policy, 222

9.5 – Harm reduction, 227

9.6 – Creating an integral space for constructive dialogue, 230

References 235

Acknowledgements

I only pass on to others what has been passed onto me. If there is any lack of learning in my writing, any obscurity of expression or superficial treatment, you may feel sure that it is in such places that I am most original.

St.Bellarmine

Reflecting over how this project came to be, from a tiny hunch, a few sentences scribbled on a piece of paper and many years later, a finished product, has made me realise the true meaning of interdependence. That is to say, how people, circumstances, timing, synchronicity and small strokes of luck all have an enormous effect on how things develop and that in this respect, I have so much to be grateful for. I was very fortunate to have stumbled into an academic milieu that, as I have come to appreciate later, is actually quite unusual in terms of having both a broad and exceptionally advanced level of scientific awareness, coupled with the capacity to allow true creative expression to emerge freely, and undistorted. This is especially thanks to one man in particular, Dr. Stein E. Johansen, my advisor, who has played a major role in supporting this process and guiding my research from start to finish.

Many of the analytical insights here have been inspired by seminars and more informal dialogue with colleagues who are a part of this highly innovative and encouraging environment. Martin Thomassen, with his anthropological analysis of food, consumption and eating practices, was a major catalyst for some of the ideas that were to give birth to this project. Erling Hoff Leirvik, with his integral vision and skilful mastery of depth psychology (in both theory and practice!) has been an invaluable friend and source of knowledge. A seminar with Solrun Williksen was the inspiration for the narrative approach incorporated here, while guest appearances by Nigel Rapport opened my eyes to the power and potential of a new conscious anthropology. Håkon Fyhn, Svein-Halvard Jørgensen, Øyvind Eikrem and Hans Hadders have also contributed, each in their own unique way, towards this investigation. While Melanie Claire Purcell, whom I was fortunate enough to meet at the final critical stage of this process, helped me finally understand some of the deeper implications of the mysterious Klein bottle, and as a consequence, I was able to weave together many loose threads.

As every researcher knows, funding is also a vital element towards the realisation of any project, and here I would like to express my gratitude to the NFR (Research Counsel of

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Norway) for generous financial support and NAD ( Nordic Council for Alcohol and Drug Research) for sponsoring numerous research courses and important publications that have been essential for my work. The staff at the department of social anthropology at NTNU have also been supportive in many ways, and Gunn Kyrkjeeide in particular, who has a unique and remarkable capacity for being both extremely effective and exceptionally kind and compassionate in her dealings with people.

With regards to drug research, and qualitative research in particular, the individuals participating in a study are unquestionably the most important source of knowledge and expertise, without their contribution, researchers would be fumbling hopelessly in the dark. Here also I have been extremely fortunate to have met and learned from some extraordinary people who have opened their world and shared their life stories, many of which were often exceedingly personal. It is because of them that this exploration has been possible at all, they have been crucial to this project – those with the real experience and insight – the many who I talked to and have known well who walk the path. I thank them all for being willing to share the richness and difficulty of their lives. For those who are no longer with us in a physical way, I dedicate the friendship and insight that they have shown me to alleviating the pain and suffering that others still experience on their journey.

I would like to thank my family here in Trondheim who has stood by me throughout this process. Tove Hefte, for continuing moral support, her kind-heartedness and wise counsel have taught me more than any book ever could. Kyrre Hokstad, for his company on desperately needed nature expeditions in the mountains, and Morten Nordby, for being a loving father to my son. In Creation Myths there is a peculiar disorder that Von Franz has described as “preconscious creative inflation”, where “People sometimes resist becoming creative because one’s would-be creativeness is always so much more impressive and important than the little egg one lays in the end when the birth takes place” (1972: 85). In this regard I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my very dear friend Alastair Bullock for helping me face and overcome my own “preconscious creative inflation” and for his crucial role and midwifery skills in assisting the birth of my little egg. Finally, I would like to thank my father for teaching me to respect and harness the creative power of the mind, and my mother, for teaching me to listen and learn from the wisdom of the heart.

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Prologue

For quite some time now, I have experienced a strong and persistent feeling that there was something I wanted to say about this volatile yet intriguing subject matter that drugs and intoxication have become. If I was going to put a finger on the time when this feeling started or from where it arose I’m not sure I could. Yet, after having spent several years researching and writing about drugs, specifically addiction and the process of rehabilitation, I have been left with the distinct impression that for every documented case of drug abuse and every treatise dealing with the drug problem, there frequently lay more information and power in what wasn’t being said than in what was actually being stated explicitly, an observation which I will explore and expand on throughout this thesis. At the time when I first started noticing this shadowy realm in drug research and conventional drug discourse in general, I was still rather young, highly inexperienced and regarded myself as being in no position to explore let alone articulate this observation. Nevertheless, this feeling, unlike most fleeting sentiments which are transient by nature, never completely disappeared. On the contrary, it has grown stronger with time, eventually compelling me to investigate some obscure yet exciting new territories that I might have otherwise conveniently avoided at the risk of breaking what appears to be some kind of unwritten code among social scientists in the drug field.

The fascination with what wasn’t being said first became the tentative point of departure for my master’s thesis and introduced me to concepts like folk models, professional models, muted discourse and hegemony, where knowledge and power meet and mingle to create a boundary between acceptable and unacceptable ways of thinking and speaking about drugs. Then, in the autumn of 2003, I was given the opportunity to further my explorations, this time based on research among primarily untreated, hidden user populations here in Trondheim, Norway. This group then became the point of departure for this study. By focusing on these largely ignored user groups in a natural, non-clinical setting I hoped to investigate the nature of different user trajectories with a strong focus on research anomalies such as recreational drug use, self-change and natural recovery. My aspiration was therefore to fill this conspicuous gap in contemporary drug research.

This gap became even more apparent during the initial exploratory phase. The more I read and investigated, the more aware I became of some serious constraints in contemporary drug research, serving as a kind of invisible straight jacket in terms of what was and wasn’t

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regarded as an acceptable focus, or area of investigation. I recall discussing this with an acquaintance who had spent some time examining drug publications himself, trying to find answers to his own destructive user pattern. His overall impression of current studies was that no matter how well researched or well written the findings appeared to be on the surface he just couldn’t recognize himself in the actual text. His drug habit wasn’t particularly unusual either; he had had a rather problematic opiate addiction before but was now doing quite well with methadone, not unlike several of the participants in my first project (Aaslid 2003). His reaction only confirmed what I had felt after numerous conferences and extensive readings on the subject over several years. It seems as if drug users, seen as living, breathing, conscious agents, somehow become transformed into ghosts in the final draft, depicted with cold detachment as if they were from another realm, then eerily transformed into faceless entities with no voice.

The limitations or implicit restrictions that prevent a more genuine, vivid and representative portrayal of drug users are closely related to a recurring tendency within the drug field for professional models to reflect what has been referred to as a hegemonic health model (Hunt & Barker 2001). This model represents a highly essentialist view of illicit substances which in turn has a tendency to reduce users into passive victims of their vice. This type of categorization both de-contextualises behavioural patterns and has an overall disempowering and dehumanising effect in terms of denying the user any kind of independent agency, while simultaneously diverting attention away from the larger social forces which influence drug taking trends. In adopting these perspectives uncritically, professionals are all too often blinded by the underlying assumptions ingrained within a problem-based public health model, which affects both the nature of the inquiry, the types of people included in an investigation, as well as the manner in which these findings are analyzed and portrayed.

Another closely related problematic area concerns the epistemological and ontological foundations upon which most research within the human sciences, and drug research in particular, is based. Despite the fact that numerous developments and discoveries in twentieth-century science seriously challenge the underlying philosophical assumptions of the positivist paradigm, it still continues to dominate scientific investigations. Paradoxically, in physics for instance, relativity theory, quantum mechanics and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle have shown increasingly that reality is not simply a single external phenomenon that can be objectively understood by a detached observer quantifying its parts. Rather, the

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observer is always and unavoidably a part of what is observed since reality is filtered through one’s own particular prism of perceptions, and every research process therefore reflects this interdependence to a greater or lesser degree. If this applies to the physical universe, then it certainly pertains even more to social studies, where human complexity enters the equation and values shape both one’s own understanding as well as the nature of an inquiry as a whole. Qualitative approaches have been increasingly employed as a promising new alternative, but unfortunately few people seem to agree on what these methodologies actually mean, or be able to fully incorporate an alternative epistemology upon which more adequate approaches could be based.

Still, there is a desperate need for a paradigm shift that is both more attuned to recent scientific developments and is able to accurately reflect the complexity and interdependence of continually evolving dynamic systems at every level. This is especially evident within the field of drug research which, despite the fact that intoxication represents a highly situationally contingent and primarily subjective experience, is largely dominated by methods relying on objective observation, quantifiable data and verifiable truths. Perhaps because intoxication and illicit drug use is such a potentially dangerous field of inquiry, many professionals choose to approach it by employing mostly quantitative and largely disengaged scientific methodologies that minimize investigator involvement and subjectivity, while maximizing separation and objectivity. This approach can accurately reflect large-scale statistical developments related to drug taking trends, and so represents an essential piece of the puzzle in that respect. However, when it comes to individual user trajectories in particular, there are many weaknesses within quantitative approaches that prevent a deeper analysis from emerging which accurately reflects, thus failing to do justice to the many interrelated variables affecting user experiences and the process as a whole.

The present study therefore seeks to explore an alternative to the positivist paradigm currently dominating drug research by employing a highly context sensitive phenomenological approach which respects and acknowledges the perspective and interactive role of the observer, as well as the world views and values of the participants included in this inquiry. The aim is not to prove or disprove a set of theoretical assumptions or generalizations, but rather to focus on the process of discovery as it reflects the contextual findings and multiple patterns of meaning that emerge from the actual lived experiences of the participants themselves. Previous ethnographic accounts have had a major influence in the drug field in

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terms of emphasizing an emic model or the “user’s point of view”, however, most of these have been based largely on the street subculture with one substance in particular, like crack or heroin, as the primary area of focus. Although I had originally intended to divide my respondents into different categories based on the extent and type of substance used, I soon discovered that most of them were “poly-users” who had often alternated between many kinds of consumption patterns, and that separate categories would therefore not adequately reflect user experiences as a whole. Here “the field” is therefore not restricted to the streets, nor is it tied to any one particular substance, subculture or type of user pattern.

Somewhat conveniently, for the past ten years I have lived in a neighbourhood where substance use and abuse (of both drugs and alcohol) seems to be proportionally larger than in many other parts of Trondheim (or perhaps just more visible). Consequently, “fieldwork” would often naturally arise from an afternoon walk to the store, a late night gathering in a respectable (or not so respectable) home, a local pub, a shopping centre or the park across the street. In short, anywhere there were people with an inclination towards some form of illicit intoxication. Nevertheless, when it comes to conducting fieldwork among any drug population, special precautions must be taken to protect those participating in the project regarding their identity in particular. In theory, informed consent should be obtained from all participants included in a study. In practice however, walking up to the average drug user, without previously having established a good foundation of trust, and asking them to sign a piece of paper which explicitly states that they are participating in a DRUG research project would most likely send even the least paranoid prospective participants fleeing swiftly in the opposite direction. To remedy this dilemma, fieldwork was supplemented with in-depth interviews based on purposive sampling of ten consenting respondents to illustrate a broad variety of different user trajectories. Their names have been changed and sensitive data either left out or disguised so that their anonymity is not compromised. Surprisingly, as this project became more and more widely known among different user populations, many expressed a strong desire to participate and tell their story. Out of respect and consideration for those with which I have conversed and interacted in more informal settings, no personal information has been included, although their experiences have inspired many of the insights which form the basis of this approach.

Consciousness is a notoriously elusive and difficult field of inquiry for many reasons, and the subject of intoxication even more so, since it has, for quite some time now, been

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enshrouded in a mist of politicized morality backed, more often than not, by waves of social hysteria. Whether one chooses to condone or condemn these inner escapades of the mind, the fact of the matter is that the inclination to ingest substances for the sole purpose of altering consciousness dates back to Neolithic times. However, even though the drive itself is ancient and widespread, the extent to which this drive seems to have gained momentum in contemporary society, reaching disturbingly destructive proportions, is a relatively new development, and for this reason the discussion would be incomplete without situating the subject matter within a historical context.

The aim of this thesis is therefore twofold. On the one hand it attempts to explore and develop the foundations of what I will term a “conscious phenomenology of intoxication”, and on the other hand it suggests how certain widespread contemporary trends are influential in terms of serving as a meta-template within which this phenomenology is presently being expressed. By including a conscious user perspective, it is hoped that attention will be drawn to a voice which has been consistently muted and distorted, if included at all, in the current monopoly of politically correct drug discourse. Although the main focus here is the user’s perspective, it would be preposterous to claim that every drug user can be neatly confined into one category and given one voice. Indeed, one would have to search far and wide to discover a less homogenous group of people, whose only real affiliation is a common appreciation for and experimentation with different types of substance-induced states of consciousness. Given that intoxication is ultimately a subjective experience whose effects can only be measured and quantified objectively to a limited extent, it becomes clear why a phenomenological approach is so appropriate. In phenomenology the focus is on conscious human experience in everyday life, of life-worlds, that stream of every-day routines, interactions and events that serve as the source of individual experience and social relations. The experiences of time and space are significant because time structures not only everyday reality, but in many ways who we are and how we perceive ourselves and our world. Intoxication can alter these experiences fundamentally; it can create a ‘time-out’ where conventional codes are somehow less relevant or do not apply at all.

In contextualizing the discussion historically, a phenomenology of intoxication can be placed within a contemporary framework specifically related to the postmodern identity project and consumerism that in many ways epitomize our present epoch. Consumerism is based on the construction of insatiable appetites; we live in an age of “hungry ghosts”, to

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borrow a term from Tibetan Buddhism. Identity mechanisms are, to a large extent, determined by patterns of consumption and acquisition although paradoxically, whether it is material or symbolic capital that is obtained, it never seems to be quite enough. There are always more appetites to be filled, and more products to be consumed. Therefore, in situating the phenomenology of intoxication within a matrix of consumerism, it is tentatively proposed that the unmentionable Other, in this context drug addicts of the most zealous variety, are perhaps not so unlike the rest of us after all. Perhaps they embody and epitomize a force which is so all-pervasive and all-encompassing that it is hardly even noticeable until it reveals its true face behind this rather unseemly and shocking disguise. In this respect we all share a common ground so to speak, both in terms of that relentless, insatiable force which so permeates our lives and our being, as well as the desire to transcend that force, to rise above it and find peace.

By directing attention towards a conscious phenomenology of intoxication, there is no intention to romanticize drugs, or belittle the unfortunate consequences that may result from reckless use. Rather, there is the conviction that it will only be through including these perspectives that researchers can hope to break the current stalemate which seems to have pervaded contemporary drug discourse. In doing this a deeper understanding of the underlying dynamics and complexities that govern the drive for intoxication, and how this drive is interpreted, regulated and given meaning by those closest to its use, can be attained.

The first chapter serves as the background and point of departure for this exploration by presenting a short overview of different contributions in the field of drug research and drug literature up until the present. The problematic implications of the political climate within which most drug texts are embedded today are also examined critically in terms of how they affect drug writing and drug discourse, especially regarding the limitations of the widely accepted public health model in terms of how ingested substances are categorized and the manner in which drug users are perceived and portrayed. The second chapter examines the dominant scientific paradigm as it is reflected in the epistemology and ontology guiding contemporary drug research. It is argued that an alternative qualitative approach, when implemented correctly, is not only more flexible and productive in terms of gaining a deeper understanding of the dynamics underlying many consumption patterns today, but is also essential if any significant progress is to be made at all. The methodology that provides the foundation for this exploration is presented here in addition to some clarifications regarding my own role and motivation. The third chapter presents the theoretical and analytical

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framework underlying a conscious phenomenology of intoxication. In order to fully portray different user trajectories as they are experienced by the respondents themselves, a narrative approach is employed since this reflects individual journeys and personalized truth, yet can also be seen as a deeper commentary of contemporary culture and shared understandings. These are narratives reflecting long-term user trajectories where both entry and exit processes are incorporated, as well as that somewhat elusive and largely underrepresented “betwixt and between” phase.

Based on these narratives, a deep pattern emerged gradually. However, this pattern was not based exclusively on consumption practices, but on the underlying dialectics between agency and communion that reflected a system of relational exchange within which different types of consumption practices were embedded. This can be portrayed as a continual, dynamic dance involving two principal dialectics with four different seasons. Accordingly, four “gates” symbolize this dynamic to invoke a sense of process, movement and change that visually depicts the corresponding transition from one locus of identification to another. Then again, this does not imply that every drug user passes through each gate, many never venture beyond the first “exploratory” phase, so this is by no means intended to be yet another simplistic “gateway theory”. The gates, as they are employed here basically represent a useful metaphor and heuristic tool for unveiling the processual quality and transformational potential of the more lasting trajectories.

The fourth chapter initiates this journey where the first gate marks the “entry” into drug experimentation, usually around adolescence, focusing specifically on the drive towards agency and autonomy, and how this is reflected in different user narratives. The fifth chapter concerns the process where consumption patterns become more established and the focus moves towards communion and integration, expressed through an increasing identification with like-minded others. Here the second gate leads towards different personal control mechanisms where boundaries must be continually regulated to encompass changes in both drug practices and identification processes. The sixth chapter takes a closer look at rituals of consumption today and how they are strongly related to our sense of self in postmodern society, reflecting a complex system of relationships based on a holarchy of underlying needs. Often when these needs are not being fulfilled otherwise, a polarized dialectic between self and substance ensues. The third gate then marks the point at which the relationship between self and other is replaced with a dialectic between self and substance as drugs become the

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primary locus of identification, resulting in problematic use, dependency and dramatic stories of dissolution and disintegration. Chapter seven expands further on this theme as it relates to the process of recovery from destructive user patterns and how this is reflected in different narratives. The fourth gate concludes this cycle and symbolizes a kind of return where intoxication may still be part of a lifestyle but not the primary locus of identification. This is especially apparent in narratives of recovery where positive change and transformation are clearly evident based on a healthy recognition and integration of the more problematic aspects of one’s personality.

Chapter eight concludes by reviewing and connecting the main themes emerging from these explorations. The politics of consciousness has a major impact on how drugs are perceived in society today and the manner in which drug research is carried out. In neglecting user experiences that do not conform to conventional beliefs, vital insights are consistently overlooked, preventing a deeper understanding and the possibility of dealing effectively and humanely with the drug problem. The journey through the four gates is both an expression of individual narratives and at the same time a reflection of wider socio-cultural trends and developments. In order to fully incorporate every aspect of drug use and intoxication, an integral model for drug research is presented which embraces both individual and collective factors, and quantitative and qualitative perspectives. These are situated within four quadrants that represent interconnected and interdependent aspects of this complex and challenging field of inquiry. Chapter eight closes by investigating some of the parallels between the dynamics governing the process of transformation in individuals and similar trends manifesting on a global scale as seen in recent studies examining change in organizations and society. Chapter nine expands further on this theme in suggesting some concrete and practical measures for public policy, building on both my own research and the latest findings of the EMCDDA (the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction). These suggestions are based on the premise that any successful program must be grounded in a well-informed, complete and in-depth awareness of the social world that it seeks to improve, where human dignity and respect are essential components and alleviating suffering is the primary objective.

Ultimately, this exploration is guided by the recognition that my role as a researcher is not to judge but to understand, and that based on this understanding the potential for assisting those currently passing through the “gates” may be vastly improved. There are innumerable circumstances that lead people to walk paths perhaps very different from our own, and

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although behavioral models may be useful in predicting outcomes to a certain degree, I propose that it is the inner world of human experience which is the most crucial determining factor. The road towards individuation sometimes involves dangerous, risky and perhaps even highly destructive paths through unchartered territory. The further one walks “off the map” the greater the dangers of permanent injury or even death, not unlike the explorers of the past wandering into wild and unfamiliar terrain. Although no one advocates this particular path it is still a personal choice based on unique circumstances. However, while this is first and foremost an individual choice, there are many indications that wider socio-cultural developments also have a deep impact on personal choices, as individuals struggle for firm footing in our turbulent times. In ignoring both the experiential and wider socio-cultural dimensions affecting individuals embarking on this path, we are marginalizing the very people that we seek to help, by creating a barrier of silence and distrust and thereby perpetuating a highly destructive cycle of exclusion based on fear and ignorance. This exploration seeks to break this cycle by walking through the “unknown, unremembered gate” and creating space for all those voices echoing faintly from the other side, as T.S. Eliot writes in Four Quartets;

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, unremembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half-heard, in the stillness

Between two waves of the sea.

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Chapter

1

Background – Reassessing Contemporary Drug Research

Science cannot increase our understanding of ourselves and our world if it is held captive by our fears.

Stanton Peele

1.1 – Ethnography and drug research

Ethnography has a long tradition of attempting to understand and represent the “native’s point of view”. That there are different ways of being in the world, corresponding to a wide variety of reality constructions for fluctuating moments in time and space is an important insight that has arisen out of this approach. There is a growing awareness, especially since the advent of post-modernism, that any dialectic between individual and society must be situated and positioned in order to be rendered truly meaningful. Also, any socio-cultural constructions arising out of this dialectic need be, in light of their very nature, appraised critically. Anthropology has contributed significantly here, yet the resulting cultural critique has, for the most part, been directed towards “The Other” and to a much lesser extent our own native constructs.

One important area which has received far too little scrutiny is the phenomenology of intoxication. In the words of Stuart Walton, this may also be referred to as “ an emergent strand of cultural history that one might call intoxicology – the comparative study of altered states of consciousness, the social contexts in which they are practised, and their implications for public policy”(Walton 2001: 3). Despite the repressive climate initiated by the war against drugs (or perhaps even because of it), there have been significant theoretical developments during the past few decades, specifically in terms of including a user perspective in what is now referred to as ethnographic drug research and moving away from the criminal models popular during the earlier part of the 20th century. The literature available at that time representing an emic perspective usually followed De Quincey’s lead in Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821) by being shocking yet apologetic and in many respects still fitting neatly into the conventional moral paradigm of its time. The focus of the narratives

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changed only slightly from depicting the downfall of upper-class members of society for whom the use of drugs was a “symptom of their preexisting depravity to an obsession with the seduction of the innocent” (Boon 2002: 63). However, what these literary works lacked in terms of scientific rigor they made up for when it came to expressing the more subjective elements of drug consciousness.

Although drug ethnography as a research method is unique in terms of recognizing and respecting the “insiders’ view”, research agendas have been and still are strongly affected by the theoretical models employed to account for user behaviour as well as the manner in which user behaviour was construed (Feldman & Aldrich 1990, Hunt & Barker 2001). Modern drug ethnography started by addressing the question of why people used drugs in the first place, mainly in order to contribute towards a scientific understanding of the meaning of addiction. Lindesmith (1947) in particular was especially critical of the criminal model of addiction, and his qualitative research was used to contrast two views of the phenomenon; drug addiction as crime versus drug addiction as disease. This research became the basis for public discussion relating to the management of drug addiction in the U.S. for the next thirty years (Feldman & Aldrich 1990: 19). During these decades the emphasis shifted away from asking principally why drug use took place towards exploring how people became involved and stayed involved in different drug scenes. Researchers began focusing on influences from the social world instead of mainly investigating the inner realm of experimenters (ibid). From this evolved a “career model” of addiction (Becker 1963), which again provided the basis for further ethnographic explorations, investigating the manner in which drug use was perceived by users within the contexts of where it took place. These studies depart drastically from a conventional pathological view of addiction, and instead point towards more pragmatic accounts of drug use as a means to acquire both self-esteem and status within a setting that valued high-risk behaviour (Feldman & Aldrich 1990: 21).

The strength and contribution of drug ethnography therefore lies specifically in its ability to capture the “natives’ point of view” and in many cases provide explanations of drug use which deeply reflect the socio-cultural context within which this behaviour takes place. Many of the ethnographic views presented directly oppose popular conceptions, and strongly challenge current disease theories of addiction in terms of presenting new concepts which are both more pragmatic and utilitarian (ibid. 25). Nevertheless, the political climate within which drug research takes place is still highly influential in terms of supporting research agendas

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which to a large extent reinforce contemporary political viewpoints (Hunt & Barker 2001) and many of the categories within which one operates in the drug field carry an exceedingly “heavy political and emotional load” (Agar 2002). This applies especially to concepts like “intoxication”, “drugs”, “addiction”, and “sobriety” where the meaning inherent in each concept strongly reflects a hegemonic public health model which is in many cases incompatible with the “folk models” of those closest to the drug and its use (Agar 1985). Not only are these concepts often incompatible, but they can also be directly misleading in terms of obscuring consumption patterns and user trajectories as they are experienced by the user population in question. Most ethnographic reports directly contradict the “social/psychological failure image”, based largely on “top down positivist models, and – as the Frankfurt School showed long ago – such models make it easier for the prevailing ideology to go unchallenged” (Agar 2002: 251);

For example, positive results of using drugs were never reported. Addicts were characterized only in terms of deficits. They were stick figures in the literature, manipulated voices responding to questions that presupposed pathology and social failure, questions from a world that had little sense of who they were or how they lived.

It was not that heroin addicts did not have problems; it was that they had more than just problems, and some of the problems they did have were not visible through the lens of deviance and pathology. So what happened? Ethnography painted a portrait of heroin addicts that did not fit with the prevailing literature, but it also did not generate any new paradigms for policy or intervention. In ethnographies addicts became rounded rather than flat characters. Addicts knew how to do things and took pride in that fact. They made critical and astute comments about society, about the social conditions and social services in their world, about what heroin did - or more often, had done - for them when they started, about how ‘‘the life’’ had its advantages and disadvantages when compared to the alternatives. The predominant social/psychological failure image was included, but it too was complicated and contradicted by ethnographic reports. This is a predictable finding of any ethnography in any field: A snapshot of a population obtained through the limited filter of a few experience-distant variables will not serve to describe or explain what their world is all about (ibid.).

In many respects, anthropology as a discipline is particularly suitable, both in terms of theory and methodology, for an exploration of intoxicology. However, the very reasons that make a subject like this so potent in terms of revealing vital insights into society’s ultimate value system are also, somewhat paradoxically, the same reasons for which most social sciences seem to have timidly shied away from this area of study. The politics of consciousness, as it is expressed through the regulation of altered states, is a potentially rich and informative field where knowledge and power mix and mingle to create a field with enormous potential. This is supported by all the knowledge that is already available relating to “layers of context that telescope out to the level of global economy and magnify in to the details of neurotransmitter firing” (Agar 2002: 255, 257). Therefore, the drug field should be one of the most “exciting transdisciplinary cutting-edge” and “challenging fields on the intellectual landscape” (ibid.) for both quantitative and qualitative researchers. This however

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is unfortunately not the case mainly because of political forces that are all-pervasive, institutionally, academically, and nationally. Consequently, as anthropologist and veteran drug researcher Michael Agar concludes in an essay evaluating the role of ethnography and qualitative research over the last thirty-five years, even today;

The topic carries so much freight, everywhere I have worked, that legitimate research questions can get stomped on like fire ants. You can ask and answer them anyway - most of us have and continue to do so - but the results will not enter into the policy flow, and you will become a persona non euphoria. This contradiction has frustrated me for years, in the US and everywhere else I have worked, and unfortunately I do not see any end in sight (ibid: 257)

The convenient classification of different forms of intoxication as either legitimate and safe or forbidden and dangerous has therefore given rise to “an area that does not officially exist as a legitimate cultural practice, but only as a matter of intractable social recalcitrance” (Walton 2001: 3). As Nietzsche wrote in The Gay Science (1882), “Who will ever relate the whole history of narcotica? It is almost the history of ‘culture’, of our so-called higher culture” (in Walton 2001). The “whole history of narcotica” exposes a system of demarcation that has important socio-cultural implications but these can only be illuminated analytically through transcending conventionally established and accepted categories.

1.2 - Intoxicology today

Lenson (1995) has identified several central contemporary genres of drug writing and presented a concise critical summary of each in terms of their strengths and weaknesses. Each “genre” can be seen as a reflection of one particular perspective and as such has a unique although partial contribution to make. The first genre is reflected in clinical studies conducted mostly by “physicians, biologists, and psychologists who investigate the biochemical and behavioural effects of psychoactive substances on the living organism” (ibid: x). One serious drawback with most clinical literature however, is that by borrowing methods from the natural sciences and applying them to human behaviour, subjective factors are completely wiped out of the equation, while the demand for duplication means restricting all variables to those which can be reproduced in a laboratory. As measures of statistical validity are applied to the collected data, “it abandons any claim to understanding the individual datum…this results in an implicit assertion of drugs as causes of fixed effects, as if the effects were inherent in the drugs instead of in the relationship of drug and user” (ibid: xii). Andrew Weil has even noticed a “curious symmetry” between drug abusers and those who study them where; “The

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person who is convinced that highs come in drugs, if he is negatively oriented toward society, becomes a drug abuser; if he is positively oriented toward society, he becomes a drug researcher” (in Lenson: xii).

A second field of drug literature is based on “pharmacological accounts” that rely on biochemistry to record the physical composition of drugs and their impact on human and animal brains (ibid: x). This approach has contributed a wealth of information increasing our knowledge and understanding of brain chemistry and to some extent enabled researchers to isolate the physiological effects of certain drugs independent of behavioural conjecture. Unfortunately the majority of this literature is for the most part unintelligible to the “lay readers”; “Pharmacologists are not writers so much as engineers”, As Lenson has pointed out, they may write volumes about what characterizes a substance as serotonin re-uptake inhibitor, but little in terms of enlightening the reader as to what it actually feels like “to have serotonin lingering in one’s synapses” (ibid.). Although this field has enormous potential in terms of benefiting individuals with imbalanced brain chemistry, there is a danger that other relevant factors may recede even further behind the looming shadow of an exponentially expanding variety of synthetic drugs that can alter brain function “with digital exactitude”. Pharmacologists design the products and “the therapist (or drug dealer, for that matter)”, on their part become “an engineer who adapts the new technology to the needs and desires of an individual client or customer” (ibid: xiii). There is a curious parallel here between widely prescribed drugs like antidepressants, sleeping pills and tranquilizers which seem designed to “bypass the problem of subjectivity altogether”, and forbidden ones like cannabis, ecstasy and various entheogens which on the contrary tend to “disturb” subjectivity to such an extent that it is forced it into the foreground (Boon 2002) .

The next collection of drug literature represents collective reality as it is reflected in social structures, the outer environment and other external systems. In drug literature this dimension is apparent in “work by historians, social scientists, and legal scholars on the relationship of drugs to the body politic and the body of law, including histories of the use and prohibition of particular substances, and studies of users as deviant subgroups”. The texts are mainly concerned with society and their aims are therefore also primarily social, even ideological in some respects. In many cases the author begins with a “predetermined opinion: that more or less tolerance of drugs would be preferable, or that the laws ought to be upheld or altered” (ibid: xiii). The arguments are then based on evidence “drawn from surveys, from 5

historical records, or from statute” which are then “rearranged in a pattern that the author hopes will lead the reader to the same conclusion” (ibid.). Although there is a great deal to learn from this type of discourse, it is largely driven by “factionalism” with medicalizers and liberals on one side and prohibitionists and conservatives on the other (ibid.).

It is at any rate difficult if not impossible to be totally neutral and objective when it comes to drugs and intoxication; everyone has an opinion and is to some extent convinced that they are “right”. More often than not however disagreements are not primarily based on facts, since facts can and often are interpreted to serve one’s purpose, but simply reflect different ideologies and objectives. Therefore positioning oneself and openly acknowledging one’s point of departure might be a better alternative than disguising bias behind a veil of assumed objectivity and scientific evidence. A more inclusive approach must acknowledge and respect different even opposing views, although this doesn’t exclude a critical analysis. Recently there have also emerged important developments concerning the influence of economic systems, globalization, technology and industrialization on consumption patterns like drug and alcohol use (Alexander 2004, Boon 2002, Lalander & Salasuo 2005). Needless to say, a complete understanding of intoxication must take these historical developments and contemporary realities into account.

Subjective and intersubjective realities as they are experienced by and mediated through embodied conscious beings are the least represented areas in drug research. Most of the drug literature that does reflect these perspectives to some extent is in the genre of drug confession and fiction, although there is a large variety to choose between, there are some noticeably distinct traits. The strength of drug fiction lies specifically in communicating the subjective elements of drug consciousness; its weakness however lies in the dilemma that in most instances “exposure is the paramount danger of the drug experience”. Therefore, the “confessing voice, as Michel Foucault has pointed out, is caught in a duplicity that depends upon concealment as a precondition for revelation” (in Lenson 1995: xiv). This often leads to “pervasive ambivalence” and difficulty understanding why the narrator continues to pursue his drug of choice since “suffering and repugnance are the inevitable results”. In most cases drug confessions become somewhat predictable tales depicting a “moral turning point, where ecstasy transmutes into revulsion and horror” and this becomes “a fixation, and unfortunate consequence of the genre” (ibid.).

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In the field of drug fiction there is much diversity and here it is pointless to generalize since there are simply too many different approaches. Boon (2002) however, has done an impressive job integrating a historical perspective with the relationship between writers and specific drugs, and between these drugs and different literary and philosophical traditions. Similarly Plant (1999) explores the history of drugs and drug use through the works of well known writers arguing that the use, production, and trafficking of drugs “has shaped some of the era’s most fundamental philosophies and provided much of its economic wealth”. In both drug confessions and fictions however, as in almost all scholarly works on drugs where according to Lenson “citations of male authors outnumber those of women by better than ten to one”, there is a remarkable predominance of male perspectives. Consequently, where drug confessions converge around the “parodic equation” between domination and submission, “drug fiction is shot through with cryptic, worldly moralizing of the sort men enjoy during the calm after gun play” (Lenson 1995: xvi).

This omnipresent detachment, lack of intentionality, embodied subjectivity and consciousness, amplified by the potential perils of exposure, is perhaps most perceptible in the literature of recovery which “depends upon the translation of drug experience into a self-contradictory matrix of denial and confession” (ibid.). Here “Memory is invoked in lurid detail and then erased” as recovery narratives “ritualize an amnesia in which the ex-user (ex-cused) barters guilt for passivity and determinism. No matter which ‘addiction’ is in question… the user is exonerated from free will, and in so doing demeans her or his history of being high” (ibid.). There is in other words a strong sense of disempowerment and capitulation which pervades this type of drug writing. In “worshipping causality” ex-users are recoiled into an “obsessive metanarrative that only reinforces the supremacy of the drug itself, as opposed to the user’s experience of it” (ibid.). In this respect the majority of contemporary drug literature concerned with individual trajectories still reflects a dominant paradigm where biomedical theories converge with stories of conquest and dissolution to perpetuate a ghostly discourse conspicuously lacking intentionality, embodiment or consciousness in relation to the actual subjective experience of life on drugs.

One important exception here that Lenson mentions concerns the realm of psychedelics and the nature and potential of altered states for human development. The beatnik and hippie generations of the late fifties, sixties and seventies resulted in a large spectrum of drug literature where subjectivity and consciousness were not only embraced, but

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in many ways distinguished the whole genre. Translating these experiences into a language with few commensurable reference points however, meant relying for the most part on Eastern and Western mysticism, Buddhist terminology and getting caught between “the incompatible vocabularies of rationalism and the occult” (ibid: xvii). This genre, while perhaps “failing all the tests of philosophers and theologians”, still addresses important issues concerning the nature of reality, the mind, and possible uses of psychotropic exploration. For this reason, it also represents a significant contribution in terms of seriously exploring altered states from an embodied, conscious and subjective standpoint that is neither reductionistic nor apologetic. Although not exclusively concerned with psychedelics, Lenson himself locates his own writing here, and has in many respects contributed substantially towards increasing our understanding of user consciousness “as it is specifically determined by the drug experience – before, during, and after”, in relation to contemporary realities and subjective needs and desires.

1.3 - Hegemony and health

The current situation, well over three decades after the “war on drugs” was first introduced by President Nixon in the early 70’s, strongly approximates what Agar has aptly described as “Foucault in living colour” (Agar 2002). Regarding the manner in which intoxication is perceived and interpreted as a socio-cultural phenomenon in different contexts, there is a recurring tendency for the “correct” views to reflect a hegemonic public health model that has important ideological and political dimensions (Hunt & Barker 2001). These taken for granted knowledge constructions of health and “the natural” tend to represent certain forms of intoxication as both dangerous and threatening, as “public enemy number one”. The public health model has with time become a determining factor; strongly undermining any debate on the subject in terms of what is accepted discourse on intoxication and also largely influencing which interpretations or perspectives gain the status of established truth through the media, politicians or experts in the field. These perspectives, or views, represent what is referred to in ethnography as emic vs. etic interpretation, or “folk models and professional models”, where “The professional model grows from its cultural and political matrix and is implemented without attention to the folk models of those closest to the drug and its use” (Agar 1985: 181). Both models are based on socio-cultural constructions yet they differ substantially in terms of legitimacy and range.

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With the shift to the Reagan era, “social research in general came under attack as a matter of public policy. This was the period that produced an official definition of ‘drug abuse’ as any use of any illicit substance, thereby rendering the term ‘abuse’ meaningless for scientific or clinical work” (Agar 2002: 252). This model of “drug abuse” then clearly applies more to some substances than it does to others. Illegal substances like cannabis, heroin and cocaine are categorically substances of abuse while legal substances like alcohol or nicotine are not, and pharmaceuticals like Valium, Methadone and Ritalin tend to change status from moderately acceptable and necessary, to dangerous and threatening as soon as they are distributed through channels other than the officially sanctioned ones. Whatever the intent behind this official definition, it completely negates the genuine real life experiences of drug users and makes it practically impossible for social scientists to initiate desperately needed research aimed at identifying specific determining factors which might in fact lead to serious drug abuse. Even more alarmingly, despite these obvious shortcomings, this definition continues to be applied today in official documents like the “Norwegian Government’s Action Plan to Combat Drug- and Alcohol-related Problems 2003-2005” 1, clouding realities and imposing serious constraints in terms of what drug research can realistically achieve in terms of furthering our knowledge and understanding.

Seen from a cross-cultural perspective there exists a great variation in terms of which substances are perceived as threatening and the kinds of consumption patterns that are recognized as conventional or acceptable modes of conduct. This, it should be added, also applies historically to any civilization; that is to say, the socio-cultural construction of intoxication is situationally contingent and emergent as a phenomenon and must therefore always be placed in its proper context. Nonetheless, one may still safely contend that intoxication remains a highly sensitive subject, and in many respects seems to be one of the last major taboos in contemporary society. As with any other social phenomenon, intoxication is subject to a high degree of codification that takes place through those cultural processes that create a foundation for the symbolic order within which we find ourselves. Mary Douglas has pointed out in her classic work, Purity and Danger (Douglas 1984), that the concepts of pollution and taboo function as a symbolic code reflecting the underlying social structure of a society. As a code, they provide vital clues into a society’s system of values, its moral fabric

1 The Norwegian Government’s Action Plan to Combat Drug- and Alcohol-related Problems 2003-2005 pp.9 downloaded from: http://www.emcdda.eu.int/index.cfm?fuseaction=public.Content&nNodeID=1360&sLanguageISO=EN

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so to speak, while simultaneously intensifying a person’s awareness of their own role in the total scheme of things. Consequently, this code must be regarded as part of a larger whole and understood in relation to a culture’s entire structure of classification. Primarily, symbolic codification creates a sense of unity in experience and in this manner symbolic patterns are worked out and publicly displayed. Within these patterns, disparate elements are related and disparate experience is given meaning (Douglas in Aaslid 2003).

In other words, the kinds of contacts which are thought dangerous also carry a symbolic load, they symbolize a threat to the moral order, a transcendence of boundaries and categories which unleash pollution, where the harshness of defensive procedures will usually be “directly proportional to the seriousness with which the threat is viewed” (Berger & Luckman 1991:176). Accordingly, pollution ideas and taboos cannot be regarded exclusively as problems connected to health or hygiene because, more often than not, they are largely symbolic problems that create cultural disorder whenever boundaries are crossed and categories are mixed. It is “the hair in the soup” to borrow an example from Purity and Danger. Not that the hair in itself is impure due to some unfortunate essentialized polluting quality within its hairish being. The hair becomes polluting within the soup because it is immersed, not only in soup, but within a system of boundaries where pollution ideas serve as markers which delineate a symbolic order based on categories of purity and pollution. As mundane and evident as this may seem to the enlightened reader, it is a crucial point which any professional ought to be aware of when engaging in an analysis of desecrated substances, or phenomena within a socio-cultural context.

1.4 - A critical query

On the whole, when it comes to drug research based on actual face-to-face investigations of user groups and trajectories, including ethnographic explorations, the symbolic, socio-cultural dimensions of intoxication seem to be ignored, overlooked or just simply missed altogether. Time and time again, substances are essentialized and researchers uncritically adopt the dominating public health model. As Hunt and Barker (2001) conclude after a thorough examination of the state of anthropological contributions in the field of alcohol and drug research;

Until anthropologists awaken to the dangers of leaving the debate ‘in the hands of researchers who approach the study of psychoactive substances through reductive models, be they pharmacological, psychological or 10

physiological’ (Goodman & Lovejoy, 1995, p.232) then it will remain the case that the anthropology of ingested substances will be, to paraphrase Dwight Heath, a (not always felicitous) ‘by-product’ of other disciplines (ibid: 27).

The reason for this is partly due to the fact that two intertwined perspectives have dominated the drug research agenda (especially those institutions funding drug research). On the one hand, there are the bio-medically, epidemiologically and psychologically inspired theories of the individual, combined, on the other hand, with bio-pharmacologically dominated views of substances (ibid: 9). Using this model, the individual becomes a passive victim of the dangerous addictive qualities inherent in the substance itself which then gradually transform the identity of the user into a helpless, enslaved addict. The categorization of people on the basis of their drug patterns alone results in what Wagner (1997: 69) has termed a “de-contextualisation of isolated behaviors” (in Hunt & Barker 2001). This has a very dehumanising effect through stripping the user of any kind of independent agency that is not in some way connected with pathology or theories of deviance. At the same time; “This reified emphasis on substances rather than on people results in a shift in attention away from the social forces that lie behind the consumption or prohibition of stimulants and psychoactive substances …onto the apparent power of the substances themselves” (Hugh-Jones 1995: 47 in Hunt & Barker 2001: 20).

Therefore, by uncritically adopting research perspectives without first calling into question the underlying principles of a problem-based public health model, experts are in many respects blinded, or at best, highly constrained to begin with. This is a narrow point of departure that will influence the type of questions asked, the groups of people included in a study and the manner in which findings are subsequently analysed and portrayed. The following section will proceed with an examination of some of these points and suggest how a change of perspective might contribute substantially in developing research of considerably more depth and substance. Instead of simply adopting conventional attitudes, an alternative strategy here is to focus more explicitly on contemporary cultural discourse allowing it to emerge out of its present taken-for-grantedness so that it can be rendered more visible. Consumption patterns can then be placed within a larger context, while at the same time allowing for an actor-centred approach. Although mostly inspired by recent developments in anthropology, there is no reason why these insights cannot be incorporated into different fields, or at least serve as welcome food for thought to open, inquisitive minds.

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The types of questions that are asked very often play a decisive role in terms of the quality and significance of an inquiry as a whole. These questions will always, to a certain extent, reflect the general attitude of those conducting the research (or when it comes to drug research, perhaps more frequently, the attitudes of those funding the project). Although social scientists in many cases have become highly skilled at recognizing and accounting for the subjective lens through which their analysis is filtered, this tendency has been sadly lacking in a field where it is sorely needed. As Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle has “conveniently summed up”, whether we are discussing quantitative or qualitative approaches the research process is an interactive one (in Rapport & Overing 2000: 304). Seen in this light then, “the observer is inevitably and inexorably a part of what he observes, so that what the researcher confronts is ‘reality’ as apprehended through his own particular prism of perception, and what he gathers as results are artefacts of the process of his observation” (ibid.).

Recently there has been a little more flexibility within the public health approach allowing researchers to “analyze health and illness by examining the inter-relationships among environmental factors, personal choices, and lifestyle issues” (Hunt & Barker 2001: 16). This in itself implies an increased sensitivity towards the complexity of drug and alcohol issues as a whole, while also allowing for a more holistic analysis where the individual, environment and substance all play a significant part. Yet as Hunt and Barker have pointed out, the problem based public health model still regards alcohol and illicit drugs as “inherently dangerous substances, which unless strongly controlled by enlightened social policy would create problems and entail social and physical costs for the individ