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The study provides a qualitative analysis of 300 real estate agent responses to telephone calls from researchers posing as convicted felons and inquiring about renting an apartment. Telephone calls were made to real estate agents in New York State and primarily in New York City. Criminal conviction type was manipulated across callers who revealed three types of prior convictions: child molestation, statutory rape, or drug trafficking. Analyses indicate that decisions about renting fall within a continuum of responses, including overt rejection, deferral of rental decision to landlords, ambivalence on the part of the agent, concerns about financial ability to pay rent, and concealing the caller’s offense from the landlord. Reasons for acceptance and rejection of renting an apartment are explored. The stigmatized status of offenders appears to have contributed to the variations in the real estate agents responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite evidence for the importance of significant others in the recovery process, little is known about male partners of female substance abusers. This paper presents a qualitative exploratory study conducted to learn more about male partners of crack/cocaine-addicted women and specifically examines the men's influence on the treatment and recovery process of their female partners. Subjects were found to have an extensive history of substance abuse and some experience with treatment; three-quarters were active crack/cocaine users. Although their attitude toward women's substance abuse was negative and their opinion of treatment for women positive, men's behavioral support for their partners was usually passive and inconsistent. Reasons are discussed why male partners of female drug users in treatment generally were resistant to active participation in family-oriented treatment: the men's active drug use, their desire to maintain the status quo in the relationship, possible focus on their own recovery, divergent views about treatment goals, and the desire to minimize stigma by association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research was conducted on variations and commonalities of sexual offenders and heroin abusers and how they manage stigma in their everyday lives. Interviews with 13 sex offenders (SOs) and 44 heroin abusers (HAs) were conducted in New York City. Results suggest that both SOs and HAs disclose or conceal their stigmatized status based on their relationship to others and the situations in which they anticipate social condemnation. Both groups have formed intra-group hierarchies based on status, where child molesters and heroin abusers receive the most disdain. Some heroin abusers manage their stigma by engaging in behavior that we termredemptive passing, in which stigmatized individuals attempt to pass as non-stigmatized through deceptive means in order to make amends for prior harms they have caused. The stigmatization of sex offenders and heroin abusers has important implications for health, as members of these groups are less likely to seek treatment in order to distance themselves from their stigmatizing status. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Interviews with fourteen opioid retail pill sellers provides an exploration into the diversion and diffusion of Suboxone to recreational (“week-end warriors”) drug users. The use of social media and electronic devices enables the diffusion of Suboxone to dependent and non-dependent opiate/opioid drug abusers. Overprescribing by physicians and prescribing in drug treatment settings fuels the diversion of Suboxone. The diversion and the diffusion of Suboxone have the potential to delay entrance into drug treatment and promote the misuse of the drug by both dependent opiate/opioid drug abusers and recreational users. The dilemma posed by Suboxone maintenance treatment will not be easily addressed or mitigated in the near future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores strategies that Suboxone misusers utilize while in drug treatment. Ethnographic interviews were conducted with 14 patients who had cycled in and out of Suboxone treatment. The objective of the study is to identify strategies implemented by patients who intermittently use opiates/opioids while in Suboxone treatment. Findings indicate that some patients serially stop and start treatment in a Harm Reduction setting in New York City. Many patients suggest that they manage their opiate/opioid dependency through a sequential use of Suboxone and heroin to avoid withdrawal and to continue their misuse of opiates/opioids. Results are discussed in conjunction with the difficulties inherent to substance abuse treatment and suggestions for improvement are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnographic and qualitative research were utilized to examine how the effects of geographic place can be related to heroin abuse and collective identity in non-metropolitan areas (NMAs) in the mid-Hudson region of New York State, U.S. The socio-geographic consequences of this interrelationship are explored. In-depth interviews were conducted with 237 recent admissions to drug treatment at 28 facilities in the seven mid-Hudson region counties. The effects of geographic place and collective identity emerged in interviews through narratives relating to heroin experimentation, subsequent dependence, and the lure of New York City. Heroin experimentation and the New York City lifestyle are collectively constructed by many respondents as 'cool.' They are both oriented toward city life and in conflict with what respondents believe to be a lack of community and caring among city dwellers and the dehumanizing effects of the city. The idea that heroin use is cool serves as tacit permission to experiment with heroin . [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This oral history describes three periods of street outreach to injection drug users at risk for HIV in New York City: outreach in an era of public drug markets (1987--1993), outreach in an era of private markets (1993--2006), and network-driven outreach (2006--present). Individual interviews with administrators and supervisors of outreach workers are combined with field notes from the ethnographic research experiences of the first two authors to contextualize, compare, and contrast these distinct periods. The combination and triangulation of these sources of data allow for an analysis of both the specific and the wider social and cultural contexts in which outreach intervention efforts were situated. Through these lenses, the article examines some of the reasons why they were or were not successful and discusses prospects for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the diffusion of illegal drugs continues to spread to rural and suburban areas, there is a greater need among illegal drug researchers, law enforcement, and policy makers to gain knowledge from previous work done on what is loosely termed as rural substance abuse research. To help serve that need an annotated bibliography is proffered based on three categories and one method of illegal substance abuse research. These are: drug consumption, drug distribution, drug prices, and ethnography. An exhaustive review of the literature was not undertaken, but rather a focus on research that addresses drug consumption and distribution is put forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prompted by the history of heroin diffusion in the United States, press reports and building on previous research into retail heroin distribution, ethnographic research was undertaken identifying and describing retail distribution and diffusion of heroin in and into medium- and small-sized towns in the mid-Hudson region of New York State. In conjunction with fieldwork, in-depth tape-recorded interviews were conducted with recent admissions (30 days) at 28 different drug treatment facilities located in the region. Interviews were also conducted with drug counselors, narcotic officers, drug treatment administrators and the county commissioners of mental hygiene. Heroin-dependent individuals who have access to cheaper heroin in urban areas, such as New York City, Newark, and Patterson, New Jersey, drive retail heroin distribution in the mid-Hudson region. They travel to these cities, purchase heroin in quantity (costing $8–10 per bag), return to the region and sell premium-priced heroin ($20-$25 per bag) mostly to irregular users who do not have access to retail drug sellers in urban areas. Price disparity contributes to a recurrent process whereby irregular users who are able to gain access to cheaper heroin in urban areas, return to the mid-Hudson and sell premium-priced heroin to other users who do not have access to cheaper heroin. This process contributes to the diffusion of heroin abuse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies the changes in the use of adulterants and diluents found in samples of street bags of heroin collected in New York city. Analysis of the ratio of adulterants to diluents; Efforts of foreign producer/distributors and retail sellers to enhance the effect of heroin; Enhancement of the intranasal absorption of the heroin into the bloodstream.

Using ethnographic methods and sociological theory, this article explores some reasons why a cohort of young adults have apparently eschewed the use of cocaine in an environment that would usually put them at risk for drug abuse. The diffusion of the idea ''crack head'' into drug subcultures and the stigmatized status attached to it appears to have protected some young adults from using cocaine. It is assumed that this cohort of adolescents took pride in not using crack cocaine and were acutely aware of the shame of being designated as a crack head by their peers The fear of being cast as a crack head appears to have acted as a barrier to their cocaine use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identifies social and behavioral dimensions concerning the function of the street middleman/woman in drug transactions in Brooklyn, New York. Monetary compensation accorded to the middleman/women by the customer or drug dealer; Impact of street law enforcement on street drug transactions.

Aims. Drug scenes (social and spatial drug-using and drug-selling environments) have complex role structures. Many drug injectors earn money or drugs as drug or syringe sellers, hit doctors (people who help others to inject) commercial sex workers, or in other roles. This paper aims to measure "role behaviors" of drug injectors; describe which drug injectors are more likely to engage in such role behaviors; and to determine whether roles are related to elements of HIV risk . Design. Cross-sectional study of drug injectors . Setting. Bushwick, a section of Brooklyn, New York, a major location for injection drug use and drug sales . Participants. Seven hundred and sixty-seven street-recruited drug injectors . Measurements. Participants were interviewed about their roles, behaviors, socio-demographics and risk networks; sera were collected and assayed for HIV and hepatitis B core antibody . Findings. Socio-demographic variables are related to role-holding in complex ways. Economic need is generally associated with engaging in drug-scene role behaviors. Holders of these roles are at greater behavioral and network risk for HIV and other blood-borne infections than are other drug injectors. They also engage in extensive communication with other drug users, including discussion of HIV risk reduction . Conclusion. Role behaviors can be measured in quantitative studies, and seem to be related to HIV risk. Role-holders may be strategic targets for risk-reduction campaigns. It seems feasible and advisable to measure drug scene role-holding in research on drug users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]