Drug Use and Cultural Contexts 'Beyond the West' Tradition, Change and Post Colonialism

by Coomber, Ross; South, Nigel

• ISBN13: 9781853437434
• ISBN10: 1853437433
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-01
• Publisher: Free Association Books

Summary

Considerable research, policy and media attention has focused recently on drug use in Britain, wider Europe, the US and other advanced western societies such as Australia and Canada. However, the place of drugs in other cultural contexts has received far less attention. Little is known about the use of drugs in non-western societies and this lack of comparative knowledge hinders a broader understanding of drug use, the way problems are attached to it and the nature of inappropriately applied social and regulatory policies. This book examines drug use (including alcohol) in different cultural contexts, showing how the claim of tradition can persist even while the impetus toward change is pervasive. In some cases, change is strongly resisted; in others its effects are profound and potentially highly destructive. In a world of globalization, western investment and leisure tourism can combine with the profiteering of international drug trafficking to transform traditional patterns of intoxicant use; in a world of post-colonialism, the legacies of past impositions are still causing tragedies; and in a world of western-led drug control policies, unproblematic cultural incorporation of drug use into everyday life and sacred ritual is threatened by remote and ill-informed politicians and bureaucracies. This book will be of interest to academics, students and receptive policy audiences interested in understanding drugs and the issues raised by their use in unfamiliar contexts.

Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors	9	(4)
Chapter One: Drugs, Cultures and Controls in Comparative Perspective
Ross Coomber and Nigel South	13	(14)
Chapter Two: The Ritual Use of Ayahuasca by Three Brazilian Religions
Edward MacRae	27	(19)
Chapter Three: Coca Use in Bolivia: A Tradition of Thousands of Years
Alison Spedding	46	(19)
Chapter Four: A Quasi-legal Commodity in the Andes: Coca-leaf Consumption in North-western Argentina
Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui	65	(18)
Chapter Five: Opium Use in Rajasthan India: A Socio-Cultural Perspective
Kalyan Ganguly	83	(18)
Chapter Six: The Elixir of Life or the Devil's Cud: The Debate over Qat (Catha edulis) in Yemeni Culture
Daniel Martin Varisco	101	(18)
Chapter Seven: Camba (Bolivia) Drinking Patterns: Changes in Alcohol Use, Anthropology and Research Perspectives
Dwight B. Heath	119	(18)
Chapter Eight: The Dis-ease over Native North American Drinking: Experiences of the Innu of Northern Labrador
Colin Samson	137	(21)
Chapter Nine: In Search of the Divine: Wixárika (Huichol) Peyote Traditions in Mexico
Stacy B. Schaefer	158	(19)
Chapter Ten: Ganja and the Road to Decriminalisation in Jamaica
Barry Chevannes	177	(15)
Chapter Eleven: Living with Heroin at the Kenya Coast
Susan Beckerleg	192	(17)
Index	209	(6)
Index of Names	215