Cocaine stigma

Abstract

In view of such a high consumption of cocaine that exists in Spain, it turns out to be ineluctable to contribute also from the psychosociology to the explanation and solution of this problem. Here it is made a review of the «drug addict’s stigma», as well as a descriptive research of the way this stigma establishes, develops and influences the life and recovery of the one who suffers it; special emphasis is done in the importance that the stigma possesses for the establishment of a dependence to cocaine, its course and rehabilitation. To reach this, semiconstructed interviews were carried out with 13 consumers or ex consumers of cocaine, residents in Madrid. As more relevant results we find the secondary advantages that the cocaine’s consumption can offer to the one who begins in this habit (image of success, fun, richness, and so on), as well as the beliefs and experiences of rejection and social discrimination that emerge in the subject addicted to the same substance. Finally, there are proposed some general preventive and therapeutic recommendations, which facilitate not only the treatment and the social rehabilitation of the addict, but also they act against possible backslides.