Female Drug Use: Some Observations

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Abstract
On the basis of a review of recent social science drug research, the main findings on female drug use are summarized, and its future direction is speculated on. Women are usually initiated into illicit drug use by men. Rates of illicit drug use are lower among females than males (which may reflect the greater personal freedom traditionally granted to males), although the difference narrows among younger persons and among those who subscribe to more liberal values and lifestyles; women are more likely than men to use psychotherapeutic drugs (which may reflect strains resulting from their unequal status vis-a-vis men). Female opiate addicts, although they tend to hold conventional values, are often involved in such deviant activity as prostitution. To the extent that women gain social equality with men and subscribe to greater personal lifestyle freedom, they may be expected to show a higher rate of illicit drug use, particularly of a recreational kind. The rate of psychotherapeutic drug use may decrease, although if the tensions of the workplace eventually substitute for the tensions of status inequality, the resultant changes in rates and patterns of substance use are problematic.

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