Female drug use: some observations

This paper, based on a review of recent social science drug research, summarizes the main findings on female drug use and speculates on its future direction. The findings include the following: 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 life styles; women are more likely than men to use psychotherapeutic drugs (which may reflect strains resulting from their unequal status vis-à-vis men); and 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. On the other hand, 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.