Social Stigma and Drug Use

This book presents interdisciplinary studies that analyze how social stigma affects people who use psychoactive substances. Bringing together contributions by researchers from different fields such as biology, social sciences, nursing, medicine, dentistry, psychology and social work, it adopts an intersectional perspective to show how the categories of gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, territory, and social class are essential to understand the processes of stigmatization of specific groups of users of alcohol and other drugs.

Written by members of the Ibero-Latin American Network on Stigma and Drug Use, chapters in this volume explore, in a contextual and intersectional way, how social stigma impacts drug user’s lives, drawing special attention to issues of gender and family contexts. Authors discuss, from a gender perspective, how stigma impacts not only the lives of people who use drugs, but also the lives of their relatives, partners and caregivers, who are often blamed for the user’s condition and as a consequence face prejudice, discrimination and social isolation.

Social Stigma and Drug Use: Gender Perspectives, Family Contexts and Intersections will be of interest to both researchers and professionals from different fields who work with drug users, such as psychologists; psychiatrists; nurses; social workers and public health researchers and professionals. It will also be a valuable resource for policy makers and activists interested in developing and fighting for social and health policies that can provide care and at the same time respect the human rights of drug users.

The original manuscript of this book was written in Portuguese and Spanish and translated into English with the help of artificial intelligence. A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content.