Refining Rock: Practical and Social Features of Self-Control among a Group of College-Student Crack Users

Abstract

This paper presents findings from a case study of a group of crack-cocaine-using college students and an analysis of how their use differed from that of “street”–oriented users in other studies. A microlevel analysis shows that the practices of using the drug—the ways in which crack is physically consumed—depend on the context of a university campus and a small group of friends. Among researchers and users alike, heavy use and addiction are understood to be both the result and the embodiment of a loss of self-control. These users felt that crack was a drug that could lead to a loss of control. Although self-control is generally understood to be an individual phenomenon, we see that the conditions for self-control were generated through habitual practices of using crack within the group. Though they were not always successful, their practices and efforts highlight the interdependence of self-control and microlevel social control in the study of drug use.