A Fine Line

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxi

   PDF

2. The Way We Think About Non-Medical Use

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

      PDF

   2. Introduction: Understanding Painkiller Use in Contemporary Society

      • George C. Dertadian

      Pages 3-34

   3. Drugs Through Time: The History of the Regulation of Drug Consumption in Australia

      • George C. Dertadian

      Pages 35-71

   4. ‘Discovering’ Non-Medical (Ab)Use: The Meaning and Measurement of Non-Medical Consumption

      • George C. Dertadian

      Pages 73-107

   5. Problematizing Pain: Medical, Social and Commercial Approaches to Pain

      • George C. Dertadian

      Pages 109-144

3. The Way People Experience Non-Medical Use

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 145-145

      PDF

   2. Chilling Out: Recreational and Painkiller Use Among Young People

      • George C. Dertadian

      Pages 147-170

   3. Work Hard, Play Hard: Cycles of Restrain and Release in Painkiller Use

      • George C. Dertadian

      Pages 171-200

   4. Chronic Pain and Dependence: Chronic Conditions, Opiates and Stigma

      • George C. Dertadian

      Pages 201-227

   5. Beyond ‘Addiction’: Dependence, Injecting and Transitions in Opiate Use

      • George C. Dertadian

      Pages 229-259

4. Back Matter

   Pages 261-285

   PDF

Are painkillers mundane medications safe for use to ease human suffering? Or are they drugs of abuse that cause addiction and death? Do they ameliorate pain, or do they cause it? This book explores growing interest among medical practitioners media outlets about the ‘misuse’ or ‘abuse’ of pharmaceutical pain medications. It contextualizes these emerging discourses of pharmaceutical ‘abuse’ within the social and political histories from which they have emerged by exploring the role of pleasure and pain in shaping individualized modes of medication consumption in a neoliberal age of anxiety.


The book is divided into two parts: the first addresses the discursive construction of painkiller (ab)use as articulated in research and policy accounts; the second part provides an empirical investigation that draws on the lived experience of those who engage in non-medical consumption. This book argues that, contrary to the stereotype of the ‘seductive’ drug that coaxes its user into a life of dysfunction, there appears to be an intimate relationship between the motivations of pleasure seeking, health practice and productive citizenship among people who use painkillers for non-medical reasons.

• Drugs Policy,
• Addiction Studies
• pain management
• drug treatment
• drug dependence
• critical drugs research
• substance abuse
• social work
• pharmaceutical pain medications
• pharmacology

• School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Kensington, Australia

  George C. Dertadian

George (Kev) Dertadian, Ph.D. is a social researcher interested in alcohol and other drugs, the sociology of crime and deviance, and social and cultural theory. Kev has conducted several qualitative projects on the non-medical use of pharmaceuticals at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University and the Kirby Institute for infection and immunity, University of New South Wales, Australia. Kev is currently a Lecturer in Criminology as part of the School of Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales.

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