NCJ Number
125283
Date Published
1988
Length
157 pages
Annotation
This is a social scientific story about what happened to a community in the North-West of England when, within 3 years, several thousand of its younger and poorest residents became regular heroin users.
Abstract
Wirral is a predominantly white community of about 340,000 people with a large and very poor, working-class population. Beginning in 1979, it grew to have the largest heroin problem in the United Kingdom. Evidence of widespread heroin use came mainly from the media. When the local Council finally took notice of the problem, they began coordinating committees to study the problem and consider what action to take. A survey revealed that four out of every five drug users were found to be opioid users, the other salient group being cannabis users, the majority of whom were known only through police arrests for possession. Some two-thirds of the total number of drug users were classified as "hidden." The credibility gap between the knowledge base of society and the arrival of heroin use within the young urban working-class population of the 1980s is detailed. 8 notes, 32 tables.