1The Cultural Milieu of Criminology and Drug Research

When we think of drugs and drug users certain images come to mind. The images are products of an array of culturally specific connotations associated with these terms. Most likely, “drug users ” do not conjure up images of people sitting around a cafe consuming caffeine and nicotine. Rather, one might think of a pot smoking hippie or an emaciated crack addict. Such images and connotations are produced largely through the media (Brownstein, 1996; Reinarman and Levine, 1997). But less recognized is the role that researchers and scholars play in the production of these images. This paper seeks to identify how the discursive practices of criminology contribute to the creation of drug user identities. Scholars are increasingly recognizing criminology’s role, or at least complicity, in the actual production of criminal categories and images. Criminology’s foundation in individualization and differentiation (Garland, 1985:115) and its corresponding methodologies have encouraged a particular constructed view of the world and the criminals inhabiting it. Critics have argued that criminology’s reliance on government funding subjects its ‘agenda ’ to the influences of legislators’, policy-makers’, and practitioners ’ current concerns (Maguire, 1997:141). Milakovich and Weis (1974) even argue that to predict the findings of any study, one need only know the agency conducting it, the method o