High Times: an Ethnography of Young Adult Drug Use

This research explores the phenomenon of ‘legal highs’ or Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS), directing substantial focus towards the exploration of user attraction. Whilst legal high research is expanding, the topic of legal highs still remains a relatively under-researched topic. In particular, research concerning the user is in short supply, as policy makers remain detached from the importance of understanding the attraction for users (Winstock and Ramsey, 2010). Therefore, this paper attempts to capitalise in the expansion of this knowledge and discover what reasons users attribute for the use of these psychoactive substances. A comprehensive review of the current literature has attributed the rise in use to predominantly two significant factors, ‘legality’ and ‘availability’. Although existing literature identifies legality as a secondary motivating factor, this paper questions whether its impact is somewhat underplayed throughout previous research.