ArticleThe International journal on drug policy2023
"I am not a junkie": Social categorization and differentiation among people who use drugs.
Article in The International journal on drug policy, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 19 citations in OpenAlex.
- Learning from the Drug Policy Curriculum: People Who Use Drugs Policing in the Context of Decriminalization.Contemporary drug problems · 2026Article
- "No judgment, no preaching": approaches to harm reduction service provision for people who use drugs in North Carolina.Harm reduction journal · 2026Article
- Patterns of Felt Stigma Among Rural-Dwelling People Who Use Drugs: A Latent Class Analysis.Substance use & misuse · 2026Article
- Article
- Stable patterns, shifting risks: the impact of British Columbia's decriminalization and recriminalization policies on drug use behaviours.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- "I don't know how you can overdose smoking them:" Perceptions of overdose risks among persons who use illicit fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills.The International journal on drug policy · 2025Article
- Beyond troubled and untroubled positions - an intersectional analysis of siblings who are bereaved by drug-related deaths' meaning-making stories about their deceased brothers and sisters.International journal of qualitative studies on health and well-being · 2024Article
- The relationship between felt stigma and non-fatal overdose among rural people who use drugs.Harm reduction journal · 2024Article
- First-hand accounts of structural stigma toward people who use opioids on Reddit.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2024Article
- "I would do anything but that": Attitudes towards sex work among rural people who use drugs.The International journal on drug policy · 2023Article
- Building Community Capacity for Harm Reduction: An Adaptive Implementation Science Approach in Rural Appalachian Ohio.Substance use : research and treatmentArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
17 authors at 10 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundSubstance use stigma is a form of group-based exclusion, and delineating pathways from stigma to poor health requires a deeper understanding of the social dynamics of people who use drugs (PWUD). Outside of recovery, scant research has examined the role of social identity in addiction. Framed by Social Identity Theory/Self-Categorization Theory, this qualitative study investigated strategies of within-group categorization and differentiation among PWUD and the roles these social categories may play in shaping intragroup attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors.
methodsData come from the Rural Opioid Initiative, a multi-site study of the overdose epidemic in rural United States. We conducted in-depth interviews with people who reported using opioids or injecting any drug (n=355) living in 65 counties across 10 states. Interviews focused on participants' biographical histories, past and current drug use, risk behaviors, and experiences with healthcare providers and law enforcement. Social categories and dimensions along which categories were evaluated were inductively identified using reflexive thematic analysis.
resultsWe identified seven social categories that were commonly appraised by participants along eight evaluative dimensions. Categories included drug of choice, route of administration, method of attainment, gender, age, genesis of use, and recovery approach. Categories were evaluated by participants based on ascribed characteristics of morality, destructiveness, aversiveness, control, functionality, victimhood, recklessness, and determination. Participants performed nuanced identity work during interviews, including reifying social categories, defining 'addict' prototypicality, reflexively comparing self to other, and disidentifying from the PWUD supra-category.
conclusionWe identify several facets of identity, both behavioral and demographic, along which people who use drugs perceive salient social boundaries. Beyond an addiction-recovery binary, identity is shaped by multiple aspects of the social self in substance use. Patterns of categorization and differentiation revealed negative intragroup attitudes, including stigma, that may hinder solidary-building and collective action in this marginalized group.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.