Women heroin users in China's changing society: An analysis of the careers of women drug users

After the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, during the ensuing thirty year period, China was a drug free society. Accompanying China's economic reform and open-door policy in 1978, illicit drug use emerged in the late 1980s, and developed into a serious social problem. Heroin was the dominant illicit drug consumed in the new drug epidemic. The number of female heroin users has increased rapidly in the country. To support heroin consumption, it is a common practice among women heroin users to engage in income-generating activities, some of which are illegal. Women's participation in the sex trade makes them the predominant transmitters of HIV to the general population in China.;While heroin use in China is soaring, little is known about the career patterns of women's heroin use in the context of a rapidly changing society. Guided by a theoretical framework -- a career perspective adopted from theories employed in Western societies, the study explores women heroin users' careers from initiation into heroin, through continuation and cessation of drug use, and the connections of these careers to other illegal activities. Qualitative research methods were employed for the data collection and analysis. Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan Province, was chosen as the research site because of its severe heroin abuse. Women heroin users (N=90) were interviewed in 2005 in Kunming and participant observation was conducted as well.;Since many of the women in the study initiated their heroin use at the beginning of China's heroin epidemic, this study is uniquely positioned to examine patterns and developments of women's drug use careers over the past two decades. The evidence suggests that women's drug use careers were characterized by both social and individual factors. In particular, China's changing social context in the reform era has shaped both women's social networks as well as their individual character. Women's drug use careers involved a socialization process with evolving phases, which were dynamic in nature, and magnified by changing legal and social policies on narcotics control in China. The research also suggests that there are considerable similarities as well as differences between women's drug use careers in China and those in Western countries.