O significado do uso de drogas no discurso de jovens consumidores portugueses

The goal of this study is to understand the meanings that a youth sample associates to their drug consumption. The sampling process was conducted using a snowball sampling. The sample was composed by a group of 22 individuals aged between 20 and 34 years old, that have had or still have experience with some kind of drug. We used a qualitative method and a semi-structured interview following the Guide For Life Story and Drug Uses, which is an adaptation from McAdams (2000), Fernandes and Carvalho (2003), and Matos (2008). The data was analysed under the principles of Grounded Theory and using the Software QSRNvivo 8, a software for qualitative data analysis. We highlight the extremely negative meanings, like physical, psychological and social degradation that were connected to heroin and the generalization of the cannabis use to all individuals, which acquires a day-to-day dimension. Cocaine also appears among the substances with more expression in our sample, and it is located between the concepts of degradation and leasure. In general terms, we found, during this study, that the drug use seems to be connected to the idea of a shared common cultural code that links individuals, experience and meaning of their drug uses.