Exploring the Multiple Meanings of Drug Addiction---Drug Discourses in Mediation, Rehabilitation and Local Youth Drug Addicts

For over 50 years, the major conception of drug addiction in Hong Kong media comes from the imaginations of heroin addiction. Drug addicts are usually presented as irresponsible for job and family, and they commit crimes to get money to buy drugs in order to relieve serious withdrawal symptoms. However, in recent years, most youth addicts use 'recreational drugs' like ketamine and ecstasy rather than heroin. The moral and disease conceptions of drug addiction are not applicable in their drug-taking experiences because many youth psychotropic drug addicts find no severe withdrawal and tolerance symptom. The 'gap' between the conventional drug discourses and the experience of youth drug users produces dissonance among addicts, drug rehabilitation and preventive education.;This study aims at figure out the existing meanings of drug addiction in the mass media and drug rehabilitation. Firstly, a historical analysis on the government anti-drug policy was conducted to figure out the relationship between social policy and the moral and medical drug discourses. Secondly, textual analysis on 100 government anti-drug advertisements from 1978 to 2008 and discourse analysis on 26 local TV news documentaries about drug addiction from 1979 to 2009 were conducted to examine the mediated drug discourses. Thirdly, a 14-month ethnographic research in a Christianity drug rehabilitation camp (called the Christian New Being Fellowship) and a 10-month ethnographic research in a local drug rehabilitation-counseling center (called Hong Kong Lutheran Social Service Cheer Centre) have been conducted to reveal the current drug discourses consumed by the social workers and the youth drug addicts.;From the analysis on anti-drug TV advertisements and TV news documentaries, a "go through" narrative is identified which encapsulates the moral and medical drug discourses. Such narrative involves ex-addict as key subject who tells the "authentic" drug story of a "prodigal son". It contributes to a mediated dominant "Prodigal Son Returns Home" discourse that constitutes the 'prodigal son' identity of drug addicts. From the ethnographic studies in drug rehabilitation organizations, it is found that the "go through" narrative identified in media functions as an important discursive component for the social workers and professional ex- to present the nature of drug addiction. "Prodigal Son Returns Home" discourse could also be identified in drug rehabilitation, which morally defines drug addiction as personal misconduct and lifestyle problem. However, youth drug addicts adopt the 'prodigal son' identity to various extents. But such flexibility is restricted to selecting discursive components of the only available "go through" narrative under rehabilitation.;This research makes theoretical contributions by identifying the factors in social, institutional and interactional dimensions that constitute the mediated dominant discourse of deviant identity. Besides, this research shows some tactics of the socially deviant in performing agency under the mediated dominant discourse, which include: "Indifference", "Adoption", "Adaptation", and "Affirmation". Socially deviants may favor their own personal identity and resist the mediated dominant discourse by flexible narration of deviant behavior, which is restricted by the available discursive components of the mediated dominant discourse.