Working Paper

By Elene Japaradze, April 2014

This paper explores gendered claims about drug use in the views of contemporary drug rehabilitation experts in Georgia. When scholars separate motivations of men and women for drug use, gender is playing a critical role in structuring plausible empirical accounts of drug use. Yet gender may also operate in a less explicit way in shaping experts’ assessments of drug addiction. Indeed, a number of scholars invoke gender stereotypes, explaining women’s drug dependence in terms of their emotional nature, depression, and other types of psychological problems, while attributing men’s drug dependence to risk-taking behaviors and adolescent male bonding.