Bridging the Divide: Drinking among Street Drug Users

In this research report, we present findings on drinking among drug users from a larger multimethod study of the public health consequences of emergent, changing, and understudied drug-related behavioral patterns among street drug users in Hartford, CT. Although drinking and illicit drug use traditionally have been studied in anthropology as separate cultural domains, this conceptual division has hindered examination of the significant level of drinking among street drug users, the motivations for heavy drinking in this population, and the public health consequences of mixing alcohol and other drugs, including drug relapse.