Female Drug Users – Problems and Challenges
Female Drug Users – Problems and Challenges

Author(s): Elene Japaridze
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Substance abuse and addiction
Published by: CSS - Center for Social Sciences
Keywords: drug addiction;
Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to review the attitudes to drug related issues in Georgia, particularly from the perspective of gender. When I was getting acquainted with the existing studies on the use of injective drugs in Georgia, I found that most of these studies had been conducted on males. The research on female population has faced difficulties, because women have been underrepresented compared with men both in treatment services and in research. Of course, women were added to samples, but no gender-related concepts were used. For this reason, drug use by both men and women was viewed through male lens. By gender-related concepts, I mean analyzing the different patterns of drug use according to the drug user’s gender. In my opinion, gender-related concepts take into account the peculiar reasons for drug use by males as well as by females, whether there is a difference in injective drug use by males and females, female users’ preferences for illicit substances, and the problems and barriers faced by female drug users. The main goal of this study is to ascertain the attitudes of Georgian experts to drug addiction and drug-dependent people, taking gender factors into consideration. I decided to achieve this goal by conducting in-depth interviews with experts who work in the field of narcology.

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