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ACTING THROUGH ANECDOTES 

STORIES OF DRUG USE AS COPING IN VIEW

OF NARRATIVE CRIMINOLOGY

JOHANNA MYRVANG LØVÅS

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ACTING THROUGH ANECDOTES 

STORIES OF DRUG USE AS COPING IN VIEW

OF NARRATIVE CRIMINOLOGY

JOHANNA MYRVANG LØVÅS

Løvås, J. M., Acting through anecdotes: Stories of drug use as coping in view of narrative criminology. ​Degree project in Criminology 30 Credits. ​Malmö University: Faculty of Health and Society, Department of Criminology, 2020. The framework of ​narrative criminology​ promotes the perspective that narratives, in addition to shedding light on past conduct and experience, have the ability to serve as actions ​themselves​, but also to influence behavior (Presser, 2009). In this study, I applied the theoretical and analytical framework of narrative criminology to identify and examine notable characteristics in stories, or narratives, of illicit drug use as a coping strategy. To elicit these stories, I conducted three

semi-structured interviews in the context of Malmö, Sweden centered around the topic of drug use as coping, and identified three narrative ‘themes’ common to all three stories. I further analyzed these themes to locate 1) cultural narratives, 2) how the participants negotiated agency and 3) how they employed narrative strategies to make sense of their relationship to drugs as of today. The findings of the current study lend support to many of the cornerstones of narrative

criminology, suggesting that cultural narratives present in the dominant discourse can be located in individual accounts, but also that the adoption of certain

narratives can promote change. I have highlighted that a narrative focus might serve as useful in drug treatment and that harm reduction and the promotion of mental wellbeing should be the main concern of Swedish drug policy, and that while narrative criminology is a useful framework for locating the effects on stories on behavior and drug use specifically, it should still be utilized in tandem with other available theoretical devices in criminology.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 

Firstly, I would like to thank the three people who so generously let me take part in their stories, and who devoted their time and energy to help me out with this project. I wanted to serve your narratives the justice I knew they were worthy of, and that remained my main motivation throughout the whole process of writing this thesis.

Secondly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Mika Andersson, who rarely made me feel discouraged and contributed with valuable guidance when I felt like I had lost track.

Moreover, I would like to thank Zuzana, Maria, Wiebke, Calin, Lauritz and Lina for providing valuable feedback, insights and last but not least, support, during my many mental breakdowns during this process. It will most likely happen again, so stay tuned.

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CONTENTS 

 

INTRODUCTION 4

AIM 4

BACKGROUND 5

The context of Sweden 5

The role of drugs in Scandinavian culture 5

Previous research 6

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7

Narrative criminology 7

METHODS AND ETHICS 8

Narrative interviewing and inquiry 8

Recruitment and participants 8

Procedure and materials 9

Ethical considerations 9

Analytical strategy 1​0

RESULTS 1​1

Initiating and continuing illicit drug use: A negotiation of the forces at play 1​1 The realization that induced the de-escalation: A change of perspective 1​4 Today: “I fill it with healthy - healthy values if you can put it that way.” 1​5

DISCUSSION 17 Cultural narratives 1​7 Negotiating agency 1​8 Narrative strategies 19 LIMITATIONS 20 CONCLUSION 2​0 REFERENCES 2​2 APPENDICES 2​5  

 

 

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INTRODUCTION 

Depending on alcohol to get me over the pain Praying my habit don't ever have me turn to cocaine I won't allow this temporary pain to turn to a stain I wanna live but my joy for life is stuck in the grave (Young M.A, ​Sober Thoughts)

Drug use, either illicit or licit, has always been featured in the lives and cultures of humans, and has thus influenced stories in popular culture (Manning, 2007). Additionally, h​uman beings are at all times surrounded by stories and producing stories which affect how we view and interact with the world around us (Presser, 2009; Presser & Sandberg, 2015a). This suggests that there is a reciprocal

relationship ​between the stories, or narratives, we surround ourselves with in our culture, and our behavior​. ​While early theories in the social sciences treated illicit drug consumption as a marker of individual deviance and social marginalization, the position of illicit drug consumption in stories featured in popular culture and simultaneously, in people's lives, is becoming increasingly acknowledged in research (Manning, 2007; Measham & Shiner, 2009).

Moreover, illicit drugs (hereafter referred to solely as ‘drugs’) are not only utilized for their pleasurable or psychoactive effects, but the consumption of specific drugs even comes with certain narratives, rituals, symbolic markers of identity and group belonging attached to it (Sandberg, 2010a). ​Research and case studies from the fields of literature, culture and history have already provided us with examples on how collective narratives, ideology and group identity fuel mass harm such as genocides (Presser, 2009; Presser & Sandberg, 2015a), and the theoretical and analytical framework coined as ​narrative criminology​ calls for the same narrative awareness in the field of criminology. In the wake of this call for action, there ​is a growing body of research centered around the narratives of people who utilize drugs, and how these narratives inform and perform action (see e.g Copes, 2016; Miller, Carbone-Lopez & Gunderman, 2015; Sandberg, 2013)​. In the present study, I firstly provide some background through outlining the context in which it is situated and the previous research, before pointing out the gaps in the literature. Afterwards, I will continue with the theoretical and methodological framework, before I present the results from my study. Lastly, I will return to discuss the research questions, before concluding.

 

 

AIM 

As pointed out in a paper by McAllum, Fox & Simpson (2019), narrative analysis is a suitable tool for locating agency to the various mentioned actors in accounts provided by research participants. Moreover, the theoretical and analytical framework of narrative criminology opens up for understanding how larger cultural narratives impact actions and storytelling (see e.g. Presser, 2009; Sandberg, 2013), and how verbal strategies are employed by people to construct coherent narratives and make sense of their relationship to drugs (see e.g. Copes,

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2016). As I will show in the section ​Background​, there is much literature from the region on middle-class populations’ recreational use of drugs, as well as literature that briefly address the coping-dimension in stories of drug use. The aim of the current study is to add on to the theoretical framework of narrative criminology concerning drug use, and to examine and identify prominent characteristics of narratives of past drug use as a coping strategy. I hereby conduct three

semi-structured interviews with study participants situated in Southern Sweden and carry out an in-depth analysis of their narrative accounts. In order to fulfill the aim of this study, the research questions that will be answered are as follows:

1. Which culturally available narratives surrounding drug use and coping are reflected in the narratives?

2. How is agency negotiated in the narratives?

3. Which narrative strategies can be located in the narratives, and how are they employed by the participants to make sense of their relationship to illicit drugs today?

BACKGROUND 

The context of Sweden

Although there has been a slight increase in the general consumption, availability and range of drugs in Sweden the past decade, the prevalence of people who have at some point in their life tried drugs are still relatively low compared to other European countries (EMCDDA, 2019). The country is known for promoting zero tolerance drug policies, but messages aiming to discourage drug use also exist side by side with content promoting drug use in the popular culture (Skårner &

Månsson, 2008). Christiania, often referred to as ​Freetown Christiania,​ a

somewhat self-governed area located inside the Danish capital of Copenhagen has throughout history been subjected to accusations from both the Norwegian and the Swedish authorities for being the ‘main gate’ for distributing illegal drugs to the Nordic countries (Christie & Bruun, 1995). The Danish capital’s proximity to southern Sweden has been, and still is of importance for the drug consumption patterns in the latter area: In 2007, a Swedish police report stated that the cannabis that had earlier been brought from Denmark and over to southern Sweden mainly for personal use, was now being moved from the former to the latter and

administered from southern Sweden in much larger quanta (Møller, 2008). This provides some insight to the context in which the current study is situated.

The role of drugs in Scandinavian culture

Separating between kinds of drugs might be helpful when determining the social and cultural dimensions of various drugs in a broader Scandinavian context. Amphetamine has been shown in a Norwegian study to have strong ties to conventional culture, and to act as an enabler for managing mothering, manual labour, studying and heavy drinking (Pedersen, Sandberg & Copes, 2015), while occasional cannabis use is concluded to be rather normalized in Denmark

(Järvinen & Demant, 2011) and more accepted and frequently used among

Swedish and Norwegian youth than earlier (Pedersen, Bakken & von Soest, 2019; Skårner & Månsson, 2008). Studies from the region have highlighted that

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cannabis is a drug that is largely associated with opposition and counter-culture (Järvinen & Ravn, 2015; Sandberg, 2010b; Sandberg, 2013), although many users are advocating for the official recognition of cannabis’ medical properties

(Månsson, 2017; Pedersen & Sandberg, 2013). Similarly, while there were attempts at utilizing psychedelics for therapeutic purposes during the 1950’s and 1960’s in the Scandinavian countries, their initially strong ties to oppositional culture and lack of robust evidence led to them not being able to gain official recognition as a treatment option and remaining illegal, hence further anchoring their ties to counterculture (Pedersen & Haave, 2018).

Previous research

Much of the existing literature on drug narratives from the Scandinavia is today revolving around the narratives associated with the normalization and

‘recreational’ use of drugs by non-marginalized people in pursuit of pleasure (see e.g. Edland-Gryt, Pedersen & Sandberg, 2017; Ravn, 2012; Rødner, 2005). On the flip side, only a few studies in the region have explicitly laid their focus on the narratives of people who utilize drugs to cope with pain, stress and work, especially in a non-marginalized population. Narratives thematizing

self-medication, performance enhancement and stress management have been addressed without being the explicit focus of some studies from Norway and Denmark (Järvinen & Ravn, 2011; Järvinen & Ravn, 2015; Pedersen et al., 2015). Other studies from outside Scandinavia also have participants reporting on

physical or mental health problems and traumatic experiences as a core reason for initiation of their drug use (Henwood & Padgett, 2007; McConnell, 2016; Miller et al., 2015; Valentine & Fraser, 2008).

More similar to the study at hand, are two Norwegian studies by Pedersen & Sandberg (2013) and Pedersen (2015), which have addressed narratives of self-medication in a more explicit manner through examining the narratives or verbal strategies employed by people who utilize cannabis for self-medicating purposes, mainly to reduce social stigma and gain social acceptance. Whereas these two studies focus explicitly on the narratives of participants who

self-medicate​ through the use of cannabis, there is a need for advancing the

knowledge on what characterize narratives of drug use for more general ​coping purposes, namely managing stress, pain or work. ​The term ​coping​, as utilized by Folkman & Lazarus to describe the act of “(...) constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person” (Folkman & Lazarus, 1984, p. 141) semantically encompasses a wider and more nuanced definition of why and how people use drugs than the more narrow but widely utilized term ​self-medication​. Therefore I have decided to use the term coping in place of self-medication. Generally, ​there is a lack of studies examining the role that narratives play in drug use in a Swedish context, as many of the existing studies from Sweden utilize qualitative data, but do not examine narrative

accounts per se (see e.g. Rødner, 2005; Rödner, 2006; Skårner & Månsson, 2008). In the study at hand I will ​address the knowledge gap in the current research, adding to existing studies conducted on drug narratives in the framework of narrative criminology.

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 

Narrative criminology

The framework of this study is defined by the field of narrative criminology, a theoretical and analytical framework that was coined by Lois Presser in 2009 (Sandberg & Ugelvik, 2016). Narrative criminology draws on perspectives from narrative psychology, ethnomethodology, cultural structuralism and

postmodernism (Presser & Sandberg, 2015a). Grounded in social-constructionism, the framework emphasizes that narratives, or stories, should be viewed as

constitutive​, thus having the ability to shape behavior and actions, but also serve

as actions themselves (Presser, 2009). Hence, when deconstructing personal narratives, speech should be analyzed as actions that the individual creatively performs to either convey an identity or perform a speech act (Sandberg, 2010b). For that reason, narrative criminology is a suitable perspective for studying narrative accounts of past and present drug use.

Scholars in the field of criminology have commonly viewed narrative accounts as means to ‘uncover reality’ and ‘reveal’ information about events and criminogenic units in the past of offenders, such as abuse and adverse experiences (Miller et al., 2015; Presser & Sandberg, 2015b) or as tools utilized by offenders to ‘deceive’ the listener (Presser, 2009). Often neglected is the perspective that the narrative delivered might be having an influence on the narrators themselves, in addition to influencing others (Presser, 2009). What is crucial to the framework, is that the individual operates within certain discursive constraints, and one’s thinking and presentation of oneself are constructed in accordance with culturally available narratives. In order to be effective, a narrative has to draw on some other, wider cultural narrative that is known and understood by the people one is telling the story to (Sandberg, 2010b). Narratives consequently “tell us something important about values, identities, cultures and communities” (Sandberg, 2010b, p. 455). In connection to the discursive constraints mentioned, individuals are capable of, to a certain extent, exercising agency in their narratives. Agency can be defined as “self-hood, motivation, will, purposiveness, intentionality, choice, initiative, freedom and creativity” (Emirbayer & Mische, 1998, p. 962 as cited in Fleetwood, 2016), and at the meso-level, examining how agency is negotiated by individuals in stories of illicit activity is crucial for mapping out how the narrators assign responsibility for e.g drug use to various internal or external ‘forces’ in their story (Presser & Sandberg, 2015b; Walker, 2014). Another distinct feature that may appear in narratives is the narrative strategy of ​symbolic boundary drawing​. This strategy is more frequently employed by individuals at risk for stigmatization, e.g people who use drugs, to distance their own practices and intentions from the perceived practices and intentions of stereotypical others (Copes, 2016; Pedersen, 2015). The construction of one drug as harmful or addictive and conversely, the construction of a preferred drug as not having these qualities, can inform us of how narratives influence or allow for certain behaviors in the future, in addition to making sense of the past (Copes, 2016).

 

 

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METHODS AND ETHICS 

Narrative interviewing and inquiry

The narrative interview method is a sub-category among other qualitative

interview methods, usually also relying on techniques close to the commonly used semi-structured interview (Jovchelovitch & Bauer, 2007). The guidelines tailored for narrative interviewing arranged by Schütze (1977; 1983; 1992, as cited in Jovchelovitch & Bauer, 2007) encourage the interviewer to avoid much ‘pre-structuring of the interview’ (Jovchelovitch & Bauer, 2000, p. 4) and to phrase questions relevant to the particular narrative of the participant in their own jargon as the story develops. The role of the narrative interviewer is to remain a listener, and to assist the participant in continuing the story and, from time to time, ask questions for clarifications (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009).

Recruitment and participants

When starting this project, I sought to specifically collect narratives from people who understood at least parts of their own previous or present drug use as a coping strategy, and I was forced to narrow my target group and explicitly

communicate this when recruiting and upon initiating interviews with participants. Similarly to Järvinen & Ravn (2011), I was not looking to recruit “a group of young clubbers who are generally successful in averting the risks of illegal drug use” (Järvinen & Ravn, 2011, p. 555), nor did I aim for interviewing participants who had experienced severe marginalization coupled with or as a result of their drug use, as these represent what are arguably false binaries and misconceptions. In the current discourse, middle-class users are more often allowed a position as users who are able to utilize drugs for pleasure and in a ‘controlled’ manner, while the drug use habits by those in poverty are mostly evaluated as only connected to “crime, social misery and addiction” (Valentine & Fraser, 2008, p. 410). My goal was to seek out participants who perceived themselves as using or having used drugs to cope with physical or emotional pain, stressors, anxiety and diagnoses while not being affected by severe marginalization.

I started the recruitment process through putting up information letters about the study on notice boards stationed around campuses of Malmö and Lund university, as illicit cannabis use for the sake of coping with psychological and physical symptoms is known to be present in student populations (see Pedersen 2015; Pedersen & Sandberg, 2013). Additionally, I put up the information letter in various Facebook groups targeted towards people residing in or around Malmö, including electronic clubbing-groups, student groups, and groups for people working in bars and restaurants, as populations affiliated with these occupations and (sub)cultures have been represented in studies revolving around the topic of drug use (Järvinen & Ravn, 2015; Järvinen & Ravn, 2011; Pedersen et al., 2015; Ravn, 2012).

The sample ended up consisting of the three participants who expressed

unambiguous interest in participating, all of which contacted me after having seen my Facebook post. This resulted in three face-to-face interviews with one male, one female and one non-binary participant between the ages of 21 and 42. The participants were diverse in terms of social background as well as type of drug they had used, but common for all participants was that they at some point in life

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had used drugs, and that they all currently understood their own use at some point in their life as a coping mechanism.

Procedure and materials

I recorded the interviews and each interview lasted between 30 minutes and one hour. This yielded a total of approximately three hours of recorded material. The interviews were carried out in Swedish and English, depending on the

participant’s preferred language. As described in the previous section, guidelines advising against pre-structuring of the narrative interview, but with me being a novice researcher, I did utilize some guiding questions to make sure that I kept somewhat on track with my topic and aim.

As I turned on the recorder to begin the interview, I asked the participants to tell me a little bit about themselves to the degree that they felt comfortable with, as I had little or no background information. To get a better picture of the context of the participant’s history and current situation, I typically followed up with the question ​And what kind of drugs have you used, in what kinds of situations or for

what purposes?​. The participants then typically continued to provide an account

of the drugs that they had used the most, and provided reflections upon what was being asked. According to Kvale & Brinkmann (2009), a person conducting a narrative interview can directly request stories about episodes or periods from the participant, and together with the participant try to put these events in a coherent order. I hence tried to facilitate a longer account through posing the question ​Can

you tell me a little bit about when you think that it started?​ and continued to probe

the story through asking follow-up questions (​What happened then?​ etc.) and for clarifications of terms as the participant continued to share their story. This main question above arguably gave the participant a chance to set a starting point for making sense of the events and processes leading up to the parts of their drug use they found relevant. When the person during the narration expressed that they perceived themselves to have quit or moderated their use since they used it as a coping strategy, which was the case for all of the participants, I followed up with the question ​What was it that made you stop using [the substance] (in the way that

you used to)?​, to elicit their account of how and why they thought this occurred.

Lastly, towards the end of the interview, I proposed variants of the question ​What

do you do to cope today, if you feel like similar problems arise?​, to map out what

they now framed as being their current coping strategies.

Ethical considerations

Upon starting the data collection for this study, I was advised by the faculty of Health & Society at Malmö University to submit an application and the

information letter I intended to use to the faculty’s ethics council if I were to carry out research containing personal information such as ‘​ethnic origin, political opinions, religion or philosophical convictions, trade union membership and information concerning health or sexual activity. Personal data on offences that involve crime, judgements in criminal cases, coercive measures or administrative deprivation of liberty.’​ ​(sic) as Malmö University cites the Personal Data Act (1998: 204) Section 13 on their web page (Bassmann, 2020)​. In line with these guidelines, I was responsible for taking precautions to maintain the integrity of the participants.

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Prior to beginning the interviews, I had a more informal introductory talk with the participants. I then explained the aim of the study and how the interview process would be carried out to make sure that they had an understanding of the coming procedure, and that I wanted to collect narratives centered around drug use as a coping strategy. I then moved on to handing the information letter to the

participant for them to read. I summarized its content to the participant as it was placed in front of them. Subsequently, I handed them the consent form and asked them to sign under any name they preferred, given that they were still interested in participating in the study. These specific measures were taken to ensure that the participants participated voluntarily and gave their informed​ ​consent to participate in the study, meaning that they were aware of the purpose of the study, how the data was going to be utilized and their rights to withdraw from the study without any further questions. All participants provided their written and verbal consent, as they had to do this in order to participate. The information letter is included as an appendix, to give a more detailed and accurate picture of the info provided to potential participants.

Furthermore, I was strongly advised by Malmö University’s ethics council in their approval (see the section ‘Appendices’ to read the whole approval) to take careful action when handling the participants’ personal information and data in the current study. In line with the board’s recommendations and to ensure secure handling of the data, I turned off the internet connection on the computer when transcribing the interviews into textual data. Furthermore, I deleted the recordings from each of the interviews immediately after transcription, and stored the

transcripts on an encrypted USB-device with the aim of deleting all information I had on the participants after the examination, including our email correspondence and chat conversations. This was to secure the confidentiality of the participants’ data. All names of places mentioned have been left out and the names of the participants have been replaced by pseudonyms, in order to protect the participants’ anonymity.

Analytical strategy

I chose my analytical strategy according to the guidelines provided by Presser & Sandberg (2015b) and Sandberg (2010b) on how an analysis within the

framework of narrative criminology may be conducted. I carried out the analysis manually through reading the transcripts from the interviews thoroughly several times to get familiar with each specific interview and its characteristics, while keeping the aim of the study in mind. I identified certain patterns in the data, bringing about narrative ‘themes’ that I presented in a chronological order to highlight the similarities between the three narratives, as well as separately analyzing each statement that made up these themes and located cultural narratives reproduced by the participants, negotiation of agency and narrative strategies such as symbolic boundary drawing. These aforementioned components in narratives are often found to be intertwined (Copes, 2016; Presser & Sandberg, 2015b) as evident in the results I present below, but are in the discussion separated for the sake of responding to the research questions.

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RESULTS 

Initiating and continuing illicit drug use: A negotiation of the forces at play

All three participants told stories that featured a complex set of ‘forces’ that they assigned importance to when speaking about how the initiation and continuation of their drug use came about. Reports of utilizing drugs to cope with stress, pain or wanting to ‘escape’ were, perhaps unsurprisingly, represented in all of the three interviews but these narratives were also interwoven with a view of their drug use as partly initiated and maintained by an inherent ‘drive’ towards substance use: Dennis made sense of this drive as an inherited illness, and Ida and Alex narrated this ‘drive’ as a curious and a thrill-seeking personality, respectively. Moreover, they all constructed their external environments at the time as relevant for the initiation of drug use. Dennis mentioned his work place as an external facilitator, while Alex and Ida pointed out feeling like ‘outsiders’ in their small village while growing up. When asked to give an outline of how he initiated his use of

amphetamines, Dennis responded:

Dennis: ​My job. I am a chef. When I get into a stressful situation, that was

when I used.

Me: ​Mhm.

Dennis: ​But well, it’s like I told you in the beginning - the problem is not

the alcohol or what drug you are doing, the problem is - myself.

Me: ​Okay?

Dennis: ​It’s me who’s the problem. I might just as well say “Hey, my name

is the alcohol and my problem is Dennis.” It’s because in the twelve steps that you go through, it’s just the first step that is talking about the drug itself.

The interaction above is an illustration of how Dennis initially described

amphetamine use as a way to cope with stressful situations at work, but quickly moderated his statement and corrected it with another opinion of what the ‘problem’ actually was, namely himself. Dennis demonstrated this notion with a sentence that is playing on a well-known phrase commonly associated with Alcoholics Anonymous: “Hey, my name is Dennis and I am an alcoholic” was rearranged to ​“Hey, my name is the alcohol and my problem is Dennis”​. He further continued by explicitly referring to the ​“twelve steps that you go through”​, and being the first time that he mentions these, almost in passing, he implicitly assumed that I knew what he was talking about. This might be due to a wide cultural representation of the phenomenon of 12-step addiction treatment and its jargon, but also because for Dennis, in virtue of his personal experiences with going through treatment and attending 12-step programs, it is formulated as an almost mandatory process.

Later in the interview, Dennis explained that amphetamine was a common tool for enhancing work performance among his former colleagues, and told a detailed

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story of how he first got offered amphetamine by his colleagues two times at his previous workplace, before eventually accepting it (“​Then he said ‘well, don’t you

want to try something?’ and I like ‘like, are you, are you also going to give me this offer…?’”)​, assigning parts of the responsibility for initiating use also to his

external social environment. Additionally, he stated that he initiated amphetamine use to be able carry on with an already established drinking habit, and in that way the amphetamine also enhanced his performance at work. Dennis gave many indications that he viewed his relationship to amphetamine and alcohol as indistinguishable, and related this to what he made sense of as an illness:

Dennis: ​I started out with alcohol. The amphetamine entered my life pretty

late. (...) There is much proof that I was born with this illness. Like, that my grandfather had this illness. It skipped my dad, and it came to me. When my illness was first triggered, that was when I got a spoonful of wine when I was a baby.

The word ‘illness’ could here be viewed as a semantic euphemism for what

Dennis constructed as an inherited disposition for substance dependence. While he in the aforementioned interaction ended up emphasizing that he himself was a ‘problem’, he in this description managed to dilute some of the responsibility. This happened through Dennis making sense of the part of himself that mainly explains his amphetamine initiation as an inherited trait.

In regards to external forces, Alex and Ida provided accounts where they constructed themselves as ‘outsiders’ in their respective towns while they were growing up and simultaneously initiated drug use. In between Alex’ descriptions of how they had earlier used drugs in association with pain and as a therapeutic measure, he enthusiastically delineated several stories that featured memories of their friend group while growing up, exemplified by the following passage:

Alex: ​Hm, weed... I think I kind of got into it because - I was an edgy

teenager (...) I-I, my friend circle was super-into that. I was kind of hanging out with the ‘edgy’ kids, and the goth kids and the hippies at school. (...) Like, yeah, countryside kids not knowing what to do with their life.

Alex’ description of having been an ‘edgy’ teenager and relating this to the use of cannabis, and then highlighting socialization with the ‘edgy’ kids at school, served as an act of narratively constructing Alex’ ties to an oppositional youth group in adolescence. Moreover, responsibility was in parts assigned to the group as a whole, but also the immediate environment, as Alex’ spoke of it as a unity: ​“my

friend circle was super-into that”​, and that it happened by virtue of ​“not knowing what to do with their life”​ in the countryside context. Conversely, Ida’s narrates

her outsiderness and initiation of drugs as a more individual experience, both facilitated by her external environment:

Ida: ​I later got in touch with people that were a bit older, who popped

pills, drank a lot, weed… (...) Earlier I walked around feeling just weird and ‘wrong’, there was no one who wanted to talk about what I wanted to talk about. I lived in a very small village as well, so it was pretty limited -

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there are a limited number of folks who are as old as yourself, so you can’t hang out with a great deal of people.

Ida here narrated the initiation of a variety of substances and later cannabis as

facilitated​ by her connection to older peers in the context of her town. Moreover,

she continued to explain this initiation by constructing herself as an outsider, telling a story of how she felt ​“weird and wrong”​ by virtue of her interests, and emphasized the small size of the town and the limited pool of peers available to socialize with to contextualize why she felt this way. In this passage as a whole, Ida gives an indication that the socialization with older peers who did drugs resulted from a lack of feeling like she belonged with peers of the same age. Ida additionally narrated her initiation as driven​ ​by what she constructed as her inherent curiosity. When Ida talks about it in relation to her initiation of drug use, it is coupled with a certain ‘recklessness’ that she continued to refer to throughout the interview in a number of ways:

Ida: ​When I first started to use different substances I probably didn’t

reflect on why I did it really, more than that I was curious, pretty ‘out of control’ [in English], I wanted to, like… I didn’t care that much about what happened to me but later when I got a bit older I started to use, above all, cannabis in a different way. Then I could also justify that it filled a function for me. (...) I started to understand that it could help me sleep, to… relax more. Like, there has always been a lot of anxiety there.

Similar to Dennis’ account, Ida’s statement above negotiated the forces of attraction at play when she was making sense of her drug initiation and continuation. She indicates having had an inherent ‘drive’ by virtue of her curiosity, but also that this drive was almost a ‘wild’ drive, or something that she was not able to exercise any control over. Her utterance: ​“I didn’t care much what

happened to me”​ also paradoxically constructs her young self as almost passive in

the initiation. Also, through highlighting her use of cannabis as a tool as she got older, she constructs her older self as more in ‘control’.

Lastly, Alex’ account also displayed a negotiation between the perceived forces promoting the initiation and continuation of drug use:

Alex: ​I had some trauma that started when I was like, 13, so like, I think

through my whole teenage-phase I had a fascination for mind-altering substances already. Maybe because that’s the type of person that I am, who is always looking for a thrill - which I am still today. But also like, getting out. There was always - because I had no therapy, I had a lot of anxiety issues, flashbacks, all these kinds of things. Ehm, really

undiagnosed and untreated PTSD. I was hoping for this, like, magic pill that makes it click. Weed felt really good, I would say.

This is an example of how, on the one hand, Alex saw their initial attraction towards substances as something induced by their ‘thrill-seeking’ personality, not very different from Ida’s reported curiosity: an inherent ‘drive’ in their persona. However, in contrast to Ida, Alex constructed even their ​initial​ pull towards

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and almost as being intertwined with their thrill-seeking persona. Alex here describes the duality of their drug initiation: They were ​“looking for a thrill”​, but also looking to ​“get out”​ from something uncomfortable. Alex also constructs their undiagnosed PTSD and lack of therapy as an entity that limited their agency to choose otherwise and served as a factor in inducing and shaping their cannabis habit.

The realization that induced the de-escalation: A change of perspective

Even though the three participants differed in their accounts of how they viewed their actual and ideal relationship to substances, all of them shared stories of how they had a clear realization that their drug habits at the time had to subside or stop. The process of successfully de-escalating or quitting drug use was narrated by all of the participants as a change in the participants’ view of themselves or the substances they had used most frequently. When I asked Dennis what it was that made the last treatment work, he replied:

Dennis: ​That I started to take responsibility for my own life. That I started

to work with myself. The other treatments didn’t work because I haven’t started working with myself. I think ‘no, but I’ll manage this without meetings, no problem, only idiots go to meetings’. (...) But they are sober and drug free. And I walk past a meeting and I am not drug free, and not sober. So who’s the idiot? Them? Or me? I have started to realize that I’m the idiot.

Here, yet again the verbal practice of assuming responsibility for his own actions is present in Dennis’ narrative regarding his drug use. He implied that taking responsibility and working with oneself is manifested through going to meetings, referring to 12-step meetings. Dennis narrated that what changed his perspective was the reasoning he made when he (metaphorically or not) witnessed people, whom he stated that he formerly thought of as ‘idiots’ ​by virtue of​ attending meetings, managed to stay in sobriety in a way that he did not.

While Dennis described his change of perspective as a recognition of an

uncomfortable truth about himself, Alex reported their realization as triggered by an explicitly uncomfortable experience, namely a panic attack:

Alex: ​Just a few hits and then I had like a really, really, really bad panic

attack. And that for me was like the moment where I was like ‘nope, not for me anymore’. (...) I just think it [drugs] wasn’t a good idea for me. Or… Weed wasn’t a good idea for me. I am like - every time I took like

psychedelics was… Amazing. And just so healing and life-changing.

Alex here told the story of their panic attack inducing a momentary realization that smoking cannabis was ​“not for” ​them anymore, This is then followed by a conclusion that drugs were not ​“a good idea for”​ them. This was then moderated to only include cannabis, and Alex continued to make an explicit statement of how their experiences with psychedelics had been exclusively positive, and that it had provided them ‘healing and life-changing’ qualities. In this way, Alex

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good idea’ for them, making Alex’ change in perspective an occurrence that mostly concerned cannabis.

On a similar note, Ida described her change in perspective ​itself​ as induced by a psychedelic drug experience:

Ida: ​Then what triggered it was a mushroom trip. I really sat down and

examined myself and just felt this extreme conviction that this period of my life is over now. There’s nothing left, it’s not serving any purpose. (...) And then I felt more and more bad every time I did it [smoking cannabis]. (...) And that in the end led to a day where I just “no, now… now it’s enough” kind of.

In this statement, Ida narrated a gradual process of how she quit smoking cannabis regularly as caused by an incident of taking mushrooms. Ida describes how the ‘trip’, which is a known slang for the hallucinations occurring when ingesting psychedelic drugs, triggered a conviction that a period of her life, the period when she used cannabis as a coping measure, was over, making her change her

perspective of the drug. “​There’s nothing left, it’s not serving any purpose” implicitly refers to her earlier reported tool-like utilization of cannabis. Here, although the shift in perspective is narrated as confined to a specific trip, Ida expressed the gradual manner in which led to her at some point judging her use as having reached some sort of limit. She continued to elevate psychedelic drugs at the expense of cannabis, as she considered having utilized psychedelics for therapeutic purposes:

Ida: I​ would separate those experiences from the other [cannabis], in a

way. As it has given me so much… nice and good things. So these [psychedelics] I have taken for therapeutic purposes.

Ida’s act of drawing a line between her experiences with cannabis and psychedelics, in addition to her narrating psychedelics as therapeutic means, created an opening for the use of psychedelics today.

Today: “I fill it with healthy - healthy values if you can put it that way.”

When I questioned the participants about what they would do today if they were to experience stress or emotional pain, the participants all reported adhering to more conventional or ‘healthy’ ways of coping. Dennis highlighted going to meetings as his main substitute for all substance use in general, as his goal was total abstinence. Ida and Alex described themselves as being engaged in activities that are by most people in the current discourse considered more conventional than drug use. This is exemplified by Ida verbally constructing her adherence to cooking and meditation, while emphasizing that her thrill-seeking persona was now getting an outlet through exercise:

Ida: (...) ​Well, it can either be to meditate or to make a fucking good

dinner, but also, I think that I am a pretty thrill-seeking person, so for me it has like… To work out has played a pretty big role and that is kind of really… good [laughs].

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Ida’s identity as a curious and thrill-seeking person remained as a continuous unit in her narrative, and thus being made sense of as requiring another way to satisfy that. She thus presents exercise as that necessary substitute, which is being assigned an unambiguously positive value. Alex constructs their current situation similarly, by describing that they had no goal of quitting substances, but narrated their situation today as filled with conventional coping habits:

Alex: ​I mean, I still have, like, coping-mechanisms. I love going to the gym

and I love going running. Like... And I love just, playing guitar, reading, writing, surrounding myself with like… good people, cooking, cleaning, like - you know these things that make me happy, things that are

productive.

Connecting the statements from this section and their former statements, Ida and Alex have managed to verbally open for continuing their current relationship to psychedelics through drawing on the cultural understanding of this drug group as inducers of healing and therapeutic experiences. That Ida and Alex constructed themselves as currently engaging in more conventional and ‘healthy’ habits would thus not be producing contradictory or conflicting narratives, as their continued positive evaluation of psychedelics (as opposed to their conflicted narration of their experiences with cannabis) is reconcilable with their current focus on

‘healthy’ coping due to their focus on psychedelics drugs’ therapeutic and healing qualities.

Having the maintenance of sobriety as his ideal goal, Dennis’ emphasis on ‘healthy’ coping again featured the notion of responsibility:

Dennis: ​I need to fill it with something. But, you can fill it with something

healthy. For instance, you go to your meetings. You go to your job. You take away those things that are not good for you, for instance - you don’t need to lie, today I don’t need to lie about where I have been. Don’t need to live in a lie. Like, I fill it with healthy - healthy values if you can put it that way.

Dennis here again highlights the important role that meetings have played in his current situation, and he narrates this as the healthy entity that he ‘fills’ either his time or his craving for substances with, together with his job. The above statement consisted of many imperative sentence constructions, and it was almost like Dennis was giving a speech to himself or people in a similar situation, urging the audience to fill their life with more ‘healthy’ values than substances.

In this section I have highlighted prominent characteristics found in all three narratives. Firstly, a number of internal and external forces were drawn upon as explanations and facilitators for the initiation and continuation of the participants’ drug use (not only coping with work or pain). Secondly, all participants described having a change of perspective that induced what they perceived as a

de-escalation. Lastly, they highlighted more conventional coping mechanisms which they described as ‘healthy’ as substitutes for their previous drug habits.

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DISCUSSION 

The aim of this study was to examine and identify prominent characteristics in narratives centered around the topic of past drug use as a coping strategy. In the following sections I will address my three research questions tied to this aim in three parts respectively. Firstly, I will identify and elaborate on outsiderness, curiosity and subcultural belonging that is commonly associated with cannabis use and psychedelics, as well as references to the 12-steps philosophy as the most prominent cultural ‘group’ narratives present in the participants’ narrative

accounts. The emphasis on ‘healthy’ coping in the present will also be thematized. Secondly, I will examine the participants’ negotiation of agency in their accounts, which turned out to be highly complex and most visible in the narratives of initiation and continuation and in Dennis’ narrative. Thirdly, I will point out Ida and Alex’ narrative strategy of symbolic boundary work employed to make sense to their current relationships to drugs.

Cultural narratives

One of the most notable cultural narratives in the accounts provided by the participants was the notion of ‘outsiderness’ and subcultural belonging that was reflected by Alex and Ida, which not only emerged in their stories of ​initiating drug use, but remained present as parts of their narrated identities, even today, as inherently thrill-seeking and curious personas. ​This supports the previous research which found stories of having been an ‘outsider’ as well as assigning

characteristics to oneself as being ‘edgy’ and curious tend to emerge in narratives revolving around the use of cannabis (Sandberg & Tutenges, 2015; Sandberg, 2010a; Sandberg, 2010b). ​A similar narrative to Ida’s and Alex’ ‘being an

outsider in a small town’ narrative is echoed and even meta-commented on by one of the participants in Sandberg’s (2013) study on cannabis culture, a

cannabis-smoker in his mid 20’s: “​All that stuff about feeling like an outsider in a small, narrow-minded town. It made me sympathize with oppositional-type stuff” (Sandberg, 2013, p. 63).

The striking similarities between Alex’ and Ida’s stories additionally support one of the cornerstones of the theory of narrative criminology: individuals draw entities from already existing language and stories that are available to them in the larger cultural context, to make sense of their story and construct​ ​meaningful narratives (Presser, 2009). Thus, single narratives are not constructed in a vacuum, but can be a window to understanding “values, identities, cultures, and

communities”​ (Sandberg, 2010b, p. 455). Furthermore, the practice of telling stories that feature the use of drugs, and cannabis and psychedelics in particular, enhances one’s subcultural credibility as both cannabis and psychedelic drugs signal opposition (Pedersen, 2009; Sandberg, 2013). As suggested in previous research, telling stories of having tried drugs can make the narrator more “edgy, complex and fascinating” (Sandberg & Tutenges, 2015, p. 170) and bad drug experiences (even addiction) can help create a narrative that signalizes that one has learned and grown. All three narratives presented in this particular study can be viewed in light of those findings. ‘Healthy’ coping remained at the forefront of their present self-construction for all three participants, and supports the

observation from Sandberg & Tutenges (2015) that ​having​ tried drugs renders a complex background without the stigma of ​being​ a user in the present. As for

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Dennis, he never talked about his past drug use to construct himself as an ‘edgy’ person. This may be explained by the findings in Pedersen et al. (2015),

suggesting that amphetamine use has much stronger ties to conventional culture, as opposed to cannabis and psychedelics that signify opposition.

Moving to another prominent narrative that was reflected in Dennis' account, he continued to refer to 12-steps programs and meetings and utilized much rhetoric and jargon associated with 12-step philosophy. This is in line with McIntosh & McKeganey’s (2000) research on how former ‘addicts’ constructed a non-addict identity: narratives of drug recovery do not emerge within a vacuum, but are often co-constructed together with others, and frequently together with drug counselors and people in the drug treatment industry. This becomes apparent when engaging with Dennis’ statements, and gives insight into the effects that the adoption of narratives can have in treatment, thus strengthening the notion in narrative

criminology that narratives are adopted and reproduced in social settings, and not merely produced by the innate qualities of the process of recovery (McIntosh & McKeganey, 2000; Presser, 2009).

Negotiating agency

In his narrative account, Dennis first mentioned stress as the reason for his amphetamine intake, but continued to narrate his addiction as an inherent illness and further engaged in self-deprecating talk for not having attended 12-step meetings before. Dennis described himself at the time of the interview as a person that now had ‘healthy’ values as opposed to earlier, and had thus regained some sort of control. The conflicted narration of control that is seen in Dennis’ account, and to some degree in the other accounts echoes the results from Maruna (2001), where most participants interviewed simultaneously admitted responsibility for past actions, but did this while also trying to justify them. Moreover, a prominent part of 12-step philosophy is to acknowledge the importance of significant others (support groups and mentors) in managing one’s own addiction, and that one has no power over one’s relationship to alcohol and drugs (Donovan, Ingalsbe, Benbow & Daley, 2013). According to this philosophy, abstinence is the only solution to one’s problem. Dennis’ understanding of himself simultaneously responsible ​and​ someone having an addiction-illness is in line with Walker’s (2014) analysis of 12-step literature: a notion of both powerlessness and

responsibility needs to be adopted to be able to be effective and actually promote change, which seems to have been effective to induce desistance and abstinence in Dennis’ case.

On an elevated level, this type of narrative can also work to partly conceal structural problems that strain and limit the agency of the individual. In another study addressing amphetamine use and its ties to conventional and working-class culture, agents or forces in the external environment were indeed addressed as core reasons for the initiation of use (Pedersen et al., 2015). Dennis’ narrative of individual responsibility and illness thus promotes abstinence, but also serves to overshadow the demanding conditions of Dennis’ work environment.

As for the remaining participants, Ida and Alex, they assign power to both their social environments and their curious, thrill-seeking personalities as factors leading to drug use. Ida further mentioned being ​“out of control”​ as a young teenager, and that she did not care about what happened to her, thus denoting a

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certain passivity before narrating a shift where she reported actively seizing and utilizing cannabis as a tool to lessen anxiety in later adolescence. Miller et al. (2015) in their study of women meth users argue that postfeminist discourses have made more agentic narrative repertoires available to women through positioning women less as victims of oppression. Similar to Dennis’ narrative of illness and personal responsibility, this can act as a double-edged sword: Ida’s narration of herself as an active agent in later adolescence helps to create a coherent narrative as someone more similar to the person she constructs herself as today, but may also serve to downplay potential incidents of victimization and oppression that she might have experienced in relation to her drug use.

Alex indicated that their thrill-seeking personality and barriers to getting therapy due to an undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder served as somewhat

instrumental in the initiation and continuation of their cannabis use. Earlier studies concentrated on self-medication through cannabis use found a similar ‘blurred line’ in the stories outlined by the participants between recreational use and medical use (Pedersen & Sandberg, 2013; Pedersen, 2015), also because the option of getting cannabis through the healthcare system was not available and thus often required a certain familiarity with the drug, often discovered through recreational use (Pedersen & Sandberg, 2013). Taking a position within the framework of narrative criminology, I also argue that stories present in the dominant discourse (Manning, 2007; Presser, 2009) have informed Alex and the medical cannabis users in the aforementioned study about the pain relieving features of cannabis.

Narrative strategies

As shown in the narrative accounts displayed in the results, Ida and Alex make a clear distinction between their experiences with cannabis (ambiguous) and their experiences with psychedelics (unambiguously positive), constructing

psychedelics as a healing and therapeutic entity and cannabis as a former coping habit that they at some point deemed undesirable. Ida even narrated psychedelics as the entity that made her stop using cannabis for coping purposes. This symbolic boundary drawing between drug types is a common narrative strategy among groups who are at risk for experiencing stigmatization as a way of distancing oneself from other, proximal social groups, and is also seen in the drug narratives examined in all 22 studies in Copes (2016) meta-synthesis. Moreover, the findings are in line with narrative criminology’s notion that stories are capable of being more than entertainment, stories are capable of ​doing​ (Sandberg, 2010b). Through constructing symbolic boundaries between psychedelics and cannabis and narrating psychedelics as ‘healing’ and ‘therapeutic’, Ida and Alex are to some degree able to account for and justify behavior that is, by conventional standards, deemed deviant, echoing the findings in Copes (2016). Ida and Alex are by this also reconciling a conventional narrative and a subcultural narrative by reaping the benefits of both narratives in constructing their present self, echoing the findings of Sandberg (2010b).

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LIMITATIONS 

Before concluding the current study, certain limitations need to be addressed in order to state its relevance. Firstly, Similar to Sznitman’s (2008) study on drug normalization in Sweden, I discovered that people vary greatly in their interest to participate in a study where their own drug use is the main topic. Wiebel (1990: 6) contests that the definition of a hidden population in research refers to individuals “whose membership is not readily distinguished or enumerated based on existing knowledge and/or sampling capabilities” and that this becomes evident when conducting research on patterns of drug use, as stated in Liamputtong (2007). While this may be a challenge when conducting a study on all types of drug users, the formerly mentioned binary distinguishing ‘high-functioning’ and

‘marginalized’ drug users in both research and the public discourse may have made it harder for a potential candidate to identify as a suitable participant for this particular study. Future studies would undoubtedly benefit from having a larger sample size to rely on for uncovering more generalising patterns in stories of drug use as a coping mechanism, and to recruit participants that understand their

current​ drug use pattern as a way of coping.

Moreover, a central notion in narrative criminology is that the storytelling context and thus the interplay between the participant and interviewer in the interview setting is deemed worthy of examination (Presser, 2009; Presser & Sandberg, 2015b). Further research should consider including analyses of, for instance, the potential effects of information provided to the participants before the interview (such as the information letter of the study, verbal information disclosed

informally by acquaintances and such) on the narratives at scrutiny.

Lastly, I myself am, naturally, affected by the cultural context in which I am situated. I thus made use of the terms that are more readily available to me in the dominant discourse, and terms aiming to describe drug use and experiences of it are doubtlessly rather ambiguous (Samuelsson, 2015), and might not match the experience of the participant telling the story, nor may they be perfectly accurate. Drawing on some of the reflections made by Valentine & Fraser (2008), I will also contest that in forthcoming research on stories of drug use for coping purposes a more thorough examination is needed of the dominant terms used to describe various drug use practices and its practitioners, to avoid promoting further stigmatisation as researchers.

CONCLUSION 

The results demonstrated in this study successfully fill a gap in the existing research on drug narratives through highlighting some characteristics found in narratives of drug use for coping purposes in a Swedish context, specifically. More importantly, the current results alongside previous research shed light on how narratives and their components have the ability to serve as actions themselves, but also to influence individual behavior.

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Drug use, even drug use that is utilized for the sake of coping with pain, stress or work is likely to have strong ties to identity and thus the individual’s construction of their past and present self. This is illustrated by Ida and Alex’ stories of their ‘outsiderness’ in adolescence and the continuity of their narratives as

thrill-seeking individuals today. In the case of Dennis, reconstructing a ‘new’ self through mapping out and creating a sensible account of perceivable wrongdoings also gives room for change and taking responsibility in the present, suggesting that addressing narratives in drug treatment can serve as helpful to battle

addiction. Moreover, while abstinence was not a particular goal for Ida and Alex, the boundaries they both constructed between psychedelics and cannabis, in addition to their focus on ‘healthy’ coping, nevertheless indicated that their overall mental health, but also ideals, had changed over the course of the years and influenced their behavior. The concept of illegality in relation to drug use was never thematized in any of the narrative accounts, suggesting that Sweden’s strict drug legislations are not serving their intended purpose of deterring people from drug use. Rather, demanding work environments and barriers to proper treatment for mental health problems was constructed as direct reasons for initiating and continuing to use drugs. This discrepancy needs to be addressed when formulating Swedish drug policies, where the focus should first and foremost be on promoting mental wellbeing and harm reduction.

Lastly, narrative criminology as a framework does not serve as an accurate

instrument to predict the future, but rather to gain an insight in how stories inform behavior. I stand behind Miller and colleagues (2015) conclusion that the

framework should “remain only one of a complex range of tools in the toolkit we employ to understand the causes and consequences of crime” (p. 92).

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APPENDICES 

Information Letter

Project title:

“Young adults’ narratives of using illegal or unprescribed drugs for self-managing physical or psychological symptoms” Date: 26.02.2020 Study manager: Johanna Løvås Your e-mail: interviews.mau@gmail.com

Studying at Malmö University, Faculty of Health and Society, S-205 06 Malmö,

Phone +46 40 665 70 00

Education: ​Criminology, Master’s

programme (Two-year)

References

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