The Social Value of Drug Addicts

The Social Value of Drug Addicts: Uses of the Useless, 1st Edition, investigates how society constructs the figure of the drug user. Medical anthropologists Merrill Singer and J. Bryan Page examine how portraying certain individuals as socially useless benefits specific institutions and economic groups.

The volume analyzes media representations, drug policy, and underlying social structures to demonstrate how industries profit from the demonization, criminalization, and popular glamorization of addicts. It also addresses the historical framing of substance use alongside the intersections of race and gender.

Synthesizing literature across multiple disciplines, the work connects the social construction of drug users to medical anthropology, public health, and popular culture studies.