Fast Lives

Providing insight into drug use from the point of view of female users, this volume tells of the complex lives, challenges, and choices of women who use crack cocaine. While popular images of these women present them simply as unreliable individuals, unfit mothers, and women who will do almost anything for crack, Claire Sterk's ethnographic research reveals the nature and meaning of crack cocaine use in the larger context of their lives - including the impact of such issues as gender, class and race.

Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. Getting Into Drugs 3. Patterns of Income Generations and Drug Use 4. Significant Others: The Women's Steady Partners 5. Reproduction and Motherhood 6. Off and On: Experiences with Drug Treatment 7. Female Drug Users and the AIDS Epidemic 8. Violent Encounters 9. Past Experiences, Future Aspirations, and Policies Notes Bibliography Index