Tac: Young People, Gender and Neighbourhood Drug Markets (Crime Ethnography) Book

This book provides a detailed account of the way girls and boys of white British origin access and participate in legal and illegal drugs within the context of supply at the local level. It explores the relationship of children and young people to the local drug market from a gendered perspective and illustrate how their drug behaviours should be understood in both localised and gendered terms. It draws on a two-year ethnographic study of children and young people growing up on 'Northside', a small housing estate located on the edge of a large Northern City in England. Northside has an established drugs market dominated by the trade in cannabis resin, known locally as 'tac'. The environment which these young people inhabit is described in the first half of this book, and the author provides a critical examination of the popular image of the contemporary British housing estate by exploring the political economy of drug dealing and crime at the local level. In the second half of this book, attention focuses on the nature of boys' and girls' engagement with the local drug market and describes and analyses the gendered nature of their drug taking practises and rituals.