Substance Use and Abuse: Cultural and Historical Perspectives

The authors' primary goal is to thoroughly explore cultural and historical approaches. Such an approach has much to offer in terms of enriching our understanding of why people use drugs and in elucidating the nature of substance-abuse problems. They also demonstrate how such an approach can be integrated within a mainstream biopsychosocial perspective. In so doing, they hope to illustrate how explanations drawn from different levels of analysis and different disciplinary perspectives relate.