Examination of historical background on injection of mind-altering drugs indicates that self-injection is a relatively young form of drug -taking behavior. Its antiquity is less than 150 years, and its intravenous variant may have as little as sixty years of popularity among illegal drug users. This perspective, combined with data gathered from IVDUs recruited in two projects in Dade County, Florida, concludes that commitment to introducing drugs into the vein is central to the cultural complex surrounding IV drug use. Needle use practices in this context appear to be changeable if intervention is based on clear ethnographic understanding of injection behavior.
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