The Spell of Morpheus…so quickly take me by the hand a stranger in a stranger land. I know the

secrets of your yearnings so don’t pretend that I can’t see. Come Morpheus and sing to me, and together and there’ll be no turning… White Noise

“Your Hidden Dreams”

A Critical Ethnographic Study of Poppy Use in One New Zealand City

Critical Ethnography

‘As a project’ critical ethnography is recognised as having conscious political intentions that are oriented toward emancipatory and democratic goals….

Before moving into the field the assumption is to find sub-cultures which are marginally positioned

Quantz (1992)

Ethnographies

• Choosing a topic ( submission date terms)

• Methodology, ethnography, qualitative research

• Method

• Description

• Analysis

Methodology and Method

• Method

• Literature search (where?)

• Interview (one or two) questions to be checked

• Documents, music, poetry, pamplets

Literature Documents and Music

• The poppy and drowsy syrups • Mass media depictions of the drug addict• Mythology (Morpheus and Magical Herbs)• Subcultural literature including harm minimisation literature• International literature drugs and addiction• Philosophy and history of drug use• Drug use and religious experience music/art• Drug use and women, witchcraft and healing• The Romantic poets and opiate visions (Papaver the Sorceress)• Fairytales• Shakespeare esp‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’• Pregnant women and methadone

Drug taking subcultures

• Poppy takers of the South The Spell of Morpheus

• Trainspotting

Papaver Somniferum

• What is a drug

• A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them as a licence to behave like an idiot- Frank Zappa Critic , May,10, 2004

• Classifications

• What is legal and what is illegal

The Poppy

• Grows readily in Dunedin gardens opium poppy used historically by Chinese gold miners in Central Otago

• Opiate of choice by all women in the study• Use initiated mostly by older men in party situation• Poppy grown or stolen • Poppy head and stalk lanced and opium latex collected• AA acetic anhydride or white vinegar added and cooked

H2O = diacetylmorphine or heroin• Intravenous use• Historic use by women of opiates including laudanum

and the invention of hypodermic syringe documented

Media images

Wasted Youth

Mythology and Morpheus

“The most important goddesses of many cultures are closely associated with intoxicating plants and gardens of delight in which grow the sacred fruits and herbs of what is variously termed knowledge, immortality or paradise…. Much more evident however is the tradition that regards women as inferior to men, and drugs as dangerous substances and artificial paradises.”

Sisters of the Extreme :Women Writing on the Drug Experience

Palmer and Horowitz

Poppy Goddess

Women under the hypnotic spell of Morpheus

Summary and Theories of Drug Use by Young Women

• Any drug use is a meaningful activity by any group or gender in any culture.

• Drug use is often ritualistic and varies according to the context of use and drugs available

• There are significant and different consequences of illegal drug use by young women who are mothers

• Drug use by women can act as a replacement lover, they can fall under The Spell of Morpheus

While SOME drug use for arbitrary reasons is demonised and the war against drug users continues , interventions including criminal prosecutions and treatments may outweigh any social good intended and inhibit any kind of rational progress in drug education or safe use of substances by young women in any context and in any culture