On the legacy of normalization

In 1998 Howard Parker, Judith Aldridge & Fiona Measham published Illegal Leisure, a ground-breaking study of profound changes in British youth cultures in the 1990s, and the place of drugs and drug use in these upheavals. This work introduced the ‘normalization thesis’ to the social sciences, offering a novel vocabulary for re-imagining the normative character of young people's attitudes towards and experiences of illicit drug use. Arriving at the dawn of the new century, the book offered a thoroughgoing re-thinking of the character of youth cultures at a time of great social, cultural, economic and technological disruption. In so doing, the book deftly anticipated many of the most interesting currents of critical drug studies that followed.