Cumulative continuity and injection drug use among women: a test of the downward spiral framework

Although researchers have examined injection drug use among women, the find ings vary and remain inconvlusive. We know very little about the career of IV drug-using women-specifically, what processes link injection drug use to events and situations prior to adulthood! Using detailed self-report data, we examine the route into injection drug use and its long-term consequence s among a sample of incarcerated women. Comparisons are made between women who have and have not injected drugs within the conceptual framework develo ped by Rosenbaum (1981). We argue that IV drug using women live in social c ircumstances typified by a narrowing of life's options that decreases their ability to assume conventional roles. The results of path analyses suggest that women who have injected drugs experienced child maltreatment, were in undated in the drug culture, had fewer options in the conventional world, h ad expanded options in the nonconventional world, and lived in a chaotic li festyle.