Drugs and risk-taking in tourism

This study examines the issue of drug-use during vacation in terms of tourists' voluntary risk-taking. Based on indepth interviews and observations at selected "drug tourism" sites, the study explores their perceptions of risk and related patterns of behavior. The findings reveal that they are concerned with legal, social, and medical aspects of risk; they take precautions to reduce it as associated with their behavior; and they perceive drug use as less perilous in the context of tourism than in the routine of everyday life. Accordingly, the study emphasizes the ambivalent nature of their voluntary risk-taking.