Envelhecimento psicoativo: práticas, sentidos e aspectos geracionais do consumo de drogas

Abstract

The counterculture generation has aged. Aging and psychoactive consumption are the starting points for the meeting with the interlocutors of this research. Both dimensions addressed with respect to the dignity of these friends that I have known since the beginning of the research. I chose to describe in this ethnography the details of the practices and values associated with the intake of psychoactive preparations, with some friends who are aging in Salvador-BA and Natal-RN. Participant observation was an indispensable condition for this immersion, complemented by interviews. We accept that old age is understood as a process dependent on the symbolic field and even more on the biographical and generational markers of each one. We note that aging body management adds to the current challenges of their lives, yet the hallmarks of the 60s and 70s are still visible and lead our friends to think about age and its vicissitudes. We understand how psychoactive ingestion now gains new characteristics, on a continuum from the psychedelic adventures of counterculture to other modalities of use. We had access to how our friends were able to reconstruct their first experiences of altering consciousness and how to appropriate new modes of drug use. We present and discuss how this consumption is realized, which sociability networks are triggered and the meaning field of these practices. We analyzed the controls present in the regulation of this use and met people who could share the comprehensive possibility of this complex phenomenon.