an informal U.S. English term of the 1920s used here with the express agreement of the women involved. Its use is intended to make people aware that the terms “addiction” and “dependence” used in connection with people suffering from drug addiction have been—and still need to be—problematised over and over again, both from a medical and a legal perspective. The World Health Organisation recommended in the 1970s that the term “addiction” should be replaced by “dependence” in order to avoid negative connotations of moral disapproval. However, in the early 2000s it was argued that “addiction” focuses more concretely on the underlying disease of being compulsively dependent on taking substances or performing certain actions, whereas “dependence” rather refers to a relationship of superiority or subordination in human relationships. Depending on the context of the specific use of these terms—for example in medical studies or legal texts—the respective accentuations shift, so that even today there is no adequate formulation for a “junkie” that is free of misleading or overtly negative meanings. For example, after their conviction or imprisonment, they are currently officially referred to as “lawbreakers who need to withdraw” or “narcotics-dependent offenders”, which only reinforces the need for discussion about an appropriate designation and also shows that social processes of exclusion and degradation of junkies are ongoing.
