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Drug, set and setting |

Drug, set and setting

In Dr. Norman Zinberg’s classic description of drug use, “drug, set and setting” is the best description of the complexity of drug use experience being a subjective and conditioned individual experience. He identifies three key factors in establishing a drug –using pattern:
  • The Drug – This is the nature of the substance itself and the chemical effects the drug will have on the brain
  • The Set – This is both the nature of the user and his or her expectations in taking the drug
  • The Setting – This is the collection of environmental factors surrounding the occasion of taking the drug.  These can be social and cultural factors, as well as physical ones; for example, whether the use is secretive or whether it is determined by a particular time or place.
It should be obvious that the reasons why people become bound up with drug use are beyond simple pharmacological effects of the drug.  Andrew Weil and Winifred Rosen have described the pattern of drug using behavior as ‘forming a relationship with drugs.’  The relationship can be positive or negative, and will be determined not by whether a particular substance is ‘good’ or ‘bad’, but rather depends upon the nature of the user’s interaction with the substance.  The ‘set’ and ‘setting’ of drug use are as important, if not more so, than the nature of the substance itself.

(see: “Drug, Set, and Setting: The Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use” by Norman E. Zinberg, MD, 1984, Yale University Press)

(see: “From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything you Need to Know about Mind-Altering Drugs” by Andrew Weil and Winifred Rosen, 1983 (revised ed. 1993) Houghton Mifflin Company)
 


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