Tramadol consumption as edgework: intersections of pleasures and risks in the accounts of Nigerian youths

This study explores the complex interplay of pleasures and risks in young people’s tramadol consumption. It draws from semi-structured interviews with 39 male youths in two cities in Nigeria, and thematic analysis using edgework as a theoretical approach. Data highlight how high-risk tramadol consumption (e.g. heavy and frequent consumption, cocktails), motivated by a desire for pleasure and fun, served as a response to boredom and drudgery in daily life. Tramadol consumption opened up new horizons of affective, experiential and social possibilities, enabling young people to experience self-reflexivity and agency in widespread precarity. Data also captured lived experiences of risks and harms associated with tramadol consumption as well as situated strategies for working the edge of high-risk consumption. These strategies had limited effectiveness due to drug dependence and the structural drivers of high-risk consumption. Findings evidence a need to rethink drug harm reduction for marginalized youth. Specifically, they indicate a need to merge structural-level interventions (e.g. better job opportunities and drug treatment services) with individual strategies (such as dose reduction and occasional consumption). Interventions that address the social and structural drivers of high-risk consumption could help to create an ‘enabling environment’ for young people to practice harm reduction.