This collection examines the ambiguous relationship be-tween the politically mute, average drug user and the small number, socially distant from the common user, who started the work of undermining official definitions of drug use. The drug users' identification with the issues of power, freedom, oppression, and libertarianism, triggered by the experience of police and penal regulations, is discussed, as is the influence of the growth in the collective competence of users and the changes in the using population on the shifting image of drugs.