‘All the Kids Wanna Sniff Some Glue’: glue-sniffing, deindustrialization, and moral panic in 1980s Britain

This article analyses anxieties surrounding glue-sniffing in 1980s Britain and their entanglement with the era's accelerated deindustrialization. A vibrant 'New Drug History' has overlooked glue-sniffing, despite its prevalence and prominent media coverage during the 1980s, which placed it at the vanguard of a renewed concern about drugs. Concurrently, scholarship on deindustrialization has largely neglected related anxieties surrounding drug use. This article addresses these lacunae by arguing that glue-sniffing offers a potent lens through which to examine the emotional dimensions of accelerated industrial decline during the early 1980s. Drawing upon popular media, expert discourse, and subcultural artefacts, it contends that the figure of the glue-sniffer became emblematic of broader societal fears regarding diminished opportunities for youth amidst unprecedented unemployment. This perceived crisis of youth futurity saw glue-sniffing become entwined with concerns surrounding not only joblessness, but also dereliction, juvenile crime, and youth subcultures. As such, this article helps take the notion of foreclosed futurity beyond the realm of theory through historicizing it as an everyday structure of feeling intensified by Thatcherite political decision-making.