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Unit 3…
• Complete the assigned Readings
– Read pp. 80-115 in Henslin, and review the Web Resources related to
alcohol and other drugs. In order to learn more about resources and the
impact of alcohol and other drugs on society, refer to the document titled
“Unit 3 Resources” in Doc Sharing.
• Participate in Discussion
– After reading Issues in Social Problems: Addiction: Not the Individual Alone
on pages 86-87 in your textbook, answer the following statement/question:
• Discuss the impact of addiction on the individual mentioned in the story, his family
members, and society, and who you think was most impacted. Why do people
continue with their addiction even though there may be many things at stake?
• Using the story, and the section on Social Policy on pages 108-113 of your textbook,
discuss what you see as successful and unsuccessful policies related to drugs and/or
alcohol. What, if any, influence can human services professionals have on these
policies?
• Attend Seminar
• Take the Quiz
Drug Abuse
• A drug is a substance that people take to produce
a change in their thinking, consciousness,
emotions, bodily functions or behavior.
• Drug Abuse—using drugs in such a way that they
harm one’s health, impair one’s physical or
mental functioning, or interfere with one’s social
life.
– (Example) when an individual chooses the drug over
their family
• No drug is good or bad in and of itself.
The Failure of Punishment
• Changing social definitions
– It is not the objective conditions of drugs—such
as whether or not they are harmful—that makes
their use a social problem.
– Rather, it is the surrounding subjective concerns
that establish them as problems.
– Subjective concerns are not fixed, but change over
time.
The Scope of the Problem
• A drug is a substance that people take to produce a
change in their thinking, consciousness, emotions, or
bodily functions or behavior.
• People take many substances to cause such changes.
• Essential difference among these substances is not
which ones they use, but whether a substance is
socially acceptable or disapproved of.
• Far from being an antidrug society, we are actually a
pro-drug society.
Drug Abuse as a Personal
or Social Problem
• When drug use interferes with someone’s health or how that person gets
along in life, we consider this a personal problem.
• If large numbers of people become upset about a drug, and want
something done, then that drug becomes part of a social problem.
• Addiction and Dependence
– Addiction: serious problem related to all drug use or drug
dependence
• Example: If an individual feels that he/she will be unable to make it through
the day if he/she does not get his/her daily dosage of cocaine.
• Drug dependence is referred to as addiction.
• Nicotine and Alcohol as social problems.
– Smoking is the single most preventable cause of premature death in
the U.S.
– Alcohol is more dangerous than its broad social acceptability would
imply.
Looking at the Problem Theoretically
• Symbolic Interactionism
– The meaning of a drug depends on who is defining it
– What qualifies as drug abuse depends on social norms
– Our understanding of any drug use centers on the
meanings that people attach to it
– U.S. Temperance Movement
• Alcohol as a symbol
• Abstinence associated with morality, respectability, and
being a hard worker
• Drinking associated with being unreliable, questionable
character, and uneducated
Functionalism
Functions are intended or recognized and have a
positive effect on society.
Dysfunctions are unintended or unrecognized and
have a negative effect on society.
Latent functions of drug control
To protect their jobs, some bureaucrats eagerly try
to define many drugs as dangerous to the public’s
welfare.
Marijuana Tax Act in 1937 proved to be functional
for the Bureau of Narcotics.
Conflict Theory
• Drug laws as a way to control society.
• Drug control is a tool used by the most powerful
groups to control others and serve political and
economic interests.
• Conflict theorists also stress that politicians use
drug laws to control what are called “the
dangerous classes.”
• Conflict theorists point out the influence of race,
ethnicity, and social class in the formulation of
drug policies.
Medicalizing Human Problems
Abuse of prescription drugs to get high has become
increasingly prevalent among teens and young adults.
• Pharm parties—new trend among youth
• Physicians now prescribe drugs for conditions that
people used to assume were a normal part of life.
• Medicalizing human problems—offering a medical
“solution” for the problems that people confront in
everyday life.
– (Example) to cope with the grief of losing spouse a
physician may offer their patient a prescription for Valium.
Medicalizing Human Problems
• Who benefits?
– Drug industry
– Physicians and pharmacists
• Attention-deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)
– Inattentive or disruptive children
• Children struggle with completing their homework/assignments in
the time allowed, appear generally disorganized and/or forgetful
– Is the drug really for the patient or for those who would
benefit economically?
– Ritalin is a common drug used for ADHD
• Four million children in the United States are now on Ritalin.
Functions & Dysfunctions of
Medicalizing Human Behavior
• Functions of medicalizing disruptive behavior are
obvious.
– “Drug therapy” helps authorities justify the confinement of the
unruly.
• There are dysfunctions involved in the medicalizing of
everyday life.
– Some schoolchildren get stuck with the label of hyperactive or
mentally ill.
– Drug treatment brings with it horrible side effects.
• Withdrawal: (Example) Michael is vacationing with his family at the
Grand Canyon. It has been three days since his last heroin hit. As such,
Michael is experiencing aches and pains, nervousness, anxiety, and
depression.
Illegal Drug Use by Students
• Most commonly used drugs:
– Alcohol
– Nicotine
– Marijuana
• High School
– Students who plan to attend college use fewer
drugs.
– Men use more illegal drugs than women.
College Students
– Binge drinking—refers to the heavy consumption
of alcohol over a short period of time
• (Example) - While at her sister’s bachelorette party,
Heather drank 6 shots of tequila in a row.
• Binge drinking is defined as four or more drinks on a
single occasion for women.
– Binge drinkers in high school are three times more
likely to binge in college.
– Alcohol poisoning is the most life-threatening
consequence of binge drinking.
The Effects of Drugs
Why drug experiences differ
• What someone experiences from a drug depends on
three main factors:
– Drug—differ according to amount, quality, and
administration
– Individual—differ if users are anxious, depressed, or
relaxed
• Craving: (Example) As soon as Vicki wakes up in the morning, she
experiences an intense desire to drink a cup of coffee.
– Setting—influence individual’s expectations and can
change drug’s effects
– Psychological Dependence – a desire for the drug even
when the craving is over
Alcohol
• Alcoholics—people who have severe alcoholrelated problems
• 10 million Americans are considered
alcoholics.
• Each year 700,000 Americans are treated in
substance abuse centers.
• Billions of dollars per year in reduced
productivity and alcohol-related accidents
Drinking & Masculinization
– Basic reason most drunk drivers are male is
centered on socialization
– Men taught drinking is “macho”
– If American culture socialized women to believe
drunkenness was feminine, more young women
might drink to excess.
– Femininity being redefined in more traditionally
masculine terms
– Anticipate an increase in drunk driving accidents
among women
Health Consequences of
Drinking Alcohol
• Heavy drinkers more likely to have heart attacks,
problems with their endocrine, metabolic, immune,
and reproductive systems.
• Alcohol, pregnancy, and childbirth – When a child is
born to a mother who has used alcohol and/or
Narcotics the baby is also addicted to alcohol/or the
drug (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome/Fetal Narcotic
Syndrome)
– Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS)
• Occurs most often within groups that have higher rates
of alcoholism
• Most likely to suffer are Native Americans
Significance of How
People Learn to Drink
• Five ways to ensure a low incidence of alcoholism:
–
–
–
–
–
Make drinking a regular part of life
View alcohol as neutral—neither poisonous or wonderful
Do not view drinking as a sign of adulthood or virility.
Do not tolerate abusive drinking.
Allow parents to provide an example of moderate (light,
social, nonabusive) drinking
• Factors most likely to lead to alcohol-related
problems in the home:
– The family considers drinking alcohol as something special.
– Alcohol is viewed as either sinful or as a magical substance that
makes the world more pleasant.
– Drinking is considered a sign of adulthood.
– The family looks at getting drunk as a favorable event.
– Family members learn to drink outside the home, in a sneaky
manner.
• Some research supports a biological basis for
development of alcoholism but cannot rule out
social influences.
• Light-to-moderate drinking may have positive
health consequences.
Nicotine
• Nicotine is the second most popular recreational
drug in the United States.
• The tobacco industry strives to recruit new smokers
each year.
– Spends $13 billion a year promoting cigarettes and
chewing tobacco
• Teens think smoking is more common and
acceptable than it actually is.
• A new study confirms that fewer American kids are
smoking.
Marijuana
• Third most popular recreational drug in the United
States
• Health consequences of marijuana use
– Studies have not confirmed findings
• Smoking marijuana impairs motor coordination and
reduces awareness of external stimuli
• Associated with Amotivational Syndrome
– Lethargy, loss of concentration, and drifting from longrange goals
Cocaine
• Cocaine has not always been viewed the way it is
now.
– Late 1800s, physicians praised cocaine for medicinal
purposes
– By 1910, transformed from medicine into a dangerous
drug
• Harrison Act paved the way for cocaine to be sold on
the black market.
• Has a distinctive medical use
• The most common use of cocaine, however, is to
obtain a high.
Dysfunctions of cocaine
“High” is intense and users give up many of the things they
value
Creates health dysfunctions
“Crack Babies”: fetuses born addicted to cocaine because
of mother’s drug addiction
Crack Cocaine
Violence surrounds crack
Social history includes racial injustice
Now, sentences imposed for the use of crack can be no
heavier than those imposed for the use of powder cocaine.
Principles Underlying a
Drug’s Social Reputation
• Drug’s level of acceptance is not based on
objective conditions
• Gain reputation and acceptance through types of
people with which they are associated
• Drugs associated with respectable people more
likely defined as good and desirable, drugs
associated with poor people or deviants likely to
defined as bad and undesirable
• Reputation or social acceptability of drugs
changes over time
The Hallucinogens
• LSD
– Most famous of the hallucinogens
– Reached height of media attention in mid-1960s with hippie culture
• Peyote and Mescaline
– Widely practiced among Native Americans
– Can be used legally—but only by members of the Native American Church
for religious purposes
• Psilocybin
– Associated with pagan rituals, rulers launched religious campaigns causing
decline in their use
• PCP
– Phencyclidine Hydrochloride also called Angel Dust
– Affects the central nervous system, making it difficult to speak
• Ecstasy
– Popular party drug
– Side effects for some are mental confusion and anxiety
The Amphetamines,
Barbiturates, & Heroin
• Amphetamines
–
–
–
–
Became popular in the 1920s
Heavy amphetamine use sometimes accompanied by behavioral fixations
“Meth” addiction growing epidemic across the country
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy runs television advertisements to
discourage meth use, and a provision of the Patriot Act forces states to now restrict
purchases of pseudoephedrine.
• Barbiturates
– Used as anesthetics or for treatment of anxiety, insomnia
– For nonmedical purposes, provide experience similar to alcohol
• Heroin
– Western nations decided years ago to stop the heroin trade.
– Many heroin users are not physically addicted.
– Heroin is addicting to some people, but not to others.
• Fetal Narcotic Syndrome
– Pregnant women who use narcotics deliver babies who are addicted.
Research Findings: Narcotics,
Crime, & the Law
• Life circumstances make the difference, not
narcotic addiction.
• Narcotics do not cause the things we
commonly associate with them.
• It is the laws that make these drugs illegal.
• Law simply drives the transaction
underground and makes a black market
profitable.
The Dilemmas of Social Policy
Of all the social problems, developing adequate policies
for drug use is most difficult.
• Theory and social policy
– Social policy should be built around the dimension of
social harm.
– Symbolic interactionists—define social harm
– Functionalists—when do drugs interfere with people and
welfare of society?
– Conflict sociologists—social harm could be prelude to
wide-scale social change that leads to a more just society.
The “Get Tough” Approach
• Get-Tough approach appears to be dominant
sentiment in the U.S.
• Latent dysfunctions of criminalizing drugs:
– Bankrolling of organized crime
– Increase in muggings, burglaries, thefts,
prostitution, and premature deaths
– Worse than the original problem that the laws
address
Deciding Social Policy
• Banning advertising
• Drug education
• Drug addiction social policy
– Methadone Maintenance: example of how the labels illegal and legal
play key role in developing social policy
• A drug program that transfers addiction from illegal heroin to a synthetic
narcotic.
– Ms. Lugano is addicted to heroin. She is interested in a drug treatment program that will
transfer her addiction from illegal heroin to a legal drug.
• Alcoholics anonymous
• To be effective, social policy must match subculture of target group
• A Moral Entrepreneur is someone who crusades/advocates against
a drug such as marijuana.