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Alright so. Here is my theory,
1. Drugs
a. Drug use is a fact of daily life for most Americans.
b. Legal drugs use is so common that almost no one recognizes the activity as part of society’s relationship with drugs.
2. Drug Taking as Deviance
a. Drugs include a wide range of substances from aspirin and antacid pills to alcohol; hallucinogenic drugs such as marijuana; stimulants like caffeine, nicotine, and cocaine; mind-altering drugs; mood modifiers; and psychoactive narcotics like heroin that affect the central nervous system.
b. Drug – refers to a substance with a chemical base.
c. The term has certain socially determined and usually negative connotations.
d. The purpose for taking a drug is one criterion of deviant use.
e. Heroin has a stigma attached, where caffeine typically does not.
f. The deviant character of using a particular drug depends on norms, which are socially created standards.
g. Norms can change over time. Therefore, some drugs may be considered non-deviant at one point and then deviant at another. For example, in the nineteenth century, opiates, such as heroin, were commonly used in the US.
3. Social Attitudes About Drugs
a. In the nineteenth century, people began to stigmatize drug addicts.
b. Public opinion began to turn on drug use.
c. Even attitudes towards cigarette smoking has changed significantly over time.
d. Negative sanctions have been created for certain drug-taking behavior.
e. Harrison Act (1914) – legislation passed that prohibited the selling and using of opiates, cocaine, and marijuana without a doctor’s perscription.
f. Marijuana Tax Act (1937) – designed to stamp out use of the substance by subjecting smokers to criminal law proceedings.
g. As of 2006, 12 states have medical marijuana laws.
h. Cocaine – Over the past 20 years, the price of cocaine has dropped and patterns of use began to change from upper-class to working people, students, and others who are now able to afford the once very expensive drug.
i. President Ronald Reagan proclaimed a “War on Drugs” in 1986.
4. The Cocaine Highway
a. The World Bank’s construction of a paved highway through the Huallaga Valley in Peru opened up transportation routes that simplified shipping of coca, which is the basis of cocaine.
b. Today, there are estimates of about 10 million regular cocaine users
5. Social Attitudes About Drugs
a. Questions:
i. What should we do to resolve the drug problem today?
6. Public Policy on the War on Drugs
a. The government’s war on drugs has not addressed the fact that
i. Public concern over drugs varies in faddish cycles
ii. Links exist between drug-taking behavior and the general behavior patterns of people in the U.S.
7. Drug Use
a. Nearly everyone learns to take drugs initially by using legally available medications, remedies, and other drugs.
b. We often refer to pharmacies as “drug stores”
8. Legal Drug Use
a. Alcohol, tobacco, tranquilizers for relaxation, barbiturates for sleeping, and many minor painkilling drugs, such as aspirin.
b. There are many over the counter (OTC) drugs (about 300,000 of them).
c. Best selling prescription drug in the U.S. in 2005 was Lipitor (cholesterol reducer).
9. Illegal Drugs
a. Morphine and heroin, together with semisynthetic and synthetic alternatives such as methadone and ineperidine, make up the class of opiates.
b. These drugs account for the greatest proportion of drug addiction in the U.S.
c. Usually addictive in a very short amount of time.
d. Crack – the more potent derivative of cocaine that is produced by mixing it with water and baking soda or ammonia.
e. Cocaine – around $100 per gram
f. Crack - $10 per nugget
g. Methamphetamine (crank) – a derivative of legitimate amphetamines. Made in “meth labs”
h. Opiates account for the greatest proportion (not number) of drug addicts in the U.S.
i. Most everyone who tries heroin and becomes addicted learns to take the drug from others
j. The UN estimates that 25 percent of those who contracted AIDS did so through intravenous drug use!
10. Illegal Drug Use
a. Marijuana – essentially a social drug.
b. According to Clinard & Meier, marijuana can help establish the pattern of social relations in some groups.
c. It is often assumed, but not substantiated, that marijuana use may lead people towards all kinds of stronger drugs.
d. The “gateway theory” – Marijuana serves as a gateway to the use of other, more serious drugs.
11. The Meaning of Addiction
a. Addiction refers to physical dependence, “an adaptive state of the body that is manifested by physical disturbances when drug use stops” (Milby, 1981: 3).
b. Is everyone an addict of some kind? Anne Wilson Schaef believes that everyone is addicted to something, whether it be T.V., gambling, work, caffeine, relationships, sex, shopping, etc.
c. An addict is someone who experiences distress as a result of not having a drug – alcohol, heroin, or an amphetamine.
d. Some addicts seek help through 12-step programs, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
i. Other groups include: Narcotics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, and Workaholics Anonymous
e. Tolerance, dependence, and abstinence syndrome are often discussed in regards or in place of addiction.
f. Drug users often build up a tolerance to the drug, become dependent on the drug, and get withdraw distress is abstaining from using the drug.
12. The Process of Addiction
a. Waldorf (1983) – p.229 (POSSIBLE ESSAY)
b. Experimentation or Initiation
c. Escalation
d. Maintaining or “taking care of business”
e. Dysfunction or “going through changes”
f. Recovery or “getting out of the life”
g. Ex-Addict
13. The Process of Addiction
a. Addicts rely on the drug subculture to:
i. Connect with dealers
ii. Maintain “hustles” (illegally obtaining money to pay for drugs) to secure money for drugs
iii. Protect themselves from outside interference from police and others
14. Society’s Response
a. Criminal sanctions
b. Laws prohibit manufacturing, selling, and using certain drugs
c. Some countries have VERY strict penalties. For example, in Singapore, a conviction for 1 kilogram of hashish or 20 grams of heroin carries an automatic death penalty.
15. Treatment and Self-Help Programs
a. Addiction develops through an essentially social process with effects independent of the physical properties of drugs and their impacts on the human organism.
b. Once an addict is in treatment, there are various programs depending upon the dependency
