Lecture 21: substance abuse Flashcards
What is a drug?
- Ray (1983): Any substance that alters (normal) interior structures or functions in a living organism
- A substance consumed for medical or recreational needs
- Dictionary.com: A habit-forming medicinal or illicit substance, especially a narcotic
- Labeling theory: Any substance that has been defined by certain segments of society as a drug
- Substance abuse: When certain substances, which we have named drugs, are used for non-medical purposes
Why are some drugs illegal?
Pharmaceutical qualities?
* Something about specific drugs that make people more uncontrollable (essential characteristic of the substance itself)
* Ie: caffeine makes us productive → does not impede daily activities
Damage to health?
* Diet drugs - can lose weight but they are made of benzedrine
* Benzedrine is the same as all the recreational bad drugs (same components as you can find in all the party drugs)
- Amphetamine is simultaneously: Benzedrine, Bennies, Crank, Ice, Uppers, Speed
- People in positions of power decide that some drugs are legal and some are not. Why?
- Drugs can make behaviours unpredictable - want to avoid this (want to control ppl) - Leading to criminal activities? Danger to people who use them and society → want to prevent against the drugs that do this.
Curtis Jackson-Jacobs (2004): challenges the idea that drugs cause more issues to society
- Poor Minority users from urban “ghettos” → they are studying impoverished neighborhoods to do this study - the conclusions about the drugs are therefore not accurate
- Effect of crack on on people who live in the most impoverished conditions in America
- In Midwestern American college town there is very low violent crime rate, despite people using crack → the context plays a role on what the drug does to the people.
Curtis Jackson-Jacobs (2004) finds:
- Users did not commit crime,
- Were not afraid of victimization by criminals
- Were not afraid of victimization by the law
- Did not suffer negative social esteem
- How?
- Using in secure contexts (not living in the streets/ extreme poverty)
- Excluding crack use from conventional life (use the drug in certain scenarios and not use it in others - compartmentalization)
- Social context - it is context dependent
why are some drugs illegal?
- Pharmaceutical qualities
- Damage to health
- People in positions of power decide
- Leading to criminal activities
- Addictiveness
- Altering perceptions
Alcohol?
In canada:
* An estimated 1500 preventable deaths are attributed to alcohol consumption annually.
* 90,000 preventable hospital admissions.
* Death + harm is coming from legal substance
* No reason to have it legal (based on costello’s argument) - there is a lot of damage to society.
What to do about social problems?
Make the behaviour illegal
Prohibition Laws USA - alcohol is illegal
The “noble experiment”
* Prohibition Era
* 1920 to 1933,
* The manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol were federally banned, enforced by the 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act
Prohibition: successful policy?
- Consumption of alcohol fell at the beginning of Prohibition (pre-prohibition downward trend)
- BUT subsequently increased;
- Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; (more illegal a drug = more dangerous it becomes due to all the black markets mixing dangerous substances to inflate them. Ie: moonshine)
- Crime increased and became “organized”; (elicit markets are driven by organized crime)
- The court and prison systems were overwhelmed;
- Corruption of public officials;
- Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue;
- Increased government spending;
- Many drinkers to switch to opium, marijuana, patent medicines, cocaine
In terms of the objective stated of the prohibition - the results are mixed: did not succeed in reducing. There was already a downward trend in alcohol consumption before prohibition - so even if we see reduction it would just be a trend
Symbolic Crusade - Joseph R. Gusfield
