Illegal drug abuse and substance abuse in general is a pervasive social issue in the United States and the world at large, tearing apart lives and often condemning those addicted to a life in poverty. Often, people perceive substance abuse to be an entirely (or mostly) urban phenomenon, that chaotic “city” life is a magnet for substance abuse whilst life in a tightly knit “small town” is likely to discourage the practice. However, this is entirely a misconception; substance abuse does occur in rural communities, and where it does it perhaps is more prevalent than in urban areas. Further, the concentric nature of social relationships in the typical small town where substance abuse does occur may present a unique challenge for those attempting to address substance abuse issues in a rural environment. Substance abuse is more prevalent and more difficult to address in the context of rural America. Urban America is often seen as a place where the inherently dense concentration of people provides for a level of anonymity and diversity that fosters more accepting sentiments towards individual behavior, and by extension drug use (Draus & Carlson, 2008). Conversely, rural America is often perceived as a place where someone is always around familiar faces and is bound by a shared set of principles and close social relations that act as discouragers of illicit drug use (Draus & Carlson, 2008). However, as the study referenced in the article suggests, a rural climate does not necessarily have a negative influence on substance abuse. In fact, the high amount of social capital in the typical urban community (according to the text, social capital relates to the number of “positive, life-sustaining relations with individuals and institutio... ... middle of paper ... ...ed as a protective “web,” surrounding those living in a small town, which in the case of a substance abuser can actually “lock them in” to their lifestyle (Draus & Carlson, 2008). In conclusion, a high level of social capital in rural areas does not necessarily determine a lower level of substance abuse in an individual as compared to a city-dweller’s low level of social capital, while poverty uniformly is a social factor that precipitates substance abuse. Further, concentric social networks of drug users in a rural environment tend to make high social capital within such networks correlate with a high level of substance abuse. Finally, because of the tightly knit social networks in a rural environment substance abuse in rural America is much harder to tackle. In retrospect, substance abuse can actually be more prevalent and difficult to address in the rural setting.
Heroin addiction continues to be an important public health problem for the Edgewater homeless and America today. Addiction compounded with poor living conditions and reduced access to healthcare creates a syndemic that requires social and healthcare programs working together to confront the problem. Structural violence stigmatizes homelessness and heroin addiction, which negatively impacts addicts’ health. Attitudes towards these people must be changed so that all Americans are afforded the basic healthcare they deserve as human beings.
Straussner, S.L.A., (2001). Ethnocultural Factors in Substance Abuse Treatment. (254 & 261). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.
She has indirectly experienced addiction through multiple family members, therefore acquiring the ability to care for addicts in her hometown. Adela feels she has a responsibility to attend to those who are in dire need of treatment, especially since there is no longer a treatment center in the area. The local detox attendant makes a devoted effort to “push back against hegemonic sociocultural forces” by redefining care as a component of understanding, compassion and love. With this transformation, heroin addicts gain jurisdiction of their own bodies and a “greater say over the shape of their own subjectivities (Kohrman 2016). Individuals are no longer treated as prisoners of the state, yet as people with an illness. This particular account signifies hope in the Espanola Valley, despite the prevailing constraints that aims to criminalize a marginalized population for their issues. Professor Kohrman restates in his lecture that “hegemony’s victories are never final,” which is due to the presence of “multitude of resistances to ideological domination” (2016). Adela’s means of care resists the power of the clinical gaze, while investing in the health of the local people. Although heroin addiction in New Mexico is still a prevalent issue in today’s society, there seems to be an improvement in the quality of treatment when home detox
Connecting Sociology to situations that arise in everyday life has become easier and easier as i have progressed through Intro to Sociology this semester. When choosing what book I was going to analyze for my report, I chose Methland by Nick Reding. It details the quote “death and life of an american small town” through the perspective of those involved in the epidemic of the production of methamphetamine’s in the rural town of Oelwein Iowa. Despite the odds of a poor, small, and rural town in Middle America, Oelwein climbed to the top of the economic ladder with a multi million dollar drug franchise spread throughout the 1990’s. The midwest suffered greatly in the 1980’s with the downfall of the agricultural business in the United States. Soon drug dealers started flocking to these seemingly desolate towns in rural America to safely distribute their product. With the loss of jobs due to the farming downfall, many residents of Oelwein were seeking work and pay in anyway they could find. This is what started the official meth epidemic. Reding spent 4 years in his hometown of Oelwein Iowa to gain insight on the production and consumption of methamphetamine’s in this small town and also shines a spotlight on the problems of meth in this country today. But ironically, the comparison in this story of how the production and consumption of meth seemed to be driving this small town further into extinction, it also brought it back to life. Despite the destruction methamphetamines caused in Oelwein Iowa, the epidemic also brought the town back to life in a way that is irreversible. The highlight of the division of social class and who is able to climb up the social ladder is themed throughout the entire novel.
It was the late 19th century when a lot of conflict for families from the Industrial Revolution and illegal drugs had easy access to anyone in the United Sates. These illegal drugs like morphine, cocaine, and alcohol were available through manufacture, delivery, and selling. It was proved that the over use of alcohol and violence in families’ homes were linked together around the 1850’s and that women and children were being abused by the father and husband from the letters and journals that were wrote. These were times when women were stay at home mothers and it was the man’s responsibility to be the provider for the wife and children. Because of the abuse in the household it led up to the temperance movement. The purpose
The political, economic, and welfare systems have all but destroyed traditional culture, family dynamics, and work ethics on the majority of reservations. These combined factors have created, in many, feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that eventually lead to drug and alcohol abuse. This in turn leads to few successful role models for the next generation who will have even fewer incentives to break the cycle.
Rose, Dina R., and Todd R. Clear. 1998. Incarceration, Social Capital, and Crime: Implications for Social Disorganization Theory. Criminology 36 (3). Snell, Tracy L. 1994.
Many environmental factors contribute to a person’s proneness to substance abuse. These factors include but are not limited to stress, early physical or sexual abuse, witnessing violence, peers who use drugs, and drug availability. (Addiction Science) The desire to be accepted within a particular group often creates an enormous amount of stress in teens. This stress and feeling of alienation is a driving force towards drug use. Research has shown that, “Another important environmental factor is the amount and quality of emotional and social support a person receives. Teens who reported having an adult they trusted and could talk to, for example, have a lower risk of addiction than those who don’t.”(Environmental Factors) An impoverished environment increases the likelihood of substance abuse and addiction as well. Those who are apart of a lifestyle of poverty often experience incarceration and dropping out of school. Those who drop out of school, are unemployed or live in unsafe areas are at “higher risk, especially if their home environment has already exposed them to dru...
Drug in the American Society is a book written by Eric Goode. This book, as the title indicates, is about drugs in the American Society. It is especially about the misuse of most drugs, licit or illicit, such us alcohol, marijuana and more. The author wrote this book to give an explanation of the use of different drugs. He wrote a first edition and decided to write this second edition due to critic and also as he mentioned in the preface “there are several reason for these changes. First, the reality of the drug scene has changed substantially in the past dozen or so years. Second much more information has been accumulated about drug use. And third, I’m not the same person I was in 1972.”(vii). The main idea of this book is to inform readers about drugs and their reality. In the book, Goode argued that the effect of a drug is dependent on the societal context in which it is taken. Thus, in one society a particular drug may be a depressant, and in another it may be a stimulant.
The current situation of drug control in the United States is imperfect and inadequate. Millions of men and women, both young and old, are affected by illicit drug use. It costs the United States about $6,123 every second because of drug use and its consequences (Office). Moreover, 90 percent of all adults with a substance use disorder started using under the age of 18 and half under the age of 15. Children who first smoke marijuana under the age of 14 are five times more likely to abuse drugs as adults than those who first use marijuana at age 18. Finally, the children of alcoholics are four times more likely to develop problems with alcohol (Prevent). Current legislation that has to do with the United States’ drug control policy is the Controlled Substances Act, which regulates the manufacture, importation, possession, use, and distribution of certain substances (Shannon). In 1966, Congress passed the Narcotic Addict Rehabilitation Act also known as the NARA. This legislati...
Every single person in an addict’s immediate family is affected in some way by the individual’s substance abuse. In recent years, our society has moved further away from the traditional nuclear family. There are single-parent homes and blended family homes. Each of these family structures and more will affect the addict’s overall impact on the family. If young children are a part of the family, their
The alarming statistics of children that are living with an addicted parent within the United States today has become problematic and challenging to transform. According to Tower (2013) 12% of children that are eighteen or younger live with at least on parent that has an addiction to drugs or alcohol (p. 88). This is not a fixed statistic due to the fact that not all child welfare agencies keep statistical information on parents that abuse substances. Also, some drug treatment programs do not inquire on whether the substance abuser has children (Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2009).
Substance abuse consists of a vast range of destructive effects on its users, the people surrounding that individual and also society in its entirety. The repercussions of substance abuse has adverse consequences on families, such as finances and emotion turmoil. The abuser is likely to use all available resources to support the addiction they have developed, and disregarding other priorities and leaving them neglected. Due to the altered mental state of these individuals, it is not uncommon for them to initiate tendencies of violence and cruelty towards their family members which can occasionally enable a spouse to take on an unsound role to preserve their relationship. Unfortunately, children of parents who are substance abusers become a higher risk of experiencing physical and emotional trauma and possibly repeating the cycles. Substance abuse impacts society tremendously from every direction. The cost for enforcing drug laws and policies is a very expensive and extensive process, all ranging from street level enforcement, correctional facilities, as well as rehabilitation problems. Crime has always been associated with drugs in a large spectrum scaling from petty crime to more organized affiliations that wish to control drug trades. The violence and crime that these people create seriously disrupt our society and the citizen that abide by the law. Abusing drugs or alcohol is essentially allowing your body to be poisoned slowly over time and has a tremendously impact on multiple areas of one's health and wellness. These long-term abusers have an increased the risk of numerous ailments ranging from heart, liver, lung disease to nerve or brain damage. Substance abuse is seen as one of the most ubiquitous issues facing our nati...
Growing up in Reading, Pennsylvania being raised in a lower class neighborhood by my maternal grandmother, I did not realize how different my life was from those outside my community. It was normal for me to see empty drug baggies on the ground, people coping drugs on the corner, condemned/ abandoned homes, and crime. As I got older and my network of people grew, I started to notice some differences. However, it was not until I left the area at age 18 to attend college did I fully realize that my "normal" was not the "normal." Most people I knew growing up were struggling with finances and had one or both parents addicted to drugs or alcohol and mines were no different. The 80s crack epidemic hit my family hard and by the end of that era my mother and 6 of her siblings were all addicted.
Alcohol and drug abuse is one of biggest problems in United States today. It is not only a personal problem that dramatically affects individuals' lives, but is a major social problem that affects society as whole. "Drug and alcohol abuse", these phrases we hear daily on the radio, television or in discussions of social problem. But what do they mean or what do we think and understand by it? Most of us don't really view drug or alcohol use as a problem, if that includes your grandmother taking two aspirins when she has a headache or your friends having few beers or drinks on Saturday night. What we really mean is that some drugs or alcohol are being used by some people or in some situations constitute problem with which our society must deal. It becomes a real problem when using or I should say abusing drugs cause accidents, antisocial behavior, broken relationships, family instability, crime and violence, poverty, unsafe streets and highways, worker absenteeism and nonproductivity, and the most tragic one death. The situation in which the drug or alcohol uses accurse often makes all the difference. The clearest example is the drinking of alcohol, when individual begins to drink during the job, at school, or in the morning, we have evidence that indicates a potential drinking problem. If a person takes narcotic drug because he just wrecked his knee while his physician prescribed playing football and the drug, most of us would be not concerned. If, on the other hand, he took the same drug on his own just because he likes the way it makes him feel, then we should begin to worry about him developing dependence. Even use of illegal drugs are sometimes acceptable, but it also depends on situation, for example in some countries smoking marijuana is legal just like drinking alcohol in United States. Some subcultures even in United States that accept the use of illegal drugs may distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable situation, some college age groups might accept marijuana smoking at a party on weekends, but not just before going to a calculus class. Most of people would accept a fact that a bartender or a waiter who is working at a night club is having a beer or a drink on his break or that a landscape worker is having a cold beer with his lunch on a hot summer day. I'm not saying that it is "OK" but we wouldn't complain a...