The Rebellion Dimension of the Drug Use Situation The reason for my doing this paper in such a strange and esoteric manner was in part me wanting to practice on designing studies and the subject matter contained within which is of great interest to myself. The hypothesis I posit is unique and you may not agree with it but I am attempting to look at the problem in a fresh view. The ideas found within are formed very young in life, beginning in childhood and strengthening in adolescence. The link to child psychology is as followed, certain attitudes are created in youth and must be extincted or at least limited and formed to a point where they will not lead to certain problems such as drug use. The following paper has a strong overtone of politics but as I may write in my next paper, there is a relationship between politics and youth as our government attempts to find why our youth are beginning to act as they are at the present time for the age for committing violent crimes, theft, drug use, and sex crimes is dropping rapidly. We have junior high children shooting one another and 9 year olds killing children and drug abuse is only one of the major conflicts found among an increasingly younger population. What factors influence people to try and use drugs? There are several such factors that can influence people to use illegal drugs. This study will explore the existing known factors that have been studied, but I will add a new factor that is rarely seen in such models. This factor could possibly be one of the most important of the variables involving drug use. There are several reasons to perform such a study. Drug policy is on every party platform in all levels of government. Overall use of illicit drugs h... ... middle of paper ... ... and Seekers: drugs on campus, counter cultures and American society. The American Scholar 38 (Winter), 97-112. Kohn, P.M. (1972). The Authoritarianism-Rebellion Scale: A Balanced F Scale with Left-Wing Reversals. Sociometry 35, 1, 176-189. Kohn, P. M., & G. W. Mercer. (1971). Drug Use, Drug-Use Attitudes, and the Authoritarianism-Rebellion Dimension. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 12, 2, 125-131. Marx, G.T. (1981). Ironies Of Social Control: Authorities As Contributors To Deviance Through Escalation, Nonenforcement And Covert Facilitation. Social Problems 28, 221-246. Pomozal, R.J., & Brown J.D. (1977). Understanding Drug Use Motivation. A New Look at a Current Problem. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 18, 212-222. Suchman, E.A. (1968). The "Hang --Loose" Ethic and the Spirit of Drug Use. Journal of Health and Social Behavior 9, 146-155.
Throughout “Chasing the Scream” many intriguing stories are told from individuals involved in the drug war, those on the outside of the drug war, and stories about those who got abused by the drug war. Addiction has many social causes that address drug use and the different effects that it has on different people. In our previous history we would see a tremendous amount of individuals able to work and live satisfying lives after consuming a drug. After the Harrison Act, drugs were abolished all at once, but it lead to human desperation so instead of improving our society, we are often the reason to the problem. We constantly look at addicts as the bad guys when other individuals are often the reasons and influences to someone’s decision in
A “drug-free society” has never existed, and probably will never exist, regardless of the many drug laws in place. Over the past 100 years, the government has made numerous efforts to control access to certain drugs that are too dangerous or too likely to produce dependence. Many refer to the development of drug laws as a “war on drugs,” because of the vast growth of expenditures and wide range of drugs now controlled. The concept of a “war on drugs” reflects the perspective that some drugs are evil and war must be conducted against the substances
...hanged dramatically since the dawn of the 1960s, granting a sort of semi-legitimacy to drug-influenced art that grows stronger and less self-conscious every year. This pervasiveness of drug imagery in our culture today is no accident-it represents the outgrowth of these artists' introduction of drugs into the popular consciousness. The lingering effects of their efforts to publicize and poetize their altered states of mind can be readily seen in the mainstream culture of America today, which possesses both an awareness of and begrudging respect for the drug experience.
Between 1800 and 1850, the global map was changing and it was no different on the North American Continent. As a young nation, only 25 years into its existence, America struggled with a multitude of issues including slavery, migration, immigration, and substance abuse to name a few. America was being tested externally by global super powers while it was being ripped by its seams from within through the on-going scourge of slavery and the social dysfunction caused by the proliferation of drugs and alcohol. From the prevalence of marijuana in early America to the use of southern tobacco, to the abundance of alcoholic beverages on the heavily populated eastern seaboard to the opium dens of the gold rush west, drugs and alcohol have had significant roles in America’s history since its inception. In pre-Civil War America, drug and substance use including opium, tobacco, and alcohol were at all-time highs (Brown, 1981). Social movements, societal beliefs, limited legislative action, and a lack of medical oversight between 1800 and 1850 would all play a part in how Americans viewed the existence and use of intoxicating substances.
Brent Q. Hafen ed, Drug Abuse: Psychology, Sociology, Pharmacology. (Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1973).
The West has constantly been fighting the use of illegal drugs for decades by Propaganda. Propaganda ‘is a form of manipulative communication designed to elicit some predetermined response’ (Inge, 1981, 322). Governments have been using many propagandistic methods to reduce the consumption of illegal drugs such as marginalization or creating stereotypes. By creating a certain stereotype for the drug users and dealers, governments believe that people would try to avoid drugs so they won’t fit the stereotype. Extensive researche has been performed on this issue and there was no support that this propaganda tactic made a significant difference in the use of illegal drugs.
Concerned authorities have focused essentially on criminalization and punishment, to find remedies to the ever-increasing prevalent drug problem. In the name of drug reducing policies, authorities endorse more corrective and expensive drug control methods and officials approve stricter new drug war policies, violating numerous human rights. Regardless of or perhaps because of these efforts, UN agencies estimate the annual revenue generated by the illegal drug industry at $US400 billion, or the equivalent of roughly eight per cent of total international trade (Riley 1998). This trade has increased organized/unorganized crime, corrupted authorities and police officials, raised violence, disrupted economic markets, increased risk of diseases an...
Robison, Jennifer. “Decades of Drug Use: Data from the '60s and'70s.” 2 July 2002. Gallup, Inc. 28 March 2011.
As reported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our nation spends 700 billion dollars annually in relation to substance abuse. Substance abuse doesn’t just affect the individual involved, but as well as their family, and the society they live in. There is no single reason why a person chooses to abuse drugs and other substances. A person’s environment, like their socioeconomic status, and family can influence their abuse. Some factors in their environment include peer pressure, stress, sexual abuse, and parental involvement, which can all determine if someone is inclined to abuse any type of harmful substance.
Drugs are used to escape the real and move into the surreal world of one’s own imaginations, where the pain is gone and one believes one can be happy. People look on their life, their world, their own reality, and feel sickened by the uncaringly blunt vision. Those too weak to stand up to this hard life seek their escape. They believe this escape may be found in chemicals that can alter the mind, placing a delusional peace in the place of their own depression: “Euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly halucinant,” (52). They do this with alcohol, acid, crack, cocaine, heroine, opium, even marijuana for the commoner economy. These people would rather hide behind the haze than deal with real problems. “...A gramme is better than a damn.” (55).
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 era of hippies was also the time period when teenage drug consumption was at the peak. Nonetheless, it was not a coincidence. The hippie culture promoted consumption of drugs—especially
It has been discovered that most people who struggle with drug addiction began experimenting with drugs in their teens. Teenage drug abuse is one of the largest problems in society today and the problem grows and larger every year. Drugs are a pervasive force in our culture today. To expect kids not to be influenced by the culture of their time is as unrealistic as believing in the tooth fairy (Bauman 140). Teens may feel pressured by their friends to try drugs, they may have easy access to drugs, they may use drugs to rebel against their family or society, or they may take an illegal drug because they are curious about it or the pleasure that it gives them.
Illegal drug use is one of the most common problems that affect Americans every day. Joyce B. Shannon (2010) found that, “More than 35 million individuals used illicit drugs or abused prescription drugs in 2007” (p. 11). The impact can be seen in communities of all types, and people with low and high income levels. Drug use is at the root of many problems with our society. Joyce B. Shannon (2010) referenced a survey from 2004 that states, “32% of state prisoners and 26% of federal prisoners” admitted that they were currently serving jail time for offences committed while they were, “under the influence of drugs” (p. 102). The reasoning behind this issue will be explained from a psychological, sociological, and an anthropological perspective including the benefit of an interdisciplinary perspective to grasp the cause of drug use and it’s affect on society.
The use of drugs is a controversial topic in society today. In general, addicts show a direct link between taking drugs and suffering from their effects. People abuse drugs for a wide variety of reasons. In most cases, the use of drugs will serve a type of purpose or will give some kind of reward. These reasons for use will differ with different kinds of drugs. Various reasons for using the substance can be pain relief, depression, anxiety and weariness, acceptance into a peer group, religion, and much more. Although reasons for using may vary for each individual, it is known by all that consequences of the abuse do exist. It is only further down the line when the effects of using can be seen.