Using Drugs, Selling Drugs, and Getting Addicted - Intro to Theories-

1. Using Drugs, Selling Drugs, and Getting Addicted - Intro to Theories- SOC 4108 Drugs & Society Instructor: Sarah Whetstone February 17, 2014

2. Agenda • 6:20 – 6:50: Theories Lecture • 6:50 – 7:15: Small group discussion/worksheet on Bourgois’ ethnography – will be collected • 7:15 – 7:30: Break • 7:30 – 8:50: Planet Rock film – Reflection due next week

3. Typology of Theories of Drug Use & Addiction Adapted from Faupel, Sociology of American Drug Use

4. Nature Theories • Desire to alter consciousness with drugs is an innate human drive (Andrew Weil). • The ritual use of intoxicants is a cultural universal. • Drugs have been used throughout human history for celebration, ritual, coping, and pain relief. • Universality calls for value-neutrality.

6. Biological Theories • Early theories emphasized weakness of individual • “Allergen Theory” • Biological predisposition: Focuses on the role of genetic susceptibility and family history in developing addiction. • Brain Plasticity: After initial drug use, chemicals fundamentally alter the functioning of neuron pathways in the brain, leading to heightened cravings, compulsive use, dependency, and physical withdrawal effects.

8. Psychological Theories • Psychoanalytic– Drugs are used to alleviate frustrations over the inability to adjust to normal routines of adult life • Personality – Drugs are used by individuals with “addictive personalities.” • Behavioral – Operant conditioning - Behavior is reinforced when rewarded. Addiction results when drug becomes positive reinforcement (inducing pleasure) or a negative reinforcement (alleviating unpleasant withdrawal)

10. Social Learning Theories • Alfred Lindesmith: Basis of sociology of addiction. Addiction results only when there is a cognitive connection that drugs alleviate withdrawal • Drug users become drug users through socialization-- learning through interaction with others. 3 Variants: • Becker’s Learning Theory: Individuals learn to become drug users through watching others administer the drug properly, and by learning to associate the effects with pleasure. • Differential Association– Edwin Sutherland – We learn behavior from people who have influence in our lives. • Differential Reinforcement– Ron Akers – Our behavior is reinforced through the rewards we get from our primary social group of interaction. Law-abiding groups are likely to discourage illicit drug use.

11. SOCIAL CONTROL THEORY • People naturally want to “act deviant” or pursue their desires– Social control theory explains why they don’t. • Hirschi – Behavior defined as problematic can be avoided through the attachments or bonds that people have to conventional society • Attachment, Commitment, Involvement, Belief

12. SOCIAL STRAIN THEORY • Attempts to explain higher drug use rates among different segments of the population • Robert Merton’s “anomie theory” • Approved social goals/ends (getting a college degree) do not always match available means (lack of educational funding) • Result = Feeling of normlessness and disillusionment, or “strain,” that can lead one to reject conventional standards

14. CULTURAL DEVIANCE THEORY • Criminalization of drug use results in the creation of distinct “drug subcultures” • Charles Winick’sIntegrated Structural Theory (combines cultural deviance theory and strain theory): • Access to drugs increases, more embedded in subculture of use • Disengagement from normative attitudes on drugs– create new beliefs and values • “Role strain” and “role deprivation”

15. Labeling Theory • Focus on social reaction to drug use • Drug “problems” are constructed – Example: construction of binge drinking • Why are some behaviors defined as deviant? • Why are only some of the people who engage in a certain behavior defined as deviant? • What are the personal and social consequences of being labeled a “deviant?”

17. CONFLICT THEORIES • Social inequalities-- racism, poverty, gender violence, & other forms of discrimination-- all shape involvement with drugs. • Why is drug use higher among people living in concentrated poverty? • Distribution of social problems creates observed differences in drug use. • Lack of economic opportunity • Living conditions • More psychic desire to escape pain-- Hopelessness • Addiction is a response to hardship. Drug policy must address the economic and political sources of inequality to be truly effective.

18. ALEXANDER’S DISLOCATION THEORY OF ADDICTION • Why are so many people addicted to destructive habits in the globalizing world? • Why does addiction extend beyond drugs/alcohol to include so many other behaviors? • Why hasn't science been able to solve addiction?

19. Growth of Free Market Capitalism Changes How We Experience Social Ties FAMILY LEISURE WORK

20. The Dislocation Theory: Understanding the Spread of Addiction 1. Globalization of Capitalist Free Market System 2. Decline of Psycho-Social Integration • Proliferation of Addiction3 3. Poverty of the Spirit

21. Working in the Drug Trade • Philippe Bourgois- Anthropologist and ethnographer • Studies men working in the inner-city crack trade in NYC’s Spanish Harlem for four years • Working in the drug trade was an important source of “dignity” and “respect” unavailable in mainstream labor market