Societal Consequences of Drug Use and Abuse: A Sociological Perspective
Final
Societal Consequences of Drug Use and Abuse
The Cost to the Family
It is estimated that in the USA, one in 10 children under the age of 18 lives with at least one parent in need of treatment for drug or alcohol dependency.
Children raised in such homes are more likely to:
- Live in an environment filled with conflict
- Have a higher probability of physical illness, including injuries or death from an automobile accident
- Be victims of child abuse
- Have alcohol or drug problems than children of non-alcoholics.
Parents who report abusing alcohol in the past year were more likely to report household turbulence, including yelling, serious arguments, and violence. Moreover, alcohol abuse is the single most common trait associated with wife abuse.
Crime and Violence
The drug behavior of individuals arrested, incarcerated, and in drug treatment programs also provides evidence of a link between drugs and crime. For example, 27% of victims of violent crime report that the offender was involved with alcohol or drugs. Similarly, juvenile delinquency is associated with drug use.
Sociologists disagree as to whether drugs actually cause crime or whether instead criminal activity leads to drug involvement. However, criminal involvement and drug use can occur at the same time; that is, someone can take drugs and commit crimes out of a desire to engage in risk-taking behaviors. Furthermore, because both crime and drug use are associated with low socioeconomic status, poverty may actually be the more powerful explanatory variable.
In 2009, nearly 11,000 people died in alcohol-related crashes. In 2010, 10.6 million people 12 years of age and older reported driving while under the influence of an illicit drug.
The High Price of Alcohol and Other Drugs
The total annual cost of substance abuse and addiction in the USA is $467.7 billion.
At the federal level, the cost of dealing with the consequences includes the cost of:
- Health care due to substance abuse and addiction
- Adult and juvenile crime (e.g., corrections)
- Child and family assistance programs
- Education (safe school initiatives)
- Public safety (drug enforcement)
- Mental health and developmental disabilities (treatment of addiction)
- The federal workforce (loss of productivity).
The report concludes that prevention programs must become a priority to reduce the economic costs of drug abuse.
Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the world. In the 20th century, 100 million people died worldwide in what is being called the tobacco epidemic. In fact, the global tobacco epidemic kills 5.4 million people a year.
According to the World Health Organization in 2008, there are some ways to reverse the worldwide tobacco crisis:
- Developing policies that prevent tobacco use.
- Protecting people from tobacco smoke by developing smoke-free laws
- Providing help to people who want to quit using tobacco products
- Publicizing the dangers of tobacco products
- Banning and enforcing existing bans, prohibiting tobacco advertising, promotion, and sponsorship
- Increasing the cost of tobacco products by raising taxes.
Alcohol abuse is responsible for over 2.3 million deaths, 4% of all deaths worldwide. In fact, alcohol kills more people than AIDS, tuberculosis, or violence and is responsible for 80,000 deaths annually in the US.
Alcohol abuse is related to cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, intentional and unintentional injuries, violence, and cardiovascular diseases.
Heavy alcohol and drug use also have negative consequences related to mental problems like depression, antisocial personality disorder, manic episodes, and schizophrenia.
The Cost of Drug Use on the Environment
Although not something usually considered, the production of illegal drugs has a tremendous impact on the environment. Much of the impact is a consequence of the cultivation of marijuana, cocaine, and opium. Between the decades of 1988 to 2008, nearly 5.4 million acres of rainforest (an area the size of New Jersey) were destroyed because of illegal drug production. As much as 25 percent of the deforestation that takes place in Peru is associated with clear-cutting and burning for planting coca bushes.
In the US and Mexico, outdoor cannabis cultivation leads to contaminated water, clear-cutting of natural vegetation, the disposal of non-biodegradable materials, and the diversion of natural waterways, often polluted with toxic chemicals, which endanger fish and other wildlife.
3 Theories Applied to Health, Crime, and Drug Use
Health
Structural Functionalist Perspective:
Health care is a social institution that functions to maintain the well-being of social members and the social system. It examines how changes in society affect health. As societies develop and provide better living conditions, life expectancy increases and birth rates decrease, but also, deaths due to illnesses and other factors increase.
Social change affects health and may lead to further social change, as seen with gay rights and tobacco. There are negative consequences as well. Antibiotic resistance is one of the three most serious public health threats.
Conflict Perspective:
Focuses on how wealth, status, power, and the profit motive influence illness and health care. The poor experience more health problems and have less access to medication, while the wealthy influence health-related policies and laws. If the government has a public insurance option, private ones will lose customers. This perspective criticizes the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry for placing profits above people. The food industry is more concerned about profit than public health.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective:
Focuses on how meanings, definitions, and labels influence health, illness, and health care; and how such meanings are learned through interaction with others and the media. There are no illnesses or diseases in nature, only what society defines them as. Labeling something as a medical problem is called medicalization (like PTSD, menopause, or others). Their conception is socially constructed, as seen in whether being fat is a sign of being healthy or a lack of self-control. This perspective draws attention to the effects that meanings and labels have on health-risk behaviors (like getting a tan). It also focuses on the stigmatization of individuals who are in poor health or lack health insurance. (Stigma = a label that affects the self-concept and is not socially accepted).
Crime
Structural Functionalist Perspective:
According to Durkheim, crime is actually functional for society. One of its functions is that crime strengthens group cohesion. It can also lead to social change, for example, changes in city services, which become more efficient and responsive.
There are three theories regarding crime:
- Strain theory: Developed by Robert Merton, this theory argues that when the structure of society limits legitimate means of acquiring culturally defined goals, the resulting strain may lead to crime. Conformity occurs when people accept the goals of society and the legitimate ways to achieve them. Innovation occurs when people accept the goals of society but lack the legitimate means of achieving them. This is how Merton explains why low-class individuals, who are the ones that lack those legitimate means, are more likely to fall into crime.
- Ritualism: In this adaptation, people accept the importance of hard work but reject the cultural view of monetary reward. This means that they will work hard and educate themselves, but they won’t strive for power and monetary reward.
- Retreatism: This is when people reject both the cultural goal of success and the legitimate ways of achieving it.
- Rebellion: This is when people reject both culturally defined goals and means and substitute new goals and means.
Control theory establishes that social solidarity is important. If there is social solidarity, then people will refrain from committing criminal activities.
Four elements of social bonds (necessary for there not to be crimes):
- Attachment to significant others
- Commitment to conventional goals
- Involvement in conventional activities
- Belief in the moral standards of society.
It goes without saying that if society accomplishes all of these points, then the probability of crime is low.
Conflict Perspective:
The more inequality there is in a society, the higher the chances of crime. Those in power define what is a crime and what is not. There is also a large gap in how those who have no power are penalized compared to those who are in power or have influence. For example, African Americans and Latinos are disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system in the US.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective:
Labeling theory focuses on two questions:
- How do crime and deviance come to be defined as such?
- What are the effects of being labeled as a criminal or deviant?
Primary deviance: Behavior committed before a person is caught and labeled an offender.
Secondary deviance: Behavior that results from being caught and labeled. After a person violates the law and is stigmatized as a criminal:
- It becomes difficult for the person to engage in non-deviant activities.
- The person may internalize the label of “deviant” and act accordingly.
Finally, the more exposed a person is to law violations, the more likely they are to be involved in crimes. Through interaction with others, individuals learn the values and attitudes associated with crime as well as the techniques and motivations for criminal activities.
Drug Use
Structural Functionalist Perspective:
Drug abuse is a response to weakening societal norms. It may become an anomie—a state of normlessness (no norms, we don’t know if it’s wrong or not). Anomie produces inconsistencies in cultural norms regarding drug use. For example, public health officials and health care professionals warn of the dangers of alcohol and tobacco use, while advertisers glorify their use, and the US government subsidizes the alcohol and tobacco industries. The status quo of owners and the alcohol and tobacco industry is of great importance. Also, cultural traditions such as toasting at weddings contribute to this anomie.
Anomie may also exist at the individual level: people who feel stress, loneliness, estrangement, peer pressure, and lack of parental supervision may be more vulnerable to drug use. From this theory, drug use is a response to the absence of a perceived bond between the individual and society and to the weakening of a consensus regarding what is considered acceptable.
Conflict Perspective:
This perspective emphasizes the importance of power differentials in influencing drug use behavior and societal values. Drug use occurs as a response to the inequality perpetuated by the capitalist system. Societal members may turn to drugs as a means of escaping the oppression and inequality they experience. The most powerful members of society influence the definitions of which drugs are illegal and the penalties associated with their production, sale, and use. For example, alcohol is legal because it is often consumed by those who have the power and influence to define its acceptability—white males. They can afford powerful lobbying groups in Washington to guard the alcohol industry’s interests. This group also uses tobacco and caffeine, so societal definitions of these substances are also relatively accepted (power differentials). The case of Chinese immigrants in Panama using opium during the canal’s construction, which was prohibited because it threatened the economic security of the white working class, illustrates this point. The criminalization of other drugs (cocaine, heroin, marijuana) follows a similar pattern of social control of the powerless, political opponents, and/or minorities. Therefore, conflict theorists regard the regulation of certain drugs, as well as drug use itself, as a reflection of the differences in the political, economic, and social power of various interest groups.
Symbolic Interactionist Perspective:
This perspective concentrates on the social meanings associated with drug use and being labeled a drug user. If the initial drug use experience is pleasurable, the person is likely to use again and gain the label of ‘drug user.’ If this definition is internalized by the individual and they assume the identity of a drug user, their behavior will continue and may even escalate. Drug use may be learned through symbols in small groups. First-time users learn the motivations for drug use, its techniques, and what to experience. They may label the experience positively: not only acceptable but also pleasurable. Symbols can be manipulated and used for political and economic agendas, as seen in anti-drug programs in schools and by police. These are highly visible symbolic programs. However, it has been concluded that these programs do not significantly prevent drug use among school-aged children.
Definition of Drugs from a Sociology Perspective
Sociologically, the term drug refers to any chemical substance that:
- Has a direct effect on the user’s physical, psychological, and/or intellectual functioning
- Has the potential to be abused
- Has adverse consequences for the individual and/or society.