Drug Abuse And Social Class

1b. List and describe briefly the major structures of the brain, as presented in your textbook, including the function of those elements that are most related to psychoactive drug reaction.

How an individual utilizes drugs is partially up to their culture, family, friends, peers, doctors, race, job, position in society, social class, and most importantly themselves. Drugs can be positive or negative, it depends on a person's demographics in society and personal views. It is true that illegal drugs are related to several negative components of society’s family problems, high prison populations, violence, health problems, deaths, homelessness and many other. To some people drugs are the only way, the only way to survive a life killing disease, mental health problems, physical health problems, depression, stress, and anxiety. It is true that drugs impact social problems, but if people changed their perspective on less harmful drugs and how they can help, there may be fewer problems that our society would have to worry about. Before 2010, sentencings for possession of crack, which is cheaper and mostly used by the poor and African Americans,  were much higher than the possession of cocaine which is predominantly used by the middle class and whites. “Drug laws criminalize the poor, especially people of color, who now fill U.S. prisons in disproportionate numbers” (Macionis, 248). Court fines and legal council are expensive and the average lower middle class family can not afford to pay these let alone the lower class. Poor Americans are almost certain to fall back into a life of drugs and crime when they are released from jail because there are few programs in place to help inmates successfully integrate back into society. Finding a job as a convicted felon is near impossible so many turn to selling illegal items to support themselves and their family. Enhanced policing and tracking in poor communities makes it easier for law enforcement to arrest new and repeat offenders (Macionis,

The issue of drug abuse is a sad reality in every community, and drug prohibition is present across the globe. Whether it is under the guise of protection of family values, or public safety, prohibition disrupts more than it maintains. Many people view drugs as a problem but they can also be viewed as a problem solver. This essay will address the socioeconomic issues with prohibition of hard drugs, and argue for their legalization.

Luther & D’Avanzo sample included 264 Suburban students who were mainly Caucasian, white-collared families, and 224 children of the minority from the inner city and of low SES. Substance use was evaluated via the frequency of drug use grid in the Monitoring the Future Study Survey (Johnston, O’Malley & Bachman,1984). The frequency of drug use grid is a 7-point scale that ranges from “never” to +40+ times” measuring the frequency of several different drugs over the past year (Johnston,O’Malley &Bachman,1984). Also, Other questions on the survey asked about depression, anxiety, and family. The study concluded that affluent youth had higher levels of anxiety and depression, due to pressures of family and society. It was also; found that the wealthier youth used cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana and other drugs more frequently than youth with lower SES to cope with their

As America was fighting a war for freedom in another country, unruly teens were fighting their own at home. Cultural change, the explosion of free love, youthful rebellion, and a new liberal mindset all seemed to have one underlying device in common; drug use. The late 1960’s into the early and mid-70’s found the perfect environment for recreational drug use. Music and arts celebrated this lifestyle, as well as free thinkers and their idiotic philosophies about spiritual elation through mind altering narcotics. Lack of family structure with so many homes transformed by the Vietnam War also left young teens without guidance, and an economy with little to offer to the up and coming generation. As the next few years passed and the free love generation began to grasp the concept of working for a living, showering on a regular basis, love with commitment (or antibiotics), and cultural change through policy, they brought to the workforce a new dynamic not previously prevalent. Recreational drug use had become part of society. Vietnam War veterans also brought their own demons home with their return, opiate addictions were a common occurrence (Carson 2012).

There are many reasons, in America, that these perceptions about the poor continue to exist, however, researcher have little ability to gather valid data on poverty and its direct relationship to drug abuse.

The article shows that there is more than just the lower class that has issues with drugs. The issue with drugs goes farther than just the lower class, but drugs, middle class people use especially cocaine. The study did not focus on the lower class, but to gather information on the middle class women who were using cocaine. The information about the middle class and their drug use is scarce due to the ability the middle class has to cover up the information. The idea of the study was to expand on the information that females within the middle class were partaking in drug use. It also has the ability for them to show what or who caused the women to start using cocaine.

The reading begins with two different accounts written by anonymous students at the Union College in Barbourville, KY; in these stories, both these individuals shared their personal experiences on how it’s like to live in poverty. In the first story the author goes into detail on how poverty has affected their social standing within society, which in turn affects who they hang out with and how they are treated by the public at large. She gives a personal anecdote of this when sharing about an incident where she got into a fight with another girl over a remark the latter had made, while both were at fault the poorer of the two received a five-day suspension, while the other wasn’t punished at all, it wasn’t until after she returned to school did she learn that the other girl’s father donated large amounts of money to the school. The second experience details the correlation of drug life and poverty, growing up surrounded by drugs and alcohol it wasn’t difficult for the author to get into that lifestyle and before she was buying and selling drugs for profit. Her and her husband attempted to make a normal living, but found it difficult to impossible to do due to limited employment opportunities, without much choice they went back to growing and selling marijuana in order to support themselves

Alcohol and drug abuse has been an active habit among college students sense the 1960s. The immediate cause of this behavior was the youth’s need to rebel against the overly conservative American society. This rebellion led to a since of freedom for the young adults, which caused them to continue acting in these unintelligent manners. After a short period of time, late teens just did not belong if they were not participating in the mischievous acts. Substance abuse quickly became a way of life for many young adults. As a result, this inapt behavior still continues today.

In all societies, there are substances that are deemed as both not acceptable and acceptable for consumption. The laws today are a result of ever changing societal norms. Before a particular drug is discovered, it is not illegal; it simply exists in nature. When that substance is introduced into a society, it must be determined if its effects are in line with the societies morals which may be in large part regulated by the dominate religion. If it is proven to be beneficial to the society and abides by the social morals its use is largely unregulated. If an individual in that society that is not a part of the dominate religion uses an illegal substance, are they exhibiting deviant behavior or practicing their freedom of religion? Of

Addiction begins with a choice, not necessarily a choice to become dependent upon a substance, rather a choice to take a walk through the land of oblivion at least once. A person does not simply wake up one morning addicted to heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine or any other substance. Perhaps a fleeting moment of despair, or the longing for acceptance brings this individual to the doorstep of addiction, prepared to move heaven and earth to find their next fix. Bruce Alexander himself writes, “I began to consider then that the current theories of substance abuse were wrong; that people used, not be they HAD to pharmacologically, but because the substance was one valid way of adapting to difficult circumstances” (Alexander 161). Just as the

In this paper, the problem I will be addressing is substance use during pregnancy. I am expanding my efforts to spread awareness on this issue with a policy brief (Priluker, 2014) I wrote last year for my SWPSII class surrounding pending legislation bill S.710, seeking to “expand the definition of ‘abused child’ or ‘neglected child’ to include prenatal exposure to controlled substances (S. 710, 2014). This social issue has been ongoing for over 30 years. Policymakers have debated exhaustively on how to deal with the issue of prenatal exposure to controlled substances, while pregnant women have been prosecuted for using drugs during their pregnancy in a number of states since the late 1980’s (Dailard, Nash 2000). These women

In general, college students have a lower risk of using illicit substances than their peers who do not attend college; for example, college students were much less likely to abuse cocaine than their same-age

A drug is a chemical substance applied into treating, diagnosing and preventing one from disease infections or a substance that is used by a person to enhance his or her physical and mental state in the perceived effect. Drugs used for different purposes and their effect depend on which cause for usage. It causes both positive and negative consequences directly to the user and in the long-run it affects the whole society or community. Drug addiction is the activity of uncontrollable dependence on a substance by the user no matter the harm caused by its usage. It is a habit that has been in many years hard to curb especially among the youths. “We must recognize that substance abuse and addiction is a disease, not a moral failing or easily abandoned self-indulgence,” (Califano, 2008).The cases of drug abuse have been on the rise over the recent years and resulted in crimes. The cases have a great effect affected the society in general since the reliable energetic youths have turned to drug abuse. However, some measures have been initiated to mitigate, curb and treat drug addiction in the society as outlined in the essay.

Substance abuse is one of the most detrimental social problems found in all societies. It has been the leading cause for generational breakdowns of families and communities, and is probably the most controversial social problem when developing corrective solutions. Substance abuse can be defined as the chemical dependence, or pattern of usage of both legal and illegal substances, that has adverse physical, psychological, and psychomotor effects on the human body. The use of substances does not always have to be a drug, but can also be anything taken into the body that can cause a mood-altering effect, such as inhalants or solvents. Additionally, substance abuse has many different faces and is the one social problem that crosses all