Social Issues Of Drug Abuse

The use and misuse of illicit drugs in today’s society can be blamed on both individual, and societal factors. With the use of societal factors researchers can show the effect for a larger population, and provide better information of the population. Blaming the individual for developing the addiction will not fix issues that lie in society that worked against the individual, the underlying issues of poverty and addiction, many scholarly articles mention bad neighborhoods, low income, and loose family ties with future drug use. I will be using evidence from articles involving both teen and adult drug use and addiction, as the effect on society is noticed in both age brackets. “Substance use is considered a problem by individual addicts who seek treatment, by institutions within society (such as the police or the medical system) that deal with substance use and its consequences on a day-to-day basis, and by national organizations such as governments or supranational organizations, such as the International Narcotics Control Board (a United Nations agency located in Vienna). (Adrian) I will be using scholarly articles to explain the sociological reasoning behind drug use, with theories involving low-income neighborhoods, leading to lessening of family involvement which can lead to drug use. “Drug abuse affects a community 's living conditions and economy, its youth, and the environment for crime.” (Watts)

Drugs and violence are universal. Although not all drugs cause violence some drugs like alcohol, methamphetamine, and crack cocaine do and can have horrible results. Some of the behavior that these drugs can cause are: domestic violence, sexual assault, homicides, and property crimes. Although horrible things do happen people still use them and crimes like these happen too much. This is a social issue because people see this as a norm. This shouldn't be a norm and people need to start realizing that.

The existence of a myriad of social problems among teenagers that both parents and states have to deal with is a factor whose weight ought not to be treated lightly. The increasing level of drug use among the adolescents constitutes one of the ever increasing situations in the society and may, as a matter of fact, be a representation other underlying issues. The level of the situation in the contemporary world, though not discussed as much as it ought to be, has reached alarming levels. There seems to be an increasing predisposition among the use to take the drugs as it's reflected in the escalating trends of drug abuse among this generation of individuals (spooner, 1999). The ever deteriorating levels of this situation coupled with the widespread permissiveness in the society and the absence of attention from appropriate caregivers at different institutions only means that the need to address the problem is paramount. Different avenues of solutions can be applied in reducing the level of the problem and averting the massive negative consequences that come with the phenomena. Dealing with this issue is not a matter of instance as the different parameters of the problems, its causes and possible workable solutions have to be discovered. As such, research on these dynamics is a mandatory undertaking.

A social issue that has been around for years is drug abuse. Sociologist can apply the three major sociological perspectives to analyze how society influences people to carry out certain acts by setting up a framework for specific reasoning. The different concepts used all together gives sociologists a broader and less biased conclusion of the issue.

Substance abuse is very common in today's culture. There are many different substances that are abused. The most common abused substances are illegal street drugs and alcohol followed by prescription pills and medications. Technically speaking, most anything can be abused if it is taken excessively and without caution or consideration to the suggested directions. Even over the counter medications can be abused. It usually when unseen potential for dependence or abusive behaviors arise out of the general population that the authorities step in and begin to restrict its use.

The disappearance of decent paying manual work since the early 1970's leaves unskilled, uneducated individuals vulnerable to poverty. This is when selling drugs, an alternative to enduring grinding poverty, has been a common enough response as the income gap had widened. This has increased the violence and crime rate of society.

The first, universal prevention focuses on preventing all students in a school from drug use. These types of programs are aimed to provide general information about prevention of drug abuse to youth and families. A major advantage to this type of prevention is that they are generally less expensive which is a reason they are the most prevalent type among schools. However the advantage to these types of programs is that many at risk families do not participate (Kumpfer n.d.). This may be because those families are involved with drugs and do not want to bring attention to the situation. The second type, selective prevention programs, are designed to target at- risk groups. These groups generally made up of impoverished children of alcoholics or drug abusers (Kumpfer n.d.). These programs can be much more efficient in helping since the individuals they are targeting are facing the challenges the program teaches about. When youth in the group see first hand how drug and alcohol abuse can affect someone’s life, they may only need a small push in the right direction away from a life of addiction. This small push is tailored for at-risk young adults, thus increasing its’ effectiveness. While appealing to and engaging at-risk students can prove to be a challenging disadvantage, it is well worth the time and effort to

My perspective on society’s current drug use problems stems essentially from all the lives I have personally seen destroyed or disrupted by addiction. Currently our nation is experiencing a heroin abuse epidemic. NSDUH (2014) established that nearly a half a million people in America were heroin users during 2014, and the epidemic is rampantly out of control (p. 11). In an attempt to analyze why and how it has exasperated, I found that I feel the nature of the problem is in direct correlation to the extreme expectations society places upon not only our youth, but on single parents, reintegrating drug offenders, adjusting immigrants,

The reputation of drugs is constantly being altered throughout the years. Kirvanek’s definition of a drug is ‘a substance introduced to the body knowingly but not as food, this includes illicit, recreational or pharmaceutical drugs’ (Krivanek, 1988). The reputation and prohibition of a drug depends on the culture and time. A culture is a ‘system of shared ideas, rules and meanings that underlie and are expressed in ways that humans live’ and it’s evident that culture has an impact on reputation of the drug.

A social problem is when the people in the world cannot adjust to the ongoing social changes they face each day. “When enough people in a society agree that a condition exits that threatens the quality of their lives and their most cherished values, and they also agree that something should be done to remedy that condition, sociologists says that the society has defined that condition as a social problem” (Kornblum; Pg. 5). To sum it all up social problems, occur when the world pronounces a certain issue an issue for everyone. For example, drug abuse is high social problem, and has been a problem for years. Using the empirical approach, researches try and observe the dangers and health issues that drugs can create. Millions suffer from hundreds

Using sociology imagination to understand why drug abuse might happen we have to understand the movies of individuals. However, like all things in life we might not be able to justify one individual motive with another's motives. Thus, we have to look at drug abuse as a bigger picture. What makes people more accepting to drug abuse and why were they willing to do so. In many cases of drug abuse that I have seen or experience the individual don't mean to abuse it starts out as a fun peer pressure activity harmless fun as people like to say many do it only one time while others might be more inclined to try it once more and might lead to an addiction of sorts. But to get to the main point of why young individuals might seem to accept drug abuse

Substance abuse has existed since the start of civilization and it is an ever present entity in the modern era as well. Distilled beverages were the main drinking source in many cases even safer to drink than water in early civilizations, for instance during the Middle Ages. Many substances were also used in medicine derived from certain plants for anesthetics such as opioids from poppy seeds. In addition, nicotine and tobacco products and other hallucinogenic substances were used for recreational and relaxation purposes. Whereas perhaps hundreds of years ago the use of many of these substances was considered widely acceptable and the norm, modern science and medicine has uncovered the harmful effects that these drugs can cause when they are abused and can lead to addiction and dangerous behaviors in society. In the United States, the first of the many laws to regulate and control addictive drugs was the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, which required the correct labeling of medicines that contained opiates. In 1914 the Harrison Narcotic Act banned the sale of medicines that contained opiates or cocaine and required a prescription by physicians (Brown, 1981).Then, in 1919 “spirit of temperance”, or self-control, led to the Prohibition of alcohol by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which was then revoked 14 years later (Infoplease.com, Drug addiction and Drug abuse). As the 20th century passed, there was more awareness and more studies about drug abuse and

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.

Each year “Drug abuse kills about 200,000 people” (Drug Abuse Kills 200,000 People Each Year, 2012, para.1). As of now, there is no sure way to get people to stop doing drugs. Addicts are everywhere in licking county and even though drug abuse might not be able to be stopped completely but, there are always way to help users. Clean needle exchanges are a sure way to stop the spread of disease among addicts. Every day thousands of addicts are sharing needles because they have no other option, they simply don 't have the resources or the money to have their own personal needles. It might not be stopping the major problem of drug addiction but it will help to limit the number of deaths caused by sharing infected needles. Clean needle exchanges aim to eliminate diseases spread by giving addicts access to clean needles.

In American society, drugs have influenced many people and have created many downfalls within their lives. Despite the thought of harmful consequences in one’s life, drug abuse has changed an individual’s way of thinking and how their body operates. People who have participated in drug use find it difficult to stop because it leads to serious addiction. The changes in their brain control their thoughts making it challenging for that individual to stop using drugs. Today, drug abuse leaves a negative impact on the brain, damages many families, end many lives, and disobeys God’s command. Although some argue that drugs are part of God’s creation, drug use denounces Christian faith and God’s word demonstrates that drugs are wrong.