social construction of druf scares

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF DRUG SCARES.
1. Craig Reinarman’s article describes how moral entrepreneurs (in America in this instance) take advantage of the law and the middle class group through labeling groups of people who do not conform to their social expectations as deviants. His article briefly describes the key role players of drug scares, the motivation that lies behind drug usage and the social context that enhances their development and growth.

Background

Alcohol and prohibition were the most noteworthy “drug scare” in the late 18th century and early 19 century.
Craig Reinarman refers to drugs as scares because of the ideology that has been created around them.
Drug scares also create moral panic and are made out to seem like the main causation of the preexisting problems in society.
Over drinking resulted as the first drug scare.

Folks behind the “Drug wars”
The over drinking scare was constructed by temperance crusaders whom were made up of native citizens, catholists, middle class, non-urban protestors.
These temperance crusaders felt threatened by the working class during industrialization.
This was followed by the elite group throwing their weight behind the prohibitionist groups.
They felt that the drinking practices of the traditional working class hindered with the new factories regularities.
Prohibitionists didn’t approve of saloons.
Temperance leaders demanded explanations about pressing social and economic problems.
Heavy drinking and saloons led to an ideal idea censure for most national social ills.

Shift from serious social issues to “Drug wars”
Social ills such as poverty, crime, moral degeneracy, broken families, illegitimacy, unemployment and personal and business failures.
These censures were used to overshadow broader economic and political forces that unionists were facing.
These scares led to a long period of disproportion with class, gender, culture and political conflict.
This political conflict resulted from industrialization, immigration and urbanization.

Beginning of passing laws
America passed its first real drug law in 1875, the San Francisco opium den ordinance.
Then followed by the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914 noted as the first federal law.
This occurred after the “coolies” Chinese people migrated to the US.
The “coolies” were low paid Chinese mine workers and were Opiates regular smokers.
Opium was greatly available, even as medication and with no prescription.
US had many other drug scares besides the “Drug War”
US decided to place laws against the Opium drug.
The Opium was criminalized after the large number of users shifted from white middle class aged woman to young working class males.
The US accused the Chinese people to be using this drug to seduce white females into sexual slavery.
The passing of this law paralleled with other greater issues such as recession, class inequalilty, conflict and racism.
It also seemed as a medium to help promote harassment towards Chinese people.
This event was followed by US’s great depression.

Escalation of drug laws
The Federal Narcotics Bureau pushed for a federal law against marijuana.
Years during the line during the drug scares during the 1960s LSD was also seen as a big threat to society.
Politicians and ethical leaders linked LSD to rebellion and reason for dropouts.
False claim about the LSD producing chromosomes and genetic damage were bought forward.
This account was followed by yet another law “The Comprehensive Drug abuse control act of 1970”
Crack came in the picture in 1986 which then lead to far stricter and harsher punishments. These strict laws varied from longer sentences to death punishment.
Drug scares and drug laws are categorized together by the following constituents:
Kernel of truth, media magnification, police-moral entrepreneur, professional interest groups, historical context of conflict, linking a form of drug use to a “Dangerous class” and scapegoating a drug for a wide array of public problems.
Scapegoating was ample on all the above mentioned cases.
US shifted the blame for all its social ills to drug abuse.
It seemed as though conflict between youth and parents would’ve never arose had it not been for marijuana and LSD.
US made people believe that without alcohol, this State would be a highly infinite progressive country with no poverty, crime, mental illness, sex out of marriage and other social ills.
Briefly, drugs were a great deal of functional scapegoats and anyone linked to their usage was seen as deviant and problematic to society.
A culturally specific theory of drug scares was presented that considered the contradiction between society's emphasis on self-control and a mass consumption culture that makes self-control continuously problematic.

2. Every society has its own structure of social norms, values, standards, customs, what is accepted and what is not. Through the knowledge of all these norms, values, standards, customs and what is accepted and what is not accepted, we can then be able to establish deviant behavior within the respective society. Deviance refers to behavior that violates social norms. Deviance is also the refusal to conform to social expectations and or someone who does not behave according to society’s expectations. (Orcutt,2004:3)

This reading emphasized a number of key lessons with regards to social construction of deviance in the US such as how victims are used as scapegoats. These Victims are lower class citizens with no social power in society, anything they practice as normal is always frowned upon by the elite by means of staying in control of society. The elite use these victims’ practices as scapegoats in order to shift the main problems of society from the main people who are responsible for social ills.
Through this reading one also learns how the truth always gets twisted in favour of the powerful. A good example in this instance would be how it was okay for certain drugs and alcohol to be consumed over the years, until certain races started using them hence unionists suddenly perceiving drugs as an ill to society, shifting society’s attention from the core problems to these minor ones’. The media also plays a huge role in emphasizing and exaggerating matters alongside moral entrepreneurs and professional interest groups, this was done through maintaining delinquency in society. Controversy creepy low-class degrading douc bag fantasy
Reference
Orcutt,J.D. 1983. Analyzing deviance. United States of America: Dorsey Press