Issues in Controlled Substance Use Papers and Commentary, Conference on Issues in Controlled Substance Use (1980) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Informal Social Controls and Their Influence on Substance Use
Informal Social Controls and Their Influence on Substance Use
Pages 5-46
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 5... ...
Durkheim suggested, as the explanatory variable, that participation in highly organized social life leads people to accept socially defined limits on desires. Many of the things people desire are of such a character that they can be consumed in very large quantities.
|
From page 6... ...
In using the terms formal and informal social controls, we refer to the difference between rules created and enforced by the state and its agencies and subsidiaries (such as schools and law enforcement agencies) and by such private governments as the managements of corporations (who make quasigovernmental rules for their employees)
|
From page 7... ...
In relation to the food industry, see Aronson, l978.) To summarize the results of our review of the literature on informal controls, we find that social groups develop cultural recipes, formulae describing what substances can be used in what amounts to achieve desired results.
|
From page 8... ...
In the United States, people use alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, and a variety of other legal and illicit drugs for relaxation or to have fun. High school students have reported that among the purposes of drinking are "to be gay" and "to get high" (Straus and Bacon, l953)
|
From page 9... ...
O'Brien's experiments also demonstrate that pre-injection rituals and expectations of drug effects increase both subjective response and autonomic changes following a test dose of a narcotic. Appropriate Occasions for Use Cultural recipes also prescribe when, where, and with whom a substance should be used in order to achieve desired states.
|
From page 10... ...
For example, people learn to smoke marijuana in groups, in which the joint is passed from one person to another, thus enabling the users to adjust the intensity of the high (Harding and
|
From page 11... ...
Although cultural recipes often seem related to practical ways of attaining desired results, they may also be arbitrary. For example, illegal methandone, in contrast with heroin, is usually taken orally, in part because the liquid methadone dispensed by clinics is not always injectable, and in part because the liquid methandone is received in a context in which the oral route is "the natural way of using it" (Agar, l977)
|
From page 12... ...
. Recipes for Treatment People learn how much of a substance to take or what not to take in the event of illness or other undesirable states.
|
From page 13... ...
The Breakdown of Cultural Recipes We see how effective cultural recipes ordinarily are when they break down or are no longer recognized as legitimate, as in times of rapid social change due to urbanization or ethnic invasion. As Durkheim suggests, people cannot depend upon group norms for guidance when social situations are drastically disrupted.
|
From page 14... ...
Once drinking was prohibited, those who violated the law by continuing to drink did so in an atmosphere in which previous informal controls and rules for appropriate use were no longer valid. People went to speakeasies not just to drink, but to get drunk (Zinberg, l978)
|
From page 15... ...
Negative sanctions reinforce taboos, for example, against eating ham in a kosher home. The kinds of practices people learn about substance use depend on who teaches them those practices.
|
From page 16... ...
Blum's (l969) survey of 200 American adults found that, while parents introduce their children to beer, wine, and spirits, peer groups influence adolescents to use a wider range of substances: beer, wine, spirits, tobacco, marijuana, amphetamines, narcotics, and other illicit drugs.
|
From page 17... ...
have reported tobacco use as a peer group phenomenon. These studies also show that parents' and siblings' smoking increases the likelihood of smoking and thus support the conclusion that people learn to smoke through exposure to smokers.
|
From page 18... ...
The conflict between official control systems and people's microenvironments is especially clear when we consider the way large-scale institutions shape microenvironments. The substance use practices people learn from drug subcultures are to some extent a function of the existing control apparatus.
|
From page 19... ...
. Eligibility requirements are also coupled with rules regarding appropriate occasions for use.
|
From page 20... ...
Heroin use in the United States is also most common among young adults and decreases in incidence with the onset of middle age. In general, it appears that illicit substances in the United States are most likely to reflect this age distribution.
|
From page 21... ...
SANCTIONS Societies enforce sumptuary rules and other guidelines for substance use behavior by using positive and negative sanctions to reward those who use in a way appropriate to their social position, at the right times and in the right amounts, and to punish those who diverge from commonly held notions of appropriate substance use. The state and other official bodies typically use formal sanctions, while informal groups rely on such informal means of approval and disapproval as the awarding or withholding of prestige, rank, acceptance, admiration, disrespect, ostracism, or ridicule.
|
From page 22... ...
in prescribed ways will be approved and accepted by their peers, while those who use too much or too little of a substance in an improper manner with improper outcomes will be disapproved by their peers and may be subject to formal punishments. Informal negative sanctions are sometimes applied to people who fail to use enough of a prescribed substance.
|
From page 23... ...
Substance use practices that allow people to achieve desired states in the least troublesome ways vary by substance, setting, purpose of use, and by such user characteristics as sex, age, and class. It may be expedient to use some, none, or a large amount of a substance, depending on the substance, circumstances and conditions of use, and characteristics of the user.
|
From page 24... ...
In some Latin American societies every public event or ceremoney is marked by drinking. People often find it convenient to use substances at particular times of day; most people, for instance, eat certain meals at certain times.
|
From page 25... ...
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Our review of the ways in which informal social controls affect substance use in a variety of settings suggests a number of conclusions
|
From page 26... ...
What unique characteristics of adolescents, the elderly, women, and other population groups make them more or less likely to become involved with certain substances? Expedience It seems likely that expedience is one of the most potent informal social controls, yet we know little about it.
|
From page 27... ...
Informal social controls arise and are maintained through constant adaptation as they are applied, while formal controls, once enacted, remain fixed, with occasional formal revisions. Informal controls are thus more flexible.
|
From page 28... ...
Policies That Rely On Informal Mechanisms When we speak of policy implications we are talking about formal social controls, for we can hardly have a policy about informal controls. We cannot legislate such matters as what young people will tell each other confidentially about their experiences with a particular substance.
|
From page 29... ...
(l974) Consciousness, power and drug effects.
|
From page 30... ...
The non-western use of hallucinogenic agents. In National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, Drug Use in America: Problem in Perspective.
|
From page 31... ...
Lewin, Kurt (l943) Forces behind food habits and methods of change.
|
From page 32... ...
Special Action Office for Drug Abuse Prevention. Washington, DC: U.S.
|
From page 33... ...
In National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, Drug Use in America: Problem in Perspective Vol.
|
From page 34... ...
Winkeller (l977) A study of social regulatory mechanisms in controlled illicit drug users.
|
From page 35... ...
35 Zinberg, Norman, Wayne M Harding, Shirley M
|
From page 36... ...
In light of the paper's emphasis on controlled use rather than abuse, the stated policy implications are questionable. While it is demonstrated that informal social controls are effective for moderate users, there is no evidence of their effectiveness for those who have learned substance abuse.
|
From page 37... ...
In their paper, "Informal Social Controls and Their Influence on Substance Use," Maloff, Becker, Fonaroff, and Rodin document this unversal fact of substance control. With a systematic review of the crosscultural literature, they show the vast range of meanings that become attached to substances and their use.
|
From page 38... ...
Our goal is to explain why such people use substances at all, to see how informal controls regulate their use. What keeps such a person from smoking l0 packages of cigarettes each day, emptying the salt shaker on the cantaloupe, or devouring the entire bottle of vitamins?
|
From page 39... ...
Informal social sanctions (positive and negative) used by social groups.
|
From page 40... ...
The detail man continues doing this, in part, because NIDA has never examined the social and cultural processes involved in the culture of detail men, to see how they function in the larger informal control system. Thus, the detail men, the pharmaceutical industry, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse are all involved in the informal control system of substance use.
|
From page 41... ...
The hexagon represents internalized values that act as a personalized form of social control. The circle represents informal controls that also come from persons -- the social group.
|
From page 42... ...
H S3 1 CO § M i «0 J CSI t en 42
|
From page 43... ...
43 not an isolated phenomenon. It always occurs as part of a larger pattern.
|
From page 44... ...
In connection with the discussion of the quality and accessibility of private market research, the efficacy of media advertising of substances was discussed. It was argued that under some circumstances advertising could influence the amount of a substance used.
|
From page 45... ...
Many felt that the paper was inappropriately modest in stating that we cannot make policies affecting informal social controls. Bunce provided some examples of instances in which regulatory agencies have tried to harness informal mechanisms in controlling substance use: in California, the hostresponsibility law holds a host of a private party liable for guests' subsequent behaviors caused by substances consumed at the party.
|
From page 46... ...
Finally, Schelling stated that an important topic was missing from the paper on informal social controls: how do informal controls relate to people who use substances but wish they could quit? Informal controls are not necessarily effective in helping self-control problems.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.