Sociology of Drugs: Paradigms, Theories, and Social Control

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering sociological definitions, paradigms, theories, and historical contexts of drug consumption and control.

Social location

The group memberships that individuals possess based on their location in history and society, including categories such as religion, employment, sexual identity, political affiliation, and culture.

Intersectionality

The sociological concept that multiple aspects of an individual's social identity work together and intersect to shape their lived experiences, particularly regarding privilege and oppression.

Natural opioids

Naturally occurring substances derived directly from the opium poppy, identified in the lecture as opium, morphine, and codeine.

Semi-synthetic opioids

Substances created by chemically modifying natural opiates, specifically identified as heroin and oxycodone (OxyContin).

Synthetic opioids

Fully man-made substances manufactured without natural opiates, specifically identified as methadone and fentanyl.

Social control

The systems of formal and informal rules, norms, and institutions utilized by a society to guide and regulate human behavior.

Historical Materialism

The Marxist framework positing that the material economic base of production (such as industrial capitalism) shapes all other social structures, including culture, politics, and legal codes.

Bourgeoisie

The capitalist class that owns the means of production—such as factories, capital, and raw materials—and employs wage labor.

Proletariat

The industrial working class who do not own the means of production and must sell their labor power for wages.

Sin paradigm

A historical framework defining drug use as a moral failing of temptation, weakness, and vice, enforced primarily by the church and responded to through shame, stigma, and moral judgment.

Crime paradigm

A framework defining drug use as an issue of deviance and lawbreaking, enforced by the criminal justice system (police, courts, prisons) and addressed through punishment and incarceration.

Sickness paradigm

A framework defining drug use and addiction as a medical condition or brain disease, overseen by doctors, rehabilitation centers, and therapists, and addressed through medical treatment.

Volstead Act

The legislation enacted under the 18th Amendment that prohibited the manufacture and sale of any beverage exceeding $0.5\%$ alcohol by volume (ABV), offering no exemption for personal or small-batch brewing.

Moral panic

A phenomenon defined by Stanley Cohen wherein a condition, episode, person, or group emerges to become defined by society and the media as an exaggerated threat to societal values and order.

Folk devils

Individuals or groups portrayed by the media and society as embodiments of danger and evil who are blamed for threatening the social order during a moral panic.

Drug scare

A specialized form of moral panic that scapegoats a specific chemical substance and its users for a broader array of pre-existing social, economic, or cultural problems.

Politico-moral entrepreneurs

Individuals or rule creators who lead moral crusades against what they define as social evils, providing media soundbites and often deflecting attention away from systemic structural inequalities.

Medicalization

The social process through which a previously nonmedical problem, behavior, or difference becomes defined, diagnosed, and treated as a medical issue or disease.

McDonaldization

George Ritzer's concept describing the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant—efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control—come to dominate American society and global sectors.

Habitus

Pierre Bourdieu's term for deeply ingrained, class-based dispositions and habits acquired through upbringing and social experience that shape how an individual perceives and acts in the social world.

Conflict Theory

A macro-level sociological framework arguing that society consists of distinct groups competing for scarce resources, wherein dominant elites utilize institutional systems to protect and maintain power.

Colonialism

The policy or practice whereby a powerful nation maintains long-term political, economic, and cultural dominance over a foreign territory and its people.

Social Learning Theory (Sutherland)

The criminological theory asserting that deviant behavior, including illicit drug use, is learned in the same manner as conforming behavior through social interaction and communication within primary groups.

Subculture Theory

The perspective explaining that individual drug use is fostered by participation in distinct social groups that develop collective, favorable alternative norms toward substance use.

Social Control Theory (Hirschi)

The theory proposing that individuals possess a natural capacity for deviance, which is held in check only when they maintain strong attachments and bonds to conventional societal institutions.

Self-Control Theory (Hirschi)

The proposition that criminal and deviant behaviors arise primarily from low self-control, which is established early in childhood as a result of inadequate or ineffective parenting.

Anomie

A state of societal 'normlessness' described in strain theory that occurs when a structural gap exists between culturally approved goals and the legitimate, accessible means to achieve them.

Hegemonic masculinity

The culturally dominant ideal of masculinity within a given social order that dictates what a 'real man' should be and reinforces men's collective power over women and non-conforming men.

Social sanctions

The formal or informal positive rewards (such as approval and praise) or negative punishments (such as stigma and mockery) applied by groups to enforce adherence to social norms.

Pinkwashing

A corporate marketing practice where companies align themselves with causes such as breast cancer awareness by promoting pink-ribbon products whose consumption may actually be harmful to health.

Becker's three-stage social process

Howard Becker's model explaining how an individual learns to become a marijuana user: learning the proper technique, learning to perceive the drug's effects, and learning to define those effects as enjoyable.

Pharming to get by

A term identified by Loe describing the practice among college students of utilizing prescription stimulant pharmaceuticals to cope with academic and social demands rather than solely to excel.