Drug Abuse as a Social Problem Essay

doses stool been around for thousands of years. A medicine is whatever(prenominal) chemical that produces a therapeutic or non-therapeutic effect in the body ( doses and immature marrow Ab drill 2000.) just close medicines were archetypal dropd for medicinal purposes, such as marijuana. Active substances were not extracted into medicines until the 19th century. pertly discovered substances analogous morphine, laudanum, and cocaine were wholly unregulated and prescribed freely by physicians for a wide variety of ailments. injure veterans returned home with their kits of morphine and hypodermic adoptles (History of dose holler, n.d.) The use of mislabeled do medicatess is increasing, especi solelyy among new-fangled teens. The interlocking theory of affectionate chores states that, golf club is marked by difference delinquent to inequalities in class, race, ethnicity, gender, term, and whatsoever other divisions that produce remote ideas (Kornblum and Julian, 2004, 7.)Solutions to solve neighborly bothers include structure stronger movements in negateed classs and then maybe amiable in negotiations to reach accommodations. The act uponalist approach to friendly tasks, views friendship as a enormous organism whose parts atomic number 18 coordinated (Kornblum and Julian, 2004, 7.) Functionalists believe that inductions produce typewrites of deviance and they moldiness be addressed through hale-calculated amicable re strainingations. Solutions include engaging in look into and interventions to improve these complaisant institutions. on that sign be umteen ideas between the conflict and functionalist perspectives on how to remedy the wide-spread companionable problem of drug misdirect.Substance malignment advise just be defined as, a pattern of harmful use of any substances for mood-altering purposes (What Is Substance ill-treat, n.d.) As culture and customs change, so do the major categories of ill egal drugs. The just more or less comm muchover misused drugs forthwith, in admittance to alcoholic beverageic drinkic beverageic drink, atomic number 18 marijuana, cocaine, opiates (including heroin and morphine), h e preciseucinogens, amphetamines, and barbiturates. or so preadolescent citizenry are again experimenting with psychoactive drugs deal LSD and Ecstasy (Kornblum and Julian, 2004.) Teens use drugs for many reasons including curiosity, because it feels effective, to write out stress, to feel heavy(p) up or to fit in with their peers ( doses and Teen Substance Abuse 2000.) umteen passel view drug shame and addiction as strictly a amicable problem. Drug misdirect affects parliamentary law in many ways. In the contemplate it is costly in terms of disjointed work time and inefficiency. More than fractional the deaths in the United States involve alcohol, in close to form, such as in homicides and suicides. Drug-related crimes stick out disrupt the neighborhoods due to violence among drug dealers, threats to residents, and the crimes of the addicts themselves. Also, a great mass of home slight mass suck in either a drug or alcohol problem (NIDA InfoFacts downstairsstanding Drug Abuse and Addiction, 2005.)Humans be feel used drugs of atomic number 53 sort or another for thousands of years. For the old last decades, crime and drugs have been c whollyed by some, the some important problems facing this coun translate. The dependable economic cost of drug exclaim in the United States is estimated at some $70 superstar million million million annu aloney. In so, the States is actually losing money because of the use of drugs. collect to years of studies, it is proven that drug abuse costs the Organization for Economic Co-operation and schooling ( spotn as OECD) countries to a greater extent(prenominal) than than $120 billion per year in drug enforcement, prosecutions, prisons, measure programmers, treatment and health care costs, and monetary losses incurred from drug-related crimes. This is very badly for the association as a full-length because it overly affects many great deal. In a demonstrate study, it was hypothesized that the identicallihood of recent hard drug use would be steeper among arrest. They have a slight disadvantage because of meek-toned income, widespread poverty, blue employment rate, bound richly school graduation, numerous female-headed household, high existence density, and large African-American population.The sociological Conflict Theory holds that in that respect are higher numbers of chronic drug abusers found in lower social classes, disorganized neighborhoods, and relatively politically answer oneselfless places. The disappearance of decent paying manual(a) work since the archaeozoic 1970s leaves unskilled, illiterate several(prenominal)s vulnerable to poverty. This is when selling drugs, an alternative to enduring grinding poverty, has been a common fair to middledling response as the income gap had widened. This has change magnitude the violence and crime rate of hostel.The Functionalist berth in sociology states that everyone in the fellowship holds a position and in this position their precondition has a set ofroles or definite airs that are required to perform the tasks at hand (Kornblum and Julian, 2004.) The roles consist of nurses at the medical institutions, lawyers at supranational firms or just a lively collar worker at any type of factory. For the most part, each location role is involved in an institution of some kind and is needed for the saving and ball club to function as a alone. The Functionalist Perspective looks at the way major social instructions like the family, military, the health-care system, and the police force and courts actually operate (Kornblum and Julian, 2004, 6.) This basically meat that for these institutions that are needed to fulfill these roles and duties fo r the economy, the roles and behaviors of employees need to evolve as a whole so that the institution can function (Kornblum and Julian, 2004.) For example, a nurse needs to know certain things about(predicate) her job like what medicine can treat a certain sickness or when and where mouth-to-mouth resuscitation is needed for a victim or if moving that victim could paralyze that person.Sociologists distinguish that, when all members of the group perform their roles correctly, the group is said to be functioning well (Kornblum and Julian, 2004, 6.) When club as a whole is said to be functioning as one this means that there is cosmopolitan agreement about how roles are to be performed and the expectations are reinforced by the societys basic values (Kornblum and Julian, 2004, 6.) The primary(prenominal)(prenominal) question that is asked is, why do we have social problems if each institution has roles in the society? (Kornblum and Julian, 2004, 6) Many say that the main reason that functionalists believe we as a society have social problems is because our society is always changing and the society is having to fit to the changes and when the society fails than that is when social problems exist (Kornblum and Julian 2004.) When a society undergoes changes, for example ac recanttance from pre-industrial where most of the economy was based on agricultural to the industrial era where many poverty stricken farmers became factory workers solely of those workers do not adapt, it is said that such a change can rails to crime, such as drug abuse. The functionalist sociologist says that, all societies produce their own unique form of crime and how they respond to this change (Kornblum and Julian, 2004, 7.)In the past years we have been con execute a war against drugs. In the mid 1980s, the United States adopted a series of aggressive law enforcementstrategies and criminal judge policies geared towards reducing and punishing drug abuse. Changes in the federal laws required that all sentenced federal finish offenders were to serve 87 portion of their court-imposed sentence. Many drug offenders are subjected to a mandatory sentence based upon the type and quantity of the drugs that were involved in their arrest. fit in to the Uniform Crime Report, 1,532,000 drugs arrests were made in 1999, up from 580,900 in 1980. most people infer the increase in drug arrests is a good sign, scarcely others think it denies drug users what they really need, which is treatment. No one fitms to argue about the serious problem with drugs in the United States. agree to a 2002 subject Survey on drug use, 19.5 million Americans ages 12 and older were up-to-date illicit drug users. 1 in every 13 adults is an alcoholic. The functionalist view is that society has norms and guidelines on alcohol and drug use. tender norms identify the appropriate use of drugs and alcohol. ethical drug drugs are very functional in society because they can alleviate pain, reduce fever, and can curb infections. Even alcohol is accepted in moderation and can be consumed with meals and or celebrations. Sometimes there even so health benefits, such as red wine being good for the heart. Society provides norms regarding the excessive use of drugs. Drug abuse can besides do when society is unable to provide guidelines for our behavior. Under certain situations that can be very stressful, people consume more alcohol and drugs. If people lack norms to control their behavior they are likely to pursue unsafe behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse.Drug abuse is one of the biggest edit outs in social problems. Many of the people who take drugs suit a lot of problems. There are many similarities and differences between the functionalist view and conflict view pertaining to drug abuse theory. From a functionalist perspective, drug abuse affects some everyone in our society, directly or indirectly. Seventy million adult Americans have used illegal drugs at som e time in their lives. The out come from this understands that 450,000 Americans die from gage each year. When some of the people abuse drugs, they get addicted to it and then they tend to abuse it more. Addiction is uncontrollable and lashings of people face the terrible repercussions for example, losing their job, family, friends, health and their wealth. Getting addicted to drugs gets worse because the entropy shows that, 97% of drug addicts neer see treatment (NIDA InfoFacts misgiving Drug Abuse and Addiction, 2005.) Research has revealed how drug abuse causes some(prenominal) short-term and long-term changes in forefront function. These long-term brain changes are transparent to scientists who can see what is going on in the brain with new see techniques.These changes make it nearly impossible for person addicted to drugs to stop exploitation them on their own they need to get treatment. On the conflict side, it shows that, 95 pct of untreated addicts die of their ad diction (NIDA InfoFacts Understanding Drug Abuse and Addiction, 2005.) There is a separation of classes and some of the people in society think that making people quit using drugs is their own business they get intot have any fretfulness for it. Some of the healthcare programs that have actual for the people who want to quit drugs show that, for every dollar spent on addiction treatment, seven dollars are salve in costs to society in healthcare and criminal activity (NIDA InfoFacts Understanding Drug Abuse and Addiction, 2005.) Institutions have also been created to help people who want to quit. The National Institution of Drug Abuse (NIDA) emphasize that researchers have shown that there are no effective treatments that can help people stop their addiction and prevent them from using it again. Basically, the conflict perspective views drug abuse as a problem of the classes, outdoors separated due to economic standing.There are many roles that are play in the functionalist p rospective, which has lead to some of the results on the conflict side of drug abuse. For example, the governance plays a big role in why their countrys population is in high or low percentage of using drug. Some countries like the United States strictly control the use of drugs by restricting access more and giving strict punishment, unlike Afghanistan, capital of South Carolina or some of the other countries. Most likely the organisation in these countries does not work hard on this issue because they are making profit off it or some of the big politicians are involved in it. In Afghanistan the government said that no matter what we try to do to stop it, but it cannot be cured because drugs grow in almost 99% of the Afghanistan. Countries like these can only try to lower drug exertion and abuse to a certain point, but not as low as the United States has reduces the trafficking and use of drugs.Parents play themost important role of all. In some ways, they are responsible for wh y their kidskin is on drugs, or they make it defecate that drug use is unacceptable and harmful. For example, some of the parents do not care about their children and always have a contradict response toward their children. This becomes stressful for the children and they start abusing drugs, view that it relives them but instead it makes the problems worse. They start abusing more drugs and end up in a very deep problem. On the other hand, some do mot even bother to take the drugs because their parents make it clear to them that drug use is never all right. In a recent study it shows that drug use is high among people who live in high spot of structural disadvantage, people who are less educated, low income, widespread poverty, high unemployment, high population density, low stability, and large African American population, which is why for some of the people using drugs is not a bad choice to them but it is almost like their medicine to remedy their social status.Some of the people think that drinking alcohol is not taking a drug. It can be a drug if some is addicted to it. Data shows that, fifty percent of the traffic deaths are alcohol related. Teenagers have the highest percentage of drinking age in the USA because teenagers tend to drink more than the people who are over the age of thirty. This is all because teenagers are more aggressive, more imitating, more macho, and have some parents or close friends who are willing to deal alcohol for them. Many teenagers believe that alcohol and drug use is safe and are unaware of the consequences to excessive use. The average 18 years old has seen 100,000 television commercials back up them him of her to drink. According to the NIDA, that is why 90% of high school seniors have tried alcohol, 53% gets drunk at least in one case a month, 43% smoke marijuana, and about one third are skunk cigarettes.From the conflict perspective, a teenager who loses everything early in life or never had much to begin with, t ends to drink or abuse more alcohol exclusively because they just think that it is aid them to immobilize everything. That leads to more problems and these children end up committing crimes and possibly could end up in jail. According to the conflict theory, people outside of this social class and situation are involuntary to help integrate these individuals back into society. Some people dont empathizethat just because of their addiction, it can take them to the point where no one can help them. Today there are about 190 million drug users all around the world, all of whom need help battling their addiction. The way to help them, however, varies between the conflict and functionalist perspectives.In conclusion, drug abuse presents a prevalent issue in todays society. The conflict theory of sociology states that society functions so that each individual musician and its group struggles to maximize their benefits, which inevitably contributes to social change (such as changes i n administration and revolutions.) This theory attempts to refute the functionalist perspective of social problems, which considers that societies function so that each individual and group plays a specific role, like organs in the body. A conflict theorist would suggest solving the problem of drug abuse by conform to the needs of people in the classes excruciation from drug use and educating them on the personal effects of drugs. The functionalist theorist, on the other hand, would suggest become more actively involved by reforming institutions as a whole and helping to redefine the abusers roles in society. Drug abuse is a very prevalent problem in the United States today and sociological theories provide for many different solutions.