Drug & Alcohol Culture Book |
The
American Drug Culture (Sage Publications) By Thomas Weinberg, Gerhard Falk, & Ursula Adler Falk
The
parts are: Part
One.
Sociological and Other Explanations for Drug and Alcohol Use and Abuse.
Part
Two
. Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs. Drinking Alcohol. The Alcohol Culture.
Alcohol and Social Institutions. Benefits and Costs of Alcohol. Alcohol and
Popular Culture. Alcohol and Sexual Behavior. Alcoholism.
Part
3.History
of Drug Use in America and Attempts to Control It. Drugs in Popular Culture.
Becoming a Drug User. The Business of Drug Use. Prevention and Treatment of
Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders. Part
4. Appendix A. Case Histories: Alcohol Abusers. Appendix B. Case Histories: Drug
Abusers. The
President , Donald Trump, recently warned the country that there is a growing
heroin epidemic in the United States. Officials have called this epidemic a wave
of opioid-related deaths. In 2016 and 2017, opioid related deaths increased over
all previous years, and in just 11 days in January of the next year there were
23 more deaths induced by heroin. In addition, fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller
30 to 40 times more potent than heroin, is becoming popular. Heroin is now the
leading cause of overdose deaths in the United States. In fact, according to the
Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, there were more deaths from heroin
overdose since 2015 than there were from gun homicides, as deaths from heroin
have more than quadrupled since 2010. One
explanation for this epidemic is that doctors are overprescribing pain killers.
As a consequence, people who can no longer obtain these drugs by prescription
turn to the black market to obtain them, and eventually discover heroin at only
five dollars a bag. There
are of course many people who used painkillers but never used heroin because
their personalities, past experiences, interpersonal relationships, and
opportunity to acquire drugs are different from those who use heroin. Throughout
this book we present case histories which illustrate each chapter. We also
present various theories from sociological, psychological, and legal
perspectives. In chapter 11, Dr. Ursula Adler Falk discusses the use of drugs
from a psychoanalytic framework. This is followed by sociological explanations
and thereafter by structural functional explanations. We exhibit conflict
theory, and exchange theory as well as symbolic interaction and labeling theory.
We continue with reference group theory and phenomenological sociology as well
as ethnomethodology. Feminist
approaches are also considered, and there is a discussion of research concerning
drug and alcohol use. The
two appendices add to the case histories already distributed throughout the
book, which has been written with a view of making it accessible to anyone
interested in this topic. Shalom u’vracha. Dr. Gerhard Falk is the author of numerous publications, including The American Drug Culture (with Dr. Thomas S. Weinberg & Dr. Ursula A. Falk, 2018). |