Pick one sentence from each of the three readings:
– Adler, “The Dealing Lifestyle”
– Maher and Daly, “Women in the Street-Level Drug Economy”
Maher and Daly “Women in the Street-Level Drug Economy”
-Levitt et al. “An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang’s Finance
s”
Levitt et al. “An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang’s Finance
and connect it with one of the readings below:
-Laidler, “The Lives and Times of Asian-Pacific American Women Meth Users”-Hardesty and Black “Mothering through Addiction”
You can draw on gender and how that affects drug abuse. Please use quotes/evidence from each reading
Social Correlates of Drug
Use, continued
Emphasizing Sex, Gender, Social
Class, Race, and Ethnicity
Readings
◼
You have 5 readings for this
first unit on social correlates
◼
AGAIN: We are going in a
different order than your
textbook reader, so pay
attention to the reading list
that I assign.
Social Correlates of Drug Use: Emphasizing SexGender, Social Class, Race, and Ethnicity
Readings
Laidler
Hardesty and Black
Vecitis
Petrocelli, et al.
Peralta
The Lives and Times of Asian-Pacific American Women Meth Users
Mothering through Addiction
Drugs and Eating Disorders
Getting Huge, Getting Ripped
College Alcohol Use and the Embodiment of Hegemonic Masculinity
among European American Men
Film
Bigger, Stronger, Faster
Laidler, 1996
The Lives and Times of Asian-Pacific American
Women Meth Users
◼
Interviews with 37 Asian-Pacific American
women who are active, moderate-to-heavy
users of methamphetamine
◼
◼
This research is part of a larger study of 150 women
across 3 cities
Findings:
❑
❑
Women began using meth as a diet
suppressant
Continue use to cope with mundane domestic
duties
Hardesty and Black, 1999
Mothering Through Addiction
◼
This excerpt examines how mothers are heavily stigmatized
for drug use (more so than fathers and non-parents)
◼
Data comes from in-depth interviews of 20 Puerto Rican
mothers aged 23-48 who self-report as addicted to heroin or
crack cocaine
◼
The women varied in their current use pattern
◼
Each respondent was interviewed on 3 separate occasions
Hardesty and Black, continued
◼
Conclusions
drug use begins as a way to cope
with difficult life circumstances (see
discussions about mistreatment on
pages 163-164)
❑ mothers who use drugs are wellaware of their conflicting social
positions
❑ The respondents indicate that
mothering provides some motivation
for desistance of drug use
❑
Vecitis, 2012
Drugs and Eating Disorders: Women’s
Instrumental Drug Use for Weight Control
◼
In-depth interviews of 57 white female
college students
◼
Suggest a 4-type typology that describes
difference in this sample and “other” drug
users
❑
❑
By initial use
By motivation
Petrocelli, et al., 2008
Getting Huge, Getting Ripped
37 Semi-structured interviews of workingmiddle class male amateur bodybuilders across 3 states
◼
❑
❑
◼
Took years to develop rapport
Nearly all respondents are white
Interviews indicate that men use steroids recreationally
to construct a body that displays strength, dominance –
two characteristics generally associated with masculinity
❑
Had tried to develop muscle size “ naturally” but became
frustrated
Peralta, 2007
College Alcohol Use and the Embodiment of Hegemonic
Masculinity among European American Men
◼
75 interviews with middle-class college students
❑
❑
❑
❑
◼
Various college years
Males and females
White, Black, Hispanic, Asian
Heterosexual, gay, lesbian, and bisexual
3 themes emerged across most interviews:
◼
Drinking is “macho” as suggested by markers such as telling
drinking stories
❑
❑
◼
Alcohol consumption encourages risky behaviors
❑
◼
For men, drinking and getting drunk were honorable, indicated strength
and power as shown by enduring bodies
Women who drank heavily were seen as infringing on masculine
territory and were shamed or stigmatized by others
“Liquid Courage:” Respondents suggested that drinking alcohol
increases confidence and aggression
Non-drinking or non-heavy drinking is associated with weakness
❑
Such weakness are largely associated with women and gay men
Drinking
exemplifies
risky,
masculine
behavior
(for White
college
males)
NSDUH 2013 Findings
Required Film:
Bigger, Stronger, Faster
The Economics of
Drug Use
Readings for this Unit
Adler “The Dealing Lifestyle”
Maher and Daly “Women in the Street-Level Drug Economy”
Levitt et al. “An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling Gang’s Finances”
Basic Understandings of the
Sociology of Drug Economics
▪
▪
The drug-crime link
Discussions about the economics of
drug use are usually connected to a
belief that drugs cause crime
▪
Recall the Harrison Act
Adler. 1993.
“The Dealing Lifestyle”
▪ Data collected from extensive observation
and interviews with high-level drug dealers for
6 years; periodic observation and interviews
for 13 years
▪ Homogenous group: predominately male, White,
middle-upper class upbringing, no prior criminal
involvement
▪ Findings indicate
▪ Money and hedonism
▪ High-level drug sellers live a life that is self-indulgent,
spontaneous, and uninhibited. Adler describes them as
“always on the run.” (p251)
Adler. 1993.
“The Dealing Lifestyle,” continued
▪ Findings, continued
▪ “Beautiful people” vs. “glitter crowd”
▪ Gendered differences
Maher and Daly. 1996.
Women in the Street-Level Drug
Economy
▪ Data collected from 3-year ethnography of 45
women drug users and sellers living in
Bushwick area of NYC
▪ Findings:
▪ Women are employed in positions that are the
low status, low paid, and risky (in terms of
police detection and personal safety)
▪ Women’s participation in the drug market has
increased but participation is gendered such that
women continue to occupy lower-level support
roles
▪ Women develop personal “self-protection”
strategies to minimize victimization
Levitt and Venkatesh. 2000.
An Economic Analysis of a Drug-Selling
Gang’s Finances
▪ Data includes 4 years of financial records from a large,
well-organized drug-related social network (“gang”) that
operated in a Chicago
▪ Financial records included gross and net profits as well as details
about monthly costs, which include wages, legal fees, weaponry,
non-gang hired help, and payments related to deaths and injuries
(funeral expenses, payment to survivors)
▪ Findings
▪ Gang-level decisions and individual-level decisions about selling
drugs may conflict
▪ Drug dealing provides a more consistent (and often times higher)
wage as compare to “legitimate” available labor market
opportunities in the same area
▪ But many persons who sell drugs also participate in the legitimate
economy
Drug Trafficking More
Generally Speaking
▪ The value of an illicit drug market is
impossible to precisely assess, but (by
most estimates) trafficking and
distribution of drugs is enormously
financially profitable
▪ Domestic drug trade
▪ Global drug trade
Economics of Drug Use,
continued
▪ Expanding the scope of this analysis
▪ Could you apply an economic perspective of
drug use to the pharmaceutical industry (as
opposed to “street-level” drug sales, which
your readings focus on)?
▪ Would the arguments for profit and cost be the
same or different? How so?