Throughout history, Americans have been documented to have abused various drugs starting from precolonial times America as it is well documented that Christopher Columbus, the explorer that discovered America, found other mind-affecting drugs which he brought back to Europe on his first voyage to modern-day (Elaine, n.d.). However, until the late 1880s, prohibitionists and abstentionists had an easy time in addressing the drug abuse among the population, since all the supply point was known and easily identified. Nonetheless, the country failed to have a comprehensive legal framework that was engineered to address the drug abuse problem due to rapid pace changes relating to the usage of natural substance and multi-substance compounds among other reasons (Elaine, n.d.). Therefore, the laws that were passed in these periods had limited potential in addressing the problem of drugs and substance abuse since they did not target the problem of drug addiction as a whole but targeted various drugs and substances thus making the laws vulnerable to the resourcefulness those who wanted to get high in terms of rapid changes relating to the usage of natural substance and multi-substance compounds thus evading the law. It was not until 1970 when congress passed the first comprehensive legislation Controlled Substance Act which created one of the most comprehensive laws in the fight against drug abuse.
Social Learning Theory
According to social learning theory, learning is a cognitive process that can occur by simply observing or direct instruction. The theory argues that children are likely to observe individuals, models, and encode the behavior of the model that the child is identifying with (Akers & Jensen, 2003). The implication is that the children will adopt the behaviors that they observe from the models.
Drug addiction and abuse are common in the low-income neighborhoods. Therefore, since these communities are home to numerous children, the exposure to drugs and drug addiction comes at such a tender age where it is likely to influence these children behavior. A child can have an immediate model which includes the people that are close to the child such as family and community around our fantasy model which refers to the people that they do not know but can influence on them such as actors on television. For a child that comes from a family that is affected by drug abuse and addiction, this could be one of the first lessons that the child learns. Therefore, by emulating the parent and close family members, the child will encode that drug addiction and abuse is acceptable thus he/she should engage in them. Therefore, later in life, the children may seek approval from their parents or close family members who act as the models. The problem is worsened if the model approves the behavior by condoning it since it will give the child external reinforcement which will impact on the child’s internal reinforcement thus creating a sense of achievement (Akers & Jensen, 2003). In other words, a child will always act in a manner that she or he thinks will earn the approval of the model thus giving the child the inner satisfaction associated with the acceptance of his behavior by the model.
In addressing the issue of drug abuse in communities, social workers must understand each case. Therefore, the social worker should dig deeper into the person’s history, especially in the formative years, to understand the lesson learned at this crucial stage in human growth and development. Understanding the inculcated lessons will assist the social worker to help the addict or the drug user in unlearning the wrong lesson and relearning new lessons thus enabling the social worker to make a meaningful intervention in the fight against drug use and addiction.
Social Strain Theory and Cohen Subcultural Theory
Drug abuse problem can also be viewed from a deviant behavior perspective. According to the social strain theory, the society will provide the social goal and define the legitimate means to achieve it. However, due to social stratification, there are varied definitions of success. According to the Cohen’s subcultural theory, the middle class is the defining class which dictates the measure of success and legitimate way of success in what Cohen termed as the middle-class yardstick (Williams, 2011). As such, the definition of success is imposed on the lower class strata. According to social strain theory, deviant behavior can be in five forms. One of the application forms to this case is "innovation" which means that the lower class members will accept the goals of the main society, but reject the mean through which these goals can be achieved (Williams, 2011). For instance, a poor child appreciates and values wealth, but since such a child is at a disadvantage because the legitimate ways of being wealthy such as good education does not work in their favor. As a result, such a child may seek redress in drug peddling to acquire the wealth he so desires which is an illegitimate means to wealth. Another form of deviance comes in the form of rebellion. In this case, an individual will reject the imposed definition of success and the legitimate ways of achieving the success and replaces the definition with different goals and means to achieve. As such, the individual will be compensated their inability to succeed conventionally (Williams, 2011). As such, since success is associated with comfort and a feeling of satisfaction thus status, individuals, especially from the lower class, will seek of status by engaging in deviant behavior such as drug dealing and abuse which will give them comfort and a false sense of status.
The theory will be useful in assisting the social worker to understand the core reason that an individual is involved in drug dealing and abuse. From the understanding, the social workers can devise progressive interventions that target the root cause of the problem.
References
Akers, R. L., & Jensen, G. F. (2003). Social learning theory and the explanation of crime: A guide for the new century. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Elaine, C. (n.d.). History of Drug Use and Drug Users in the United States. Retrieved May 08, 2016, from http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/history/casey1.htm
Williams, J. P. (2011). Subcultural theory: Traditions and concepts. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
