This paper summarizes the article “Researching Dealers and Smugglers” by Patricia A. Adler in the book Constructions of Deviance: Social Power, Context, and Interaction by Patricia A. Adler and Peter Adler. The piece is a perfect example of the overarching topic of researching deviance. In the article, Adler describes the process of initiating and sustaining field research pertaining to the drug dealing and smuggling subculture. She maintains that the only way to obtain true facts and understanding of deviant behaviors is for researchers to immerse themselves within the deviant group. Due to the criminal aspects of the drug world, participants are extremely sensitive to the risk of being publicly outed as members of illegitimate enterprises. As a result, Adler and her husband took on the veiled facade and daily activities of people enmeshed in the social world of drug dealers and smugglers. …show more content…
They came upon the drug scene unintentionally through their friendship with a neighbor. The couple had experience in previous drug research and a personal openness to recreational drug use. This familiarity resulted in observations that gradually evolved into a substantial research project involving the dealing and smuggling lifestyle. Through opportunistic encounters, Adler and Adler were able to build rapport with their neighbor and his associates. Research was obtained and recorded through a chain of comprehensive, unstructured, open-ended interviews with informants. The topics of interest pertained to individual’s life history, initiation into the drug world, the evolution of their drug career, the reasons for participating in the drug lifestyle, and their overall perceptions of their community. Interviews spanned six years, including follow-up interviews resulting in 10 to 30 hours of interviews per primary
In the 1970’s Patricia Adler and her husband infiltrated a large drug smuggling and dealing ring located in Southwest County of southern California with the intent of learning more about the covert group. In Adler’s book Wheeling and Dealing: an Ethnography of an Upper-Level Drug Dealing and Smuggling Community, she delves into the multifaceted lifestyle and activities of those in the Southwest County drug world. In this paper, I will look into the factors that initiated their entry into the drug world, their activates that facilitated their smuggling and dealing of drugs, and their exit from the drug world, while applying multiple theories to explain their illegal behavior.
The Cocaine Kids and Dorm Room Dealers are two very different, but yet similar books. Cocaine Kids are about a group of kids, primarily of Hispanic race, with one kid of the Black race. The kids were raised in the inner city of New York. Dorm Room Dealers are about White, middle to upper-middle class college students, who was selling drugs for their status. The purpose of this paper is to prove that there are racial disparities among drug users. There will be examples from the texts that show the different takes on the drug markets and how race plays a factor. There also will be how these experiences shape the kids drug dealing and using. The paper will conclude how all the kids either remained in the drug career or left the drug career.
Throughout “Chasing the Scream” many intriguing stories are told from individuals involved in the drug war, those on the outside of the drug war, and stories about those who got abused by the drug war. Addiction has many social causes that address drug use and the different effects that it has on different people. In our previous history we would see a tremendous amount of individuals able to work and live satisfying lives after consuming a drug. After the Harrison Act, drugs were abolished all at once, but it lead to human desperation so instead of improving our society, we are often the reason to the problem. We constantly look at addicts as the bad guys when other individuals are often the reasons and influences to someone’s decision in
Cocaine Cowboys is documentary film that was released in 2006 that was directed Billy Corben, and produced by Alfred Spellman and Corben. The film is about the rise of cocaine smuggling and the Miami drug war during the years of 1970s-1980s in Miami, Florida. In our textbook that is chosen for this course which is called, “Sociology: A Global Perspective” (Ferrante). We go over deviance, conformity, and social control in chapter seven; all in which becomes very relevant when put in the same conversation with this film, Cocaine Cowboys. This film is a true example of deviance that our society struggles with still to this day.
...y, H. (2008). Drug use and abuse: a comprehensive introduction (7th ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
day it is the scourge of the underground drug community, and the focal point of
Throughout the When I Wear My Alligator Boots ethnography, Muehlmann supports her main argument by describing key features associated with the formation of narco culture. Because their culture recognizes that the drug trafficking industry is a part of their cultural identity, they wanted to promote these sets of values and beliefs to other people. One of the most interesting things I have heard while reading the When I Wear My Alligator Boots ethnography is the different roles men and women have in the narco culture of their communities. The media does not report on the everyday lives of ordinary people living in drug trafficking communities because the media is concerned with coverage of famous drug lords who use violent tactics on innocent people to protect their drug trafficking endeavors.
Next, the personal experiences that I have had with illegal drugs and the drug society that we are labeled with. Within my family, addition runs extremely high and ...
In the 1970s, cocaine was expensive and considered a "status" drug. The introduction of inexpensive crack increased the accessibility of this substance, and crack has become the drug of choice for many users, especially for inner...
I found chapter seven, “The Triumph of Conventionality,” to be of particular interest in the second half of the book. More specifically pages 134 -136, where co-authors Scott Jacques and Richard Wright share some of the reasons to leading moments, building up and resulting in desistance for many suburb dealers. Having to live through momentous events due to your decision to take up selling drugs and to eventually ending up quitting, is something no barely above puberty youth should be experiencing in his early life.
Drug abuse has changed over the years due to the trends that Americans face from the encouragement of different cultures. The abuse of substances creates many health problems. The following will discuss the past and current trends of drug use and the effects these drugs have on the health of the individuals who abuse the drugs.
Drugs cause an overall disturbance in a subjects’ physiological, psychological and emotional health. “At the individual level, drug abuse creates health hazards for the user, affecting the educational and general development of youths in particular” (“Fresh Challenge”). In youth specifically, drug abuse can be triggered by factors such as: a parent’s abusive behavior, poor social skills, family history of alcoholism or substance abuse, the divorce of parents or guardians, poverty, the death of a loved one, or even because they are being bullied at school (“Drugs, brains, and behavior”) .
In the United States today, drug use, substance abuse, and addiction are consistently growing dilemmas! At a young age we are asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Answers vary from doctor, police officer, astronaut, etc.; it is hard to image an individual saying, “I want to be addicted to drugs.” However, society witness’s individuals tumbling into drug addiction or other forms of addiction daily. This, in consequence, can cripple and prevent any person from accomplishing their childhood dreams.
Drug traffickers often use violence as a means to scare, intimidate, or prove a point. In a community that involves drug use and drug trafficking, residents no longer feel safe in the community. Drugs are related to crimes in many ways. It is a crime to use, make, possess, and distribute drugs; but drugs are also related to crime because of the effects they can have on the user’s behavior. Drug users under the influence of an illegal drug are not always conscious of the effects their behavior can ...
Drug addiction is a very big problem in today’s society. Many people have had their lives ruined due to drug addiction. The people that use the drugs don’t even realize that they have an addiction. They continue to use the drug not even realizing that their whole world is crashing down around them. Drug addicts normally lose their family and friends due to drug addiction.