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ALISON BURKEDRAMATURGY
See Symbolic Interaction Theory.DRUG ABUSE
Drug abuse has been a major social problem in the
United States for almost a century and we are now
in the second decade of a continuing war on drugs.
Drug abuse is a health and criminal justice prob-
lem that also has implications for nearly every
facet of social life. It is a major element in the high
cost of health care, a central reason for the United
States’s extraordinarily high rate of incarceration,
and a focus of intensive education and treatment
efforts. Substance abuse is an equal-opportunity
problem that affects both high- and low-income
persons, although its consequences are most often
felt by those persons and communities that have
the lowest social capital.
Substance abuse, with its connotations of disap-
proval or wrong or harmful or dysfunctional usage
of mood-modifying substances, is a term that was
developed in the United States. The more neutral
term, dependence, is often used in other countries.
Addiction, which formerly communicated the de-
velopment of tolerance after use and a physical
withdrawal reaction after a drug became unavail-
able, has assumed less explicit meanings. Whatev-
er terminology is employed, there is intense socie-
tal concern about the use of psychoactive mood-
altering substances that involve loss of control.
This concern is manifest particularly for young
people in the age group most likely to use such
substances. Society is concerned that adolescents