Abstract
Drug and alcohol abuse cost the nation billions of dollars a year in lost productivity and human suffering. Human service, medical and law enforcement professionals have been struggling to reduce demand, limit supply, and reconstruct lives. Sociologists, frequently in conjunction with other social scientists, are working to examine the following issues: the definition of drug use as socially deviant behavior;1,2 the effects of culture on drug use;3 the process of becoming a drug user;4 and the evaluation of the success of various interventions.5 Drawing on the authors’ experience in one community, this chapter reports on the role of the sociologist in facilitating a community’s action to reduce drug and alcohol abuse, particularly among adolescents.
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© 1991 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Watts, W.D., Wright, N.B. (1991). Drug Abuse Prevention. In: Rebach, H.M., Bruhn, J.G. (eds) Handbook of Clinical Sociology. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3782-3_22
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3782-3_22
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
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