Drug Use and Misuse
This is the most widely used legal psychoactive drug in the United States.
What is alcohol?
This branch of research studies how drug use is distributed across a population.
What is epidemiology?
This acronym-based alcohol screening tool asks if you’ve ever felt you should Cut down, been Annoyed by criticism, felt Guilty, or needed an Eye-opener.
What is CAGE?
This theory says people aren’t born knowing how to use drugs — they learn by watching, imitating, and being reinforced by others.
What is Social Learning Theory?
When people can’t reach society’s goals through legitimate means, this condition — described by Merton — can lead to frustration, crime, or drug use
What is anomie (or strain)?
This 19th-century era saw the creation of new, more potent substances like morphine and cocaine
What is the Transformative Era?
This classification system for controlled substances was created by a 1970 law.
What is the Controlled Substances Act (schedules)?
This perspective defines drugs based on their objective, pharmacological effects on the body.
What is essentialism?
This national survey, run by the CDC, collects data from high school students about health behaviors such as diet, exercise, sexual activity, and substance use.
What is the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS)?
According to the DSM-5, a person has a substance use disorder when they show this minimum number of symptoms from a list of 11.
What is two or more?
According to labeling theory, a powerful identity like “addict” or “druggie” that overrides all others is known by this term
What is master status?
Merton’s version of the person who follows all the rules but forgets the purpose behind them — the “going through the motions” type.
What is a ritualist?
In the early 1800s, this social movement encouraged moderation or total abstinence from alcohol.
What is the Temperance Movement?
This constitutional amendment and act outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol in 1920.
What is the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act?
This drug, legal for recreational or medical use in many U.S. states, is still classified as a Schedule I substance under federal law.
What is marijuana?
This national survey, conducted by SAMHSA, provides annual estimates of drug and alcohol use among about 70,000 people in the U.S.
What is the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH)?
This population has its own screening tool called the CARET, since they often take multiple medications and have other health conditions that can interact with alcohol use.
Who are older adults?
This theory by Edwin Sutherland says people learn deviant behavior from others who approve of it, and the frequency, duration, and intensity of those relationships matter.
What is Differential Association Theory?
This theory says drug use rises when communities go through rapid change — when old norms fade, people move in and out, and no one knows who’s in charge anymore.
What is Social Disorganization Theory?
In Victorian society, opium and morphine were commonly prescribed to women for “nervous conditions.” This reflected cultural fears about female behavior and this topic in particular.
What is female sexuality?
This mid-20th-century period marked the dawn of laboratory-created drugs such as barbiturates and amphetamines.
What is the Synthetic Era?
This Schedule II drug is used medically as a local anesthetic, even though it’s also widely known as an illicit stimulant
What is cocaine?
This large, classroom-based survey tracks drug trends among high school and college students, measuring lifetime, annual, and 30-day prevalence.
What is Monitoring the Future (MTF)?
For someone aged 14 to 18, drinking this amount of alcohol in the past year is enough to trigger further screening for a possible problem.
What is more than a few sips?
This theory focuses on how peer groups and popular leaders influence others to use drugs in order to fit in.
What are Subculture Theories?
In Merton’s Strain Theory, this type of person stops caring about success and drops out completely — think of someone who falls into drug addiction.
What is a retreatist?
This process, which produces stronger forms of alcohol like whiskey and rum, helped drive America’s drinking peak in the early 1800s.
What is distilling?
This early 20th-century law required doctors to register with the government to prescribe narcotics — a move that helped create the modern prescription drug industry.
What is the Harrison Narcotics Act of 1914?
This perspective defines drugs based on social perceptions, moral judgments, and cultural context.
What is constructionism?
To ensure accuracy, researchers often combine data from multiple independent sources—a process known as this
What is triangulation?
After a positive screening result, this next step helps determine the pattern and severity of substance use.
What is assessment?
This sociological principle states that “If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.
What is the Thomas Theorem?
This Merton category would describe someone who wants success but skips the nine-to-five — maybe choosing shortcuts like dealing drugs.
What is an innovator?
This world-famous soft drink introduced in 1886 once contained both caffeine from kola nuts and cocaine from coca leaves — talk about a pick-me-up.
What is Coca-Cola?
During World War II, soldiers used these stimulants legally to stay alert and boost performance.
What are amphetamines (or methamphetamines)?
According to the Controlled Substances Act, Schedule I drugs have these two characteristics
What are no accepted medical use and high potential for abuse?
This type of data—such as police or hospital records—reflects people already in contact with institutions, rather than drug use in the general population.
What is system-based data?
Screening for this substance is easier than for drugs because it involves one substance rather than many.
What is alcohol?
The process by which people who are labeled as druggies move from minor, often first-time deviant acts to seeing themselves as deviant is known by these two stages.
What are primary deviance and secondary deviance?
This theory says most people would break the rules if they had the chance — it’s our bonds to family, school, and society that keep us in line.
What is Control Theory?
In 19th-century America, these establishments were blamed for corrupting morals and spreading addiction, often linked unfairly to Chinese immigrants.
What are opium dens?
This hallucinogen was discovered accidentally in a Swiss lab in 1943 — talk about an eye-opening bike ride home
What is LSD?