This report assesses the societal costs of substance abuse--especially cocaine and crack addition--and dropping out of school. It is organized around three themes: (1) the impact of cocaine and crack abuse in terms of crime, public spending, and lost productivity; (2) policies that move addicts away from crack; and (3) policies that reduce the high school dropout rate. Based on extant literature, the report quantifies a bottom-line cost of drug abuse to have been between $60.4 billion and $124.9 billion in 1988, a figure that reflects the costs of health care, economic loss, and law enforcement relating to substance abuse. Impact also is assessed in terms of private and social issues. In evaluating the success of policies that have effectively moved addicts away from drugs, important questions concerning criteria for success, motivation for drug use, and addiction are explored. Law enforcement, treatment, educational, and prevention policies are evaluated. The current literature on testing, outpatient treatment, and peer programs to reduce the motivation toward drug abuse and to move addicts away from cocaine and crack is reviewed. In response to the issue of dropout prevention, the report recommends a rethinking of the structure of high schools within a collaborative context involving parents, schools, and communities. Included in the report are a working bibliography and a community service booklet that deals with the issues of this report on a local community level. (NB)

Provides an understanding of the nature of drug use among minorities by summarizing data on this issue. The data came from several large and small-scale epidemiological studies that collect and analyze data on the incidence, prevalence, morbidity, mortality, and other adverse health consequences of drug use among racial/ethnic populations. Chapters: definition of race and ethnicity; overview of drug use and drug related problems; population statistics for racial/ethnic minorities in the U.S.; drug use in the general population; prevalence of drug use among youth; youth drug use and risky behaviors; and adverse health consequences; drugs and crime.

This volume brings together a sample of the best of the studies that illustrate two recent trends in research on deviant behavior. The first of these trends is the investigation of deviant behavior in longitudinal perspective. Panels of subjects are followed over long periods of time to establish temporal relationships be tween deviant behavior and the antecedents and consequences of deviant behav ior. The second trend in contemporary research on deviance is the recognition of the association among forms of deviant behavior such as violence, drug abuse, and theft. The recognition of the covariation among forms of deviance stimulated questions regarding the nature of the relationships among multiple forms of de viance. Is one form of deviant behavior a cause or a consequence of other forms of deviant behavior? What variables mediate and moderate such causal relation ships? Do different forms of deviant behavior have common antecedents and consequences? Independent of the foregoing relationships, do particular forms of deviant behavior have unique antecedents and consequences? The eight original research studies that, along with the introduction and overview, constitute this volume are based on data drawn from among the most influential longitudinal studies in the general area of deviant behavior. These studies variously consider common and pattern-specific antecedents and conse quences, reciprocal influences, and intervening and moderating variables in causal relationships among drug use, crime, and other forms of deviance.

The 14 clearly written articles included in this collection exemplify the best of sociological scholarship on drug and alcohol problems. The readings strike a balance between constructionist, epidemiological, and ethnographic approaches to the study of drinking, drug use, and related problems such as domestic violence, crime, and the spread of HIV/AIDS. Visit our website for sample chapters!

The National Drug Control Policy has failed its two major functions (supply reduction and demand reduction) due to faulty assumptions regarding nearly every aspect of the alcohol and drug fields, charges author Fisher. Yet in spite of overwhelming evidence of this failure policy makers have strongly resisted discussing major changes to the assumptions that underly current policy, because of political pressure, bias and philosophical intransigence, he adds. Fisher discusses controversial topics and defends uncommon approaches in chapters focused on subjects including legalization, harm reduction, the futility of supply reduction, the problem of underage drinking and effectiveness of treatment and prevention. He proposes a new national policy for drug control, including elimination of the war metaphor, inclusion of alcohol in the mandate, conceptualization of addiction as a public health problem, utilization of harm reduction principles to guide policy and discontinuation of approaches that isolate drug and alcohol problems from their connection to broader social issues such as poverty. In this work, the premises of the current National Drug Control Strategy are challenged, and both Democratic and Republican administrations across the last 10 years are critically examined. Statements of the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Strategy are critiqued. Major points include that there is no evidence the NDCS has achieved any of its goals, that harm reduction should be its guiding principle, and supply reduction should not be part of the national strategy.