Drug Abuse Theories

Drug Abuse Theories
The question is why do people abuse drugs? What causes them to go against society with this deviant behavior? Society has set its norms concerning what behavior is acceptable and what is not acceptable. In this paper I will summarize three Sociological Theories of Drug Abuse. These theories are: Anomie Theory, Labeling Theory, and Differential Association Theory.
According to Sociology at Hewett (par 1), Emile Durkheim developed the Anomie Theory in his book, The Division of Labour in Society that was published in 1893. The book also described Anomie as the breakdown that was happening in society. The social norms were breaking down and those norms no longer controlled the actions of people within the society. The expected behavior was changing and people did not know what to expect from each other.
Robert Merton applied this theory to drug abuse according to the text Social Problems (pgs. 37 & 93) to when there is a discrepancy between socially approve...