ABSTRACT
As with many other forms of deviant behavior, the use of drugs can be analyzed as the result of the breakdown of general social controls and the substitution for them of the controls of a subgroup. But Howard Becker goes further than this in his inter-actionist analysis of marihuana users. He considers also the possibilities for action within the subculture and the experiences which shape the individual’s tendency to make use of these possibilities. Social control is seen as a product of socialization — of interaction which leads to a particular set of expectations of oneself and of others. The process of socialization involves the individual’s learning to anticipate what significant others in the social environment expect of him. Becker considers the problem of how the individual in a complex society selects from among those competing normative reference groups on the basis of his own developing definition of the situation.
