Drug use and dependence as a social problem: sociological approaches

Editor's note This chapter sets out to deal with drug use and dependence explicitly as a social process. It makes no claim to present a theoretical overview of addiction from a sociological perspective. However, sociological approaches are relevant not only to drug use as a social problem but also to the systematic analysis of addiction in a wider range of social contexts. Hence, this chapter may serve as a useful example for understanding substance abuse as this is manifest with respect to such social issues as ethnicity, gender, social mobility and cultural pluralism.