ABSTRACT
While the study of social problems has been a major concern for American sociologists throughout this century, it has received relatively little attention in Britain. Indeed Manning (1985, 1987) is one of the few British sociologists to have recently considered the benefits of analyzing issues which are of current public concern from a social problem standpoint. In an earlier paper (Gabe and Bury, 1988) we argued that the current debate about benzodiazepine tranquillizers like Ativan and Valium could usefully be analyzed in terms of a social problem perspective which emphasizes its developmental nature. As Blumer (1971) and Spector and Kitsuse (1977) amongst others have argued, there is value in trying to identify the various stages in the history of a social problem, starting with its emergence and ending with its resolution. One of the merits of this approach is that it highlights the dynamic nature of this history. Moreover, as developed by Blumer and Spector and Kitsuse, the movement between stages is seen as contingent and hence as highly problematic.
