Mary Catherine Weaver

SS1 SOC 2024 Deviant Behavior

Quiz 3
Due Midnight 06/15/14
Instructions: Type your name at the top. Answer each question. Turn this back in as an attachment in
the quiz section. Do not pay much attention to style. You will be graded based solely on the answer you
provide. You may use only your book or powerpoint from the week unless stated otherwise in a
question.
Time Limit: 45 Minutes
1) How would constructionists study drug use as compared to positivists? 2pts
Positivistic theories attempt to answer the why in drug use: Why do they do it? They focus
on biological or personality factors that might attribute to drug use.
Constructionist theories focus on why is the use of certain substances is considered deviant but
others are not.

2) What is more harmful to us, illegal drug use or legal drug use? 1 pt
Legal drug use kills considerably more people than illegal drug use (according to the textbook,
30 times more Americans than illegal drugs).

3) What are the four stages of drug deviance discussed in this weeks lecture? 2 pts
a. Widespread Acceptable Drug Use
b. Panic!!!
c. Time to Deal with It
d. Removal of Deviant Status


4) In which stage are we more likely to see the majority of people conforming, 1
st
, 2
nd
, 3
rd
, 4
th
? 1pt
The majority of the people conform to the drug use in the first step, the widespread acceptable
drug use step.

5) How does the fourth stage work to remove the deviant status of drug use? 8 pts
Through evaluation of the laws and potential civil rights violations, penalties are lessened or removed
altogether, and studies often disprove any negative consequences of doing the drug.

6) What is a moral panic? In what ways can a moral panic be used to make drugs deviant? 3pts
A moral panic is an overarching, intense feeling expressed in a population about an issue that
appears to threaten the social order (Wikipedia). According to the textbook, a moral panic is an
Mary Catherine Weaver
intense, widespread, explosively upsurging feeling on the part of the public that something is
terribly wrong in their society because of the moral failure of a specific group of individuals.

7) What is the difference between powdered cocaine and crack? 3pts
Crack is an impure, crystalline precipitate that results from heating cocaine with baking soda and
only contains about 30% cocaine. Cocaine is powdered and inhaled by sniffing or snorting.