Drugs!

I was working on my Social Problems homework last night at my favorite place in the whole wide world and I'm very excited because my Social Problems prof is the first I've had that gives us thought-provoking discussion questions, the kind that cause good old-fashioned discussion board fights, the kind where I'm just waiting for that ultra-conservative John Doe's name to pop up as having responded to one of my posts so I can tear him up with my superior spelling and grammar. Let's face it, John Doe, you may be infuriated by the fact that immigrants come here and can't even speak English, but neither can you. So, there.

I digress. (But it felt good.)

One of the questions assigned for this week found a very fascinated Melissa at the other end of the computer. I began doing way more research into the subject than the one paragraph response required. As such, I've selected the topic as my research project for the quarter. I'm going to post the question here and hope to spark some good discussion that will help me directionally with my paper.

Does the widespread availability of drugs (legal and illegal) serve to placate the socio-economically disadvantaged people in our society (especially the unemployed and underemployed) so that they are less likely to threaten social stability? Identify the major sociological perspectives that relate to this issue and how you used this in your analysis.

I've already done the obligatory one paragraph answer to the question and chose to argue from a conflict perspective as I will likely do with my paper. I've never looked at this issue in this way before and given that I was raised in a poor family laden with people with substance abuse problems, it's definitely something I'm excited to explore. Even with that, I think I'm more interested in looking at this as related to legal drugs. This is going to be a fun project for me!

Anyway, I don't need "help" with my paper, I'm all set, really. I'm just interested in your initial reactions to the question. I suspect that this issue may be revisited over the coming weeks as I get further in.