SOCI 3860 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Medicalization
25 Dec 2019
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Soci 3860 sociology of drug and alcohol use. Would the medicalization of alcoholism still have occurred: do you think women would have gained civil rights and liberties sooner had the women s. During the colonial era, chronic drunkenness became a problem for society as intoxication promoted lack of productivity among workers. However, denoting alcoholism as deviant leans heavily on drinking alone which was a staple in the religiously influenced society. By medicalizing the action, alcohol itself is not considered criminal and thus can still be an enjoyable part of lives. The religious influence gets to remain in power and the alcoholic gets help and sympathy instead of jail time. If prohibition had succeeded, then i think there would be a rise in deviancy. As evident in the case of many illegal drugs, denoting something as illegal can prevent the commercial selling of said product, but the selling on a black market cannot be prevented.
