Substance Misuse Patterns & Suicide

It does not follow, however, that a cause and effect relationship exists between drug use and suicide. In fact, the recreational use of drugs is not to be confused with the abuse of drugs-suicide relationship. In fact, the issue of drug use as an individual problem may be less relevant to suicidal behavior than larger, external social forces impacting the individual.

An examination of the quantity of drug usage, methods of suicide attempt, reasons for suicide, and methods of counseling will be examined as they pertain to suicidal youth. The drug-suicide connection will be examined in light of views placing more emphasis on social, rather than psychological, forces.

Labelling and control theories, coupled with Durkheim's Suicide and Glassner & Loughlin's (1987) Drugs in Adolescent Worlds will guide the discussion. In addition, supplemental studies on suicide will be examined. In short, it will be shown that suicide, like drug taking, is a sociological behavior, not a psychological one. Both suicide and drug taking are responses to one's social world, not internal pathologies.

One useful way to explore youth suicide is by way of the clinical-

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cause they have no vested interest in not taking drugs. It may even be more revealing (significant) to ask why more adolescents do not use drugs, rather than why they do use drugs. Glassner & Loughlin (1987) stress the view that the adolescent's social world may allow him or her to use drugs without social consequence. As for the deviant label, what psychological significance does it have? If one correctly looks at deviance as a sociological phenomenon--one of labelling and control theory--it is apparent that no characterologic disorder can be ascribed to it. Glassner & Loughlin's (1987) adolescents are not suffering from internal, pathological disorders because they use drugs; instead, they are choosing from alternatives in a social milieu which enables them, at least for a fleeting period in their lives, to use drugs without loosing much in the process. To formulate a more comprehensive sociological theory of deviance, Durkheim himself "proposed, in effect, that we dismiss the question, 'Why do they do it?' and ask instead 'Why don't they do it?' Since Durkheim's time, this advice has been heeded by many leading sociological and criminological theorists" (Stark, 1987, p. 179). In the case of drug use, which is a deviant
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Approximate Word count = 3074
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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