ons for excessive amounts of serious deviance, including suicide.
The essence of Durkheim's theory in Suicide is that deviance rates (rates of suicide and crime) will vary as social integration varies; for example, suicide and crime rates will be higher wherever moral and social integration are lower. The aspect of Durkheim's theory most relevant to a discussion of suicide is this: people kill themselves as a result of social forces, rather than as a result of internal, psychological ones. In a similar manner, it will be shown that people use drugs, not because they are internally maladjusted, "deviant," or pathologically unsound, but rather because they are part of a drug-using milieu. Perhaps recreational drug taking, within certain self-imposed limits, is actually a social behavior, like discussing the weekend's activities with one's friends. In this case, drug use is no more deviant, nor a precursor to suicide, than staying up too late, or partying too much.
Labelling theorists argue that deviance results from some persons having been identified, or l
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