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Drug and Alcohol Users Subculture



For the past couple of days I have been interviewing a group of students at SFA, who shall not be named, that uses alcohol and marijuana as psychoactive drugs to change their mental state. I chose to study these people because drug-using students at SFA are labeled by many people as deviants and because I was interested in understanding why people join and conform to this subculture. I will discuss this as well as some of the “rules” of the sub-culture, like being initiated, the organizational structure, how and where they meet, what artifacts they use, and how they view outsiders.
Why are they labeled as deviants who do not conform to the mainstream culture? Labeling groups as deviant seems to be part of a process of controlling the mainstream society and protecting it from harm. It seems like typical human nature for people to be afraid of those who are different, especially if the difference is behavior that can cause harm. And when they can identify people who act differently they can define them with a label so that they can communicate this to everyone in the society. Once a group is labeled then they can be talked about, ostracized, and even removed from society if they are seen as a threat. It seems that anyone who uses drugs can be defined as a deviant, even if they don’t meet the definition of a “deviant subculture.” This is entirely dependent on the opinion of the individual then, because some people see drug use as a threat and some don’t. Some people are afraid and some aren’t.
After conducting my research I found that I had to define “drug users” as students who used drugs at least every weekend, regularly. The people who only used drugs once in a while and less than once a week I have left out of this discussion. For those who used marijuana and alcohol routinely every week had it as part of their life, and really seemed to identify with others who...