Social sanctions and rituals as a basis for drug abuse prevention

This paper will report on preliminary findings of an on-going study of "controlled" use of marihuana, psychedelics, and opiates which point to the possibility of minimizing the social costs of illicit drug use via social control. This study, sponsored by The Drug Abuse Council, Inc., a non-profit private foundation, shows that despite the lack of larger cultural support for controlled illicit drug use and other obstacles, users are able to develop and maintain moderate, long-term, nonabusive, i.e., controlled, drug-using patterns. We will show that these patterns are primarily supported by the development of social drug-using situations in which sanctions and rituals permit use while condemning abuse. In the discussion, we will compare the management of controlled use in our sample to the larger culture's handling of alcohol.