Brown: Criminology, 8th Edition


Case Studies

2. The Relativity of Law and Crime

Tony, Chris, and Sam are all juniors in high school and have been good friends since their freshman year. They hang out together after school nearly every day and party together on the weekends. The boys often smoke marijuana together and with other friends at parties, too. The three are hanging out after school on a Friday afternoon, smoking marijuana, and talking about the party they will be attending the next evening. Chris tells his friends that he has a surprise that he is going to take to the party and pulls a bag of cocaine out of his backpack. Tony and Sam look at Chris in complete disbelief. They have never seen a drug like cocaine and don’t even know where to get some. After Chris leaves, Tony and Sam discuss what happened and agree that they do not want to go to the party with Chris if he is going to have cocaine. Smoking marijuana is cool to them, but cocaine is just too hard of a drug. They become very concerned about Chris and are now afraid he may have a drug problem.

Questions

  1. Why do Tony and Sam think it is acceptable to smoke marijuana but think it is unacceptable to use cocaine?

    Correct Answer

    Marijuana is more socially accepted, particularly among adolescents. According to relativity, these behaviors can move across a continuum of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. Even though cocaine may have been accepted at some point in the past, society does not view it as a minor recreational drug at this point.

  2. How has society’s view of cocaine changed from the past?

    Correct Answer

    Society used to view cocaine as an acceptable drug to use for many physical ailments, even for children. In recent years, cocaine has been deemed unacceptable, partly because of the rise in the use of crack cocaine by lower-class individuals.

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