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well-being and exaggerated activity. As the stimulating effects begin to wear off, the speed freak will again
280 «shoot speed» in order to maintain the high. In fact, injections may be repeated many times in a single day.
When continued injections are finally terminated, the reaction phase sets in. The individual lapses into a
sleep that may last as long as two days. Upon awakening, the individual passes into a severe depression that
285 may continue for weeks. Heavy users develop severe physical problems as well. Since they lose their desire
to eat and sleep, they rapidly lose weight and become highly susceptible to infection. Viral hepatitis, caused
by dirty syringes, is increasingly common. Speed kills.
290 28. Speed freaks are sometimes known as «crazies» since they frequently engage in some meaningless
compulsive activity that exhausts their excess energy. One group of «crazies» undertook a search for «the
stone of stones» and dug until they had uncovered an enormous pile of rocks (Fiddle, 1968).
295
29. Downers, in contrast to uppers, are taken for their calming effects. The most common medical
reasons are to promote sleep and to reduce anxiety and tension. The largest group of downers consists of
300 the barbiturates which have a high abuse potential. Tranquilizers, such as Valium, Miltown, and Librium,
which are not barbiturates, may also be abused.
30. A person who uses barbiturates commonly considers them «safe» because they are frequently
prescribed by doctors. Nevertheless, they are addicting and habituating. Moreover, an overdose or sudden
305 withdrawal can lead to death. When taken in combination with alcohol, even small amounts can become
lethal. Thousands of deaths annually are attributable to barbiturates.
From: Fundamentals of Psychology, by Richard R. Runyon, reprinted in Reading by All Means, ed. by Elite
Olstein .
OUTSIDERS
by Howard J.Becker
(1) All social groups make rules and attempt at some times and under some circumstances, to enforce
5
them. Social rules define situations and the kinds of behavior appropriate to them, specifying some actions
as «right» and forbidding others as «wrong». When a rule is enforced, the person who is supposed to have
broken it may be seen as a special kind of person, one who cannot be trusted to live by the rules agreed on
10
by the group. He is regarded as an outsider.
(2)
But the person who is thus labeled an outsider may have a different view of the matter. He may not
accept the rule by which he is being judged and may not regard those who judge him as either competent or
15
legitimately entitled to do so. Hence, a second meaning of the term emerges: the rule-breaker may feel his
judges are outsiders.
(3) In what follows, I will try to clarify the situation and process pointed to by this double-barrelled
20
term: the situations of rule-breaking and rule-enforcement and the processes by which some people come
to break rules and others to enforce them.
(4) Some preliminary distinctions are in order. Rules may be of a great many kinds. They may be
25
formally enacted into law, and in this case the police power of the state may be used in enforcing them. In
other cases, they represent informal agreements, newly arrived at or encrusted with the sanction of age and
tradition; rules of this kind are enforced by informal sanctions of various kinds.
30 (5) Similarly, whether a rule has the force of law or tradition or is simply the result of consensus, it may
be the task of some specialized body, such as the police or the committee on ethics of a professional
association, to enforce it; enforcement, on the other hand, may be everyone's job or, at least, the job of
everyone in the group to which the rule is meant to apply.
35
(6) Just how far «outside» one is, in either of the senses I have mentioned, varies from case to case. We
think of the person who commits a traffic violation or gets a little too drunk at a party as being, after all,
not very different from the rest of us and treat his infraction tolerantly. We regard the thief as less like us
40
and punish him severely. Crimes such as murder, rape, or treason lead us to view the violator as a true
outsider.
(7) In the same way, some rule-breakers do not think they have been unjustly judged. The traffic
45 violator usually subscribes to the very rules he has broken. Alcoholics are often ambivalent, sometimes
feeling that those who judge them do not understand them and at other times agreeing that compulsive
drinking is a bad thing. At the extreme, some deviants (homosexuals and drug addicts are good examples)