New Careers for Moral Entrepreneurs: Teenage Drinking

In: Journal of drug issues: JDI, Band 10, Heft 1, S. 45-70

Abstract

Views of the creation and maintenance of social problems have largely omitted the influence of government agencies. An examination of one behavior (teenage drinking) reveals efforts by one government agency (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) to generate a social problem in the face of evidence which belies the inflammatory rhetoric. The difficulties of community agencies and parents of teenage drinkers in responding to the federal campaign exemplify the questionable nature of the government claims.