Control Attitudes toward Drug Use as a Function of Paternalistic and Moralistic Principles

• Published date: 01 January 2002
• Author: Stelios Stylianou
• Date: 01 January 2002
• DOI: 10.1177/002204260203200106
• Subject Matter: Article

© 2002 BY THE JOURNAL OF DRUG ISSUES

JOURNAL OF DRUG ISSUES 0022-0426/02/01 119-152

CONTROL ATTITUDES TOWARD DRUG USE AS A

FUNCTION OF PATERNALISTIC AND MORALISTIC

PRINCIPLES

STELIOS STYLIANOU

Perceptions of crime seriousness have been studied since the 1960s.

Characteristics of acts affecting these perceptions have been identified, and the

degree of agreement in seriousness judgments has been examined for a variety of

behaviors. The present study extends this inquiry by investigating how perceptions

of self-harm and perceptions of immorality shape attitudes toward the control of

drug use. These attitudes and perceptions were measured for six widely known

drugs – alcohol, cigarettes, cocaine, heroin, LSD, and marijuana – using an

electronic mail survey of university students. Univariate analysis shows dissensus

rather than consensus in attitudes and perceptions and that, with the exception of

marijuana, control attitudes toward drug use reflect the existing legal code.

Multivariate analysis shows that perceptions of self-harm and perceptions of

immorality are moderately to highly correlated and that control attitudes are strongly

affected by perceptions of self-harm and perceptions of immorality.

INTRODUCTION

The study of popular perceptions of crime seriousness was introduced in

sociology by Sellin and Wolfgang (1964). Since then, numerous studies have been

published in an effort to illuminate how people perceive crime. Of central concern

has been the study of characteristics of criminal acts and how they affect seriousness

perceptions. Additionally, in the context of the consensus-conflict debate, there

has been interest in measuring how much agreement there is among individuals

__________

Stelios Stylianou, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Intercollege, Lefkosia, Cyprus. He

received his Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at the University of Washington, Seattle. His

research focuses on the moral structure of social control. In particular, he has studied control attitudes

toward victimless behaviors, predominantly drug use and sexual deviance. Direct correspondence to

Stelios Stylianou, Department of Liberal Arts, Intercollege, 46 Makedonitissas Avenue, PO BOX 24005,

1700 Lefkosia, Cyprus. E-mail: stelios@u.washington.edu

STYLIANOU

120 JOURNAL OF DRUG ISSUES

and groups regarding the perceived seriousness of crime. However, few attempts

have been made to systematically model perceived crime seriousness as a function

of moral principles. The specification of such principles has been a concern in

normative philosophy, where libertarian, liberal/paternalistic, and moralistic

doctrines have been advanced and debated. The extent to which these philosophical

doctrines are reflected in the popular discourse on social control deserves attention.

In this study, I address this issue in the substantive area of drug use by testing

hypotheses that predict paternalistic and moralistic reasoning in public opinion. In

particular, I model an alternative measure of seriousness perceptions (control

attitudes) as a function of two components: perceptions of self-harm and perceptions

of immorality. Additionally, I hypothesize that the empirical distribution of control

attitudes will resemble the current legal code and that perceptions of self-harm and

perceptions of immorality will be correlated. I test these hypotheses using data

from an electronic mail survey of a random sample of students at a large university

in the United States.

I begin by reviewing the relevant empirical literature and then outlining the

philosophical principles modeled in the present research.

REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

The empirical literature on public perceptions of crime seriousness has addressed

a wide range of conceptual elements and has focused on a large number of behaviors.

One thing we have learned from this literature is that the consequences of an act are

the most important determinants of seriousness perceptions. Acts causing bodily

harm are generally perceived as the most serious, followed by acts causing property

loss or property damage (Sellin & Wolfgang, 1964; Rossi, Waite, Bose, & Berk,

1974; Rossi & Henry, 1980; Schrager & Short, 1980; McCleary, O’Neil, Epperlein,

Jones, & Gray, 1981; Cullen, Link, & Polanzi, 1982; Evans & Scott, 1984; Wolfgang,

Figlio, Tracy, & Singer, 1985; Warr, 1989).

Consistently, victimless crimes are generally rated the least serious (Wolfgang

et al., 1985; Blum-West, 1985; Cullen et al., 1982). However, “victimlessness”

does not seem to be a unidimensional construct (Abrams & Della-Fave, 1976).

Research that included victimless crimes with a strong moral element, for example,

has shown that perceptions of immorality significantly affect perceived seriousness

(Newman, 1976; Evans & Scott, 1984). Regarding drug use, there has been no

systematic study of the perceived seriousness of the use of different substances.

Using heroin or LSD appears in some surveys as very a serious offense. Rossi et

al. (1974), for example, asked a sample of Baltimore residents to assess the

seriousness of 140 offenses. In their results, using heroin ranked 28th in seriousness

and LSD use 65th. Most other victimless offenses (such as prostitution and

CONTROL ATTITUDES TOWARD DRUG USE

121WINTER 2002

homosexuality) ranked much lower. Cullen et al. (1982) used the same list of

offenses in a survey of residents of Macomb, Illinois. Using heroin and using LSD

ranked 58th and 83rd (out of 140) respectively, while most other victimless crimes

ranked below 120. The seriousness attributed to the use of heroin and LSD becomes

more pronounced, if we consider that in both these studies some violent behaviors

ranked about the same, or even less serious. Forcible rape of a former spouse, for

example, ranked 58th (same as heroin use) in Rossi et al. (1974) and 62nd (much less

serious than heroin use and slightly more serious than LSD use) in Cullen et al.

(1982).

The issue of consensus has also been widely researched and discussed. Each

behavior can be placed on the consensus-conflict continuum (Hagan, 1994; Hagan,

Silva, & Simpson, 1977) based on how much agreement there is about how serious

it is. Various types of consensus were defined by Rossi and Berk (1985). Regarding

the mathematical properties of the distribution of scores, “absolute consensus” refers

to agreement on the parameters of the distribution of seriousness perceptions (same

absolute scores) and “relative consensus” refers to agreement on the mathematical

form (function or shape) of the distribution.1 Both intraculturally and cross-

culturally, relative consensus has been one of the most persistent findings in crime

seriousness research (Rossi & Henry, 1980; Cullen, Link, Travis, & Wozniak, 1985).

With respect to generality, “global consensus” refers to agreement on all normative

domains (all norms included), while “local consensus” refers to agreement on a

single norm (for example, marijuana use). Findings suggest that local consensus is

very often present. Miethe (1984) presented four types of consensus based on the

cross-tabulation of the absolute-relative dimension and the global2-local dimension.

Using data from Rossi et al. (1974), he found evidence of global relative but not of

global absolute consensus. He also found local absolute consensus for violent,

white-collar, and public order offenses. Carlson and Williams (1993) also showed

that consensus exists with respect to crimes involving injury or loss of life.

Victimless crimes produce more dissensus rather than consensus (Miethe, 1984;

Carlson & Williams, 1993).

Cross-culturally, early replications of Sellin and Wolfgang’s (1964) study were

done in Canada by Akman and Normandeau (Normandeau, 1966; Akman &

Normandeau, 1967, 1968). The conclusions of these studies are highly consistent

with Sellin and Wolfgang (1964). A number of studies followed in the early 1970s,

reporting both agreement and disagreement between Western and non-Western

cultures (Velez-Diaz & Megagree, 1971; Hsu, 1973; Carss & Whitrod, 1974). In a

large-scale comparative survey of six countries, Newman (1976) showed that relative

consensus exists cross-culturally with respect to behaviors that are generally ranked

high on the seriousness scales (offenses involving bodily injury, followed by those