D R I N K I N G & D R U G S D I V I S I O N Winter 2009 Matters of Substance 2009 Annual Meeting ___ Program Theme: “Race, Ethnicity, and the Continuing Problem of the Color Line” 59th Annual Meeting August 7th to 9th, 2009 The Stanford Court Hotel San Francisco, CA Message from Chair: Dear Drinking & Drugs Members, I hope that many of you have found the time since last year’s meeting pleasant and productive. It’s already time to turn our attention to this year’s Annual Meeting. Many of you have no doubt submitted abstracts for the meeting by now. Though the panels have not been finalized by this point, our division has many exciting sessions planned for the meeting. The theme for this year’s meeting challenges us to consider the social problems associated with Race, Ethnicity, and the Problem of the Color Line. Our division will host a panel on how substance abuse intersects with these issues. This is a particularly relevant theme for our division as many of us remain concerned about how race, ethnicity, and the color line intersect with drinking and drugs. Some of our colleagues continue tireless research on sentencing discrepancies for drug related crimes. Other colleagues commit themselves to research on racial disparities in the health consequences of drinking and drug use. Many others attend to numerous other ways that drinking and drug use intersect with race and ethnicity. I hope to see many of you at our panel on this critical theme. Additionally, it’s never too early for me to invite you to our division reception, co-hosted jointly with the Alcohol, Drugs, and Tobacco section of ASA. As the photos from last year’s reception (page 8) indicate, it is bound to be a good time for all. Though the meeting is on the forefront of many minds, there are other interesting things going on with the division. We are currently developing a website. The website will serve as a clearing house for current issues, announcements, and general division business. We hope to have the site up and running by the end of May. Also, I would like to ask you to please encourage your students to submit papers for our division’s Student Paper Competition (more details on page 5). Before I end this note, I would like to extend a special thank you to Avelardo (Lalo) Valdez, the past chair of our division. My job has been made much easier by all of his hard work. I hope to see you all at this year’s Annual Meeting. Sincerely, Brian Kelly New Publications__________________________ Coming Soon from University of California Press: Philippe Bourgois (Anthropology and Family and Community Medicine, University of Pennsylvania) and Jeff Schonberg (Medical Anthropology, University of California, San Francisco). RIGHTEOUS DOPEFIEND "Plunge beneath the surface of America's no-man's lands. Find in the dead-end alleyways, storage lots, and overgrown embankments the terrifying but strangely ordered world of homeless heroin injectors. This book will test your cultural relativism to destruction, but along the way you will learn a great deal about destitution, about homelessness, about addiction, and about violence at all levels. These dopefiends are 'made in America'." Paul Willis Author of Learning to Labor: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs, and co-founding editor of Ethnography Available May 25, 2009 – Order now at: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9188.php Available Now from New York University Press: Wendy Chapkis (Sociology, University of Southern Maine & Richard J. Webb (Communications, San Jose State University). DYING TO GET HIGH: MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE- There is a short excerpt from the first chapter posted on Alternet http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/85205/ “A beautifully written account from the front lines of the struggle between a federal drug war complex determined to keep demonizing marijuana and the growing movement of patients and doctors who have found marijuana to be a valuable medicine.” Craig Reinarman Editor of Crack in America: demon drugs and social justice (University of California Press) Order now at: http://www.nyupress.org/books/Dying_to_Get_High-products_id-7726.html Announcements: SSSP Membership: You can renew your SSSP membership via our secure website at: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/pagid/925/fuseaction/ssspmember.portal. All SSSP members receive a year’s subscription to the journal, Social Problems.  Upon joining SSSP any past issues in the membership year will be provided to new members. Members also receive Social Problems Forum: The SSSP Newsletter.  Social Problems Forum is published three times year. Members are eligible to join up to three of SSSP's special problems divisions at no additional charge.  With 21 special problem divisions, three is a hard choice.  For a small charge of $2 per division, members can join the other 18 as well.  Membership in the special problems divisions allows current members to vote on who will be chair of the division and also receive the division’s unique newsletters.  All current members receive a reduced rate to attend our Annual Meeting. Graduate Student Paper Competition Deadline: March 15, 2009 The Drinking and Drugs Division is holding its 2009 Student Paper Competition. First place winner will receive a $100 stipend and be recognized at the 2009 meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Papers must present original research (empirical and/or theoretical) related to drinking and/or drugs from a social problems perspective. To be eligible, participants must be currently enrolled in a graduate degree program and have not yet received a Ph.D., J.D., or M.D. degree at the time of submission. Participants must have had responsibility for preparation of the paper. The paper should be no longer than 30 pages in length. All entries must be endorsed by a sponsor who is a current (2009) member of SSSP. The division reserves the right to identify additional prizes or to not award a first place winner at its discretion. Send an electronic copy of the paper and a brief cover letter identifying your graduate program and signed by your sponsor to: Alice Cepeda, Ph.D., Dept of Sociology, University of Houston, aacepeda@central.uh.edu . Current Research: _______ UH Researchers Examine Consequences of Gang Life for Mexican Americans Research conducted by the Avelardo Valdez, PhD, and Alice Cepeda, PhD, University of Houston Center for Drug and Social Policy Research (CDSPR) The CDSPR has recently been awarded a $2.4 million grant from the National Institutes for Health to study the long-term consequences of adolescent gang membership among Mexican Americans. This will be a follow-up to a previous study a decade ago involving gang members in west San Antonio. According to Valdez, “This kind of longitudinal study is one of the first to look at the consequences of being a Mexican American young man engaging in a gang lifestyle.” The study will examine what has happened to these young gang members, who are now in their mid-20s. Valdez and Cepeda expect that some of these young men are incarcerated, unemployed, deceased, or coping with serious health conditions such as hepatitis and HIV/AIDS. Valdez hopes that conclusions from this research will help in the formulation of intervention and prevention programs and policies. He expects to follow this group through adulthood. For more information about the CDSPR, please visit www.uh.edu/cdspr/index.html. SSSP Drinking & Drugs Division Sessions Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA August 7-August 9, 2009 We have several exciting sessions planned for the 2009 Meeting: - Emerging Patterns of Substance Abuse - Drug Abuse: Race, Ethnicity, and the Problem of the Color Line - Medical Marijuana - Sexuality & Substance Abuse - Youth & Alcohol Use - Drinking & Drugs Roundtables We hope you’re able to join us for several of these interesting panels. More details will be released with the Preliminary Program. Hope to see you in San Francisco!