Chad L. Smith

The Treadmill of Destruction: National Sacrifice Areas and Native Americans

When examining environmental justice and injustice, surprisingly few studies have examined the experiences of Native Americans. In filling this gap, we criticize and build on environmental and political sociology. We make the case and provide evidence that the U.S. military pursues a pattern of environmental “bads” that cannot be reduced to capitalism and that coercive state policies can mold the spatial distribution of people relative to environmental dangers. Our contribution, then, is both theoretical and substantive. First, we recast the environmental sociology literature by specifying the scope conditions under which a “treadmill of production” and a “treadmill of destruction” are applicable. Specifically, we argue that a “treadmill of destruction” is driven by a distinct logic of geopolitics that cannot be reduced to capitalism. Second, we provide empirical evidence of the “treadmill of destruction” by examining the environmental inequality endured by Native Americans at the hands of the U.S. military. We have collected data on a large number of military bases that have been closed but remain dangerous due to unexploded ordnance. We provide evidence that Native American lands tend to be located in the same county as such hazardous sites. In the twentieth century, the United States fought and won two global wars and prevailed in a sustained Cold War. The geopolitical demands of remaining the worlds leading military power pushed the United States to produce, test, and deploy weapons of unprecedented toxicity. Native Americans have been left exposed to the dangers of this toxic legacy.

Treadmills of Production and Destruction Threats to the Environment Posed by Militarism

The treadmill of production has identified and examined an inherent dynamic that results in the inexorable expansion of capitalism. Although it is argued that a number of benefits accompany this economic expansion, the treadmill of production literature has focused on the environmental costs. The treadmill of production embraces the legacy of C. Wright Mills with a focus on the entangled relationships between two aspects of Mills’s “power elite”—politics and economics. Building on Mills’s inclusion of militarism as one of the three pillars of the power elite, it is argued that there exists a treadmill of destruction that maintains a distinct logic relating to geopolitics and arms races that cannot be reduced to capitalism. The 20th century has witnessed unprecedented growth in the research, testing, storage, and employment of both conventional weaponry and weapons of mass destruction. In focusing on this development, the distinctive role the state plays in creating a treadmill of destruction is stressed.

Economic Deprivation and Environmental Inequality in Postindustrial Detroit A Comparison of Landfill and Superfund Site Locations

The research presented here directly engages the issues of environmental inequality by testing the empirical merits of two sociological explanations of urban inequality by comparing landfill and Superfund locations in postindustrial (1970 to 1990) Detroit, Michigan. The results indicate that economic deprivation supercedes race in predicting the location of both landfill and Superfund sites; furthermore, both landfill and Superfund sites tend to be located in census tracts located near to industrial districts contiguous to navigable waterways in Detroit. Using Geographic Information Systems and logistic regression, the results indicate that the probability of living near a landfill is highest among the economically deprived and those least able to “escape” the urban center of Detroit. Substantively, the findings suggest that the process of deindustrialization is decisive in understanding environmental inequality, whereas methodologically, the results underscore the subtle nuances posed by different types of environmental threats.

THE EFFECT OF ACCULTURATION ON PATTERNS OF HISPANIC SUBSTANCE USE IN WASHINGTON STATE

A growing body of research on Hispanic substance use in the United States has found acculturation to result in increased drug use. This study contributes to this research by analyzing the effect of acculturation on Hispanic substance use in Washington State, a state with a rural and dispersed Hispanic population. Findings reveal acculturation to have a strong positive effect on levels of illicit drug use, hard drug use, binge drinking and bender drinking among Hispanics.

Nonmedical Prescription Drug Use by College Students for Recreational and Instrumental Purposes: Assessing the Differences

Nonmedical prescription drug use (NMPDU) is a serious issue on college campuses. We examine the factors affecting instrumental and recreational NMPDU within the same sample, and test the efficacy of learning and strain theories in predicting NMPDU for both instrumental and recreational use. This cross-sectional study utilizes survey data gathered from a convenient but representative sample (n = 2,466) of students attending a large public university in the Southwestern United States. There is support for learning theory, but not for strain theory, in predicting both recreational and instrumental use. Logistic regression analyses also show that while marijuana smokers, illicit street drug users, and those possessing less of an academic ethic are more likely to partake in NMPDU for both recreational and instrumental purposes, the predictors for recreational and instrumental NMPDU differ in interesting ways with regard to race, gender, binge drinking, living arrangement, and Greek organization membership.

The Effect of College Students’ Religious Involvement on Their Academic Ethic

ABSTRACT This article examines the impact of college students’ religious commitments on 4 important outcomes: (1) academic ethic; (2) academic performance; (3) academic honesty; and (4) personal stress. An original data set drawn from a survey of college students attending a large university in the Southwest United States offers suggestive insights that address these issues. The authors find that religious involvement is associated with a strong academic ethic but does not appear to predict students’ academic performance, honesty, or personal stress.