Patricia A. Adler

The Irony of Secrecy in the Drug World

manner. As a result of this systematic handling, a neatly organized picture has emerged in which dealers formulate sets of rules and regularly adhere to them. We do not question the importance of secrecy to this population; in fact it is more critical to dealers than to most other groups in society. They face not only the risk of arrest and incarceration from police but also robbery, assault, and murder at the hands of their colleagues. Given this situation, the surprising part of our findings is that dealers treat secrecy

Criminal Commitment Among Drug Dealers

Conflicting stereotypes have confused the public about the motivations, ideology, and organization underlying soft drug dealing. This field study integrates new and existing images of criminality and commitment to provide insight into the complex and subterranean dealing world.

OPERATION INTERCEPT: THE MULTIPLE CONSEQUENCES OF PUBLIC POLICY, Lawrence A. Gooberman, New York: Pergamon Press, 1974. 203 pp.

reactions to a marijuana shortage. Inaugurated in the fall of 1969, Operation Intercept was a short-lived cooperative program between the United States and Mexico. It sought to curtail the importation of marijuana, cause the street price to skyrocket, and ultimately reduce the amount of illegal drug use. Gooberman proposes to examine both the intended as well as unintended consequences of this program on the consumer population. He posits differential access to marijuana supply on the basis of noneconomic factors and predicts an increase in multiple drug use. Adherence to the hypothetico-deductive model and the use of Merton and Kendall’s focused interview method indicates the author’s positivistic orientation. Parole officers, social workers, and marijuana users from New York City in the summer and fall of 1969 comprise the nonrandom sample population of this study. Responses suggested the following findings: (1) previous involvement in a drug subculture emerged as the significant determinant of one’s ability to purchase marijuana; (2) the desired effect of decreased or discontinued drug use was observed only among marginal smokers (weekend users, &dquo;Establishment types&dquo;), most other consumers