Alan Sutter's article, "The World of the Righteous Dope Fiend," published by Issues in Criminology in 1966, details the conception of the addict subculture as depicted in the world. In this article, the author illustrates the dynamics of the righteous dope fiend, a description that clears the way for scholars to understand other drug users. Sutter begins by defining righteous dope fiends as people who have different views in life in achieving his goal. Their behavior patterns and background experiences in the urban American culture give them unique fame in life (Sutter, 1966). The righteous dope fiends are also more likely to rigorously use the most brandish and expensive drugs/narcotics available in their country. In making a clear distinction between righteous dope fiends and addicts, the author defines the latter as "a sickly creature, addicted to narcotics because of degeneracy, psychopathy, inadequacy, and failure" (Sutter, 1966). The author provides the attributes of a righteous dope fiend, whose actions in public could be admirable, but their private life shows high misery levels. In showing this, the author states that a righteous dope fiend pretends to be in satisfaction when on social avenues but suffers privately. Sutter specifically shows them as dope fiends in private life but as righteous dope fiends when in social spaces. Sutter relies on article review as his main methodology in this article. Through the review of various studies, including news articles, the author establishes a strong knowledge base on the study topic. The author collected random articles relating to opium use, whereby a review of the articles established those relevant to the study. The analysis criterion involved checking the study's relevance to the topic, year of publishing, and the articles' credibility (Sutter, 1966). After a critical analysis of all the presented sources, the author concluded that the fight against drug addiction could only be won when the existing stereotypes about righteous dope fiends are eliminated. In essence, scholars have to eliminate the ideas that addicts are people languishing in the streets and desperation for drugs. The study provides new insight into looking at drug addiction by considering addicts from all social classes. Sutter proposes that scholars start looking at addiction by examining the righteous dope fiends or the rich people struggling with it. The author used the article review technique as his primary data collection method. In using this method, the author relied on journal publications relating to narcotics addiction in the US. All the reviewed articles were within a 5-year timeframe, hence ensuring high relevance. The data collection method limited the author's ability to address the research questions. By relying on literature reviews from different articles, the author limited his ability to understand the issue better. Instead, the author could have applied both qualitative and quantitative methods in the data collection section. For instance, through interviews and questionnaires, he would have understood better the views of addiction among people. Holding personal contacts with participants would have also provided the author with a better opportunity to understand them and make better conclusions about them (Sutter, 1966). For instance, why the righteous dope fiends always depict themselves as happy people in public and sad in private life would have been answered. The conceptualization of the primary ideas in the study was effective. For instance, the author uses various subtopics relating to the ideas to arrive at a common ground. The outcomes would be quantifiable, thus providing more credibility. The author missed some theoretical frameworks that could have made the article more credible. For instance, he did not examine the causes of the righteous dope fiends' behavioral patterns. Additionally, he could have relied on personality theories to better explain why addicts have varying behaviors in public and personal lives. The arguments presented in this paper are similar to those covered across this week. For instance, the author's argument on addicts being viewed from an economic and social lens rather than on actual addiction is similar to that developed in various articles covered this week. The author could have considered providing an insight into why the righteous dope fiend is perceived differently from the other addicts. I, however, agree with the conclusions made from the article, as the war on addiction can only be won through better conceptualization of the topic.
References
Sutter, A.G. (1966). The world of the righteous dope fiend. Issues in Criminology. 2(2), pp. 177-222.
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