elo (1994) re-affirms that the cost of our large-scale war effort against drugs is not justified at all by the low magnitude with which the problem has hit us thus far. As drugs are 'big business,' they have traditionally offered certain migrant/immigrant groups the opportunity to gain perhaps- too much power in this country. D'Angelo (1994) argues from a general social and Puritan-based perspective that we have been taught to fear those who are involved in drugs as part of our "moral crusade--" to clean society. The government and media play upon our fears by bombarding us with the sociolegal and health-related threats that are associated with drug use. Finally, D'Angelo (1994) points out from a general social perspective that it is in part, the very fact that drugs such as marijuana have been made illegal that people have turned to crack. Suppression of legality has (as the government should already know and expect from history's lessons) created a huge black market for marijuana- rendering its price out of reach to the average junkie who can purchase crack-cocaine much cheaper for a more desirable effect. In Johnson et al's (1995) review of crack's evolutionary history in the government and media's eye, the authors cover many of the same points as Reinarman and Levine touched upon while stressing the Puritan ethic of punishment. According to Puritan belief, individuals suffer consequences for their actions. Johnson et al. (1995) demonstrate how during the mid-1980's, the government made it a point to provide a wealth of horrific punishments that would come from using crack-cocaine. These included the "myths" (Johnson et al., 1995) of immediate addiction and consequential criminal violence. With these, the media and government appealed to Puritan ethic with the ideal that crack would always create such horrific personal punishments for its users- an idea that Johnson et al. (and Reinarman and Levine) maintain is quite untru...
