Alfred Ray Lindesmith

Alfred Ray Lindesmith (born August 3, 1905 in Clinton Falls, Minnesota , † February 14, 1991 in Bloomington, Indiana ) was an American sociologist and social psychologist . He taught as a professor at Indiana University Bloomington and was a pioneer in social science addiction research .

Life

Lindesmith graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, with a bachelor's degree in education in 1927 and a master's degree in English from Columbia University in 1929 . He then worked for a few years as a teacher and then went to the University of Chicago , where he received his doctorate in sociology under Herbert Blumer in 1937 . In the following 40 years he was active in sociological research and teaching at Indiana University in Bloomington, since 1965 as a professor.

Lindesmith was one of the first to analyze drug addiction in terms of symbolic interactionism . He came to the view that drug addicts only become addicted through interaction with other addicts, because they learn from one another that withdrawal is almost impossible. Where this social definition of addiction is missing, such as in people who have been given opiates for medical reasons, discontinuing the drug is much less problematic. He came into conflict with the prevailing medical definition and the policy of the US anti-drug agency, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), but this did not prevent him from continuing to illuminate the drug problem from a social science perspective and to criticize drug policy. Thereby he inspired further research, the later much better known Howard S. Becker calls him "One of my heroes".

Fonts (selection)

• The nature of opiate addiction. Chicago University Press, Chicago 1937 (dissertation).
• Opiate addiction. Principia Press, Bloomington, Indiana 1947.
• The addict to the law . Indiana University Press, Bloomington 1965.
• Addiction and opiates. Aldine Transaction, New Brunswick, NJ 2008, ISBN 978-0-202-36223-6 .

Web links

• Origins an Overview of the Professional Life of Alfred Ray Lindesmith , State University of New York Press (SUNY Press), PDF, accessed June 12, 2016.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Alfred R. Lindesmith, Death Report , outlived.org, English, accessed on September 19, 2015.
2. ↑ Biographical information according to Lemma Alfred R. Lindesmith , in: Nancy E. Marion and Willard M. Oliver (Eds.): Drugs in American society. An encyclopedia of history, politics, culture, and the law , ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara, California 2015.
3. ^ Alfred R. Lindesmith: Opiate Addiction , Principia Press, Bloomington 1947.
4. ↑ HOWIE's homepage, note on Lindesmith  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. l, English, accessed September 19, 2015.