Stereotyping Bad Habits

     Stereotyping has been a common practice used by the American media for centuries and still continues to be used today. Since our country has been a country we have been stereotyping many different cultures and lifestyles. Stereotyping really becomes evident in our history after the Civil War when Americans were hell bent on expanding the United States in the mid to late 17th century when almost all media outlets sought to put a bad label on Native Americans. During this time, Native Americans were portrayed in the media as being savages that were barbaric, heartless, and violent to their core. This has changed over time, however, there is another type of stereotyping that goes on still to this day that does not just hit one culture or race. This is the stereotyping of people that seemingly have bad habits such as the use of drugs and/or alcohol.
      Stereotyping impedes communication in four major ways: 1. Stereotyping creates an assumption that widely held beliefs are true when that may not be the case. 2. Stereotyping has a self-perpetuating nature to it 3. It links widely held beliefs about a group of people to the individual, and 4. Over time these stereotypes become a self-fulfilling prophecy for many of the individuals being stereotyped. The last point is the point this study would like to focus on.
      For years we have been seeing commercials that link drug users and smokers to the criminals and derelicts of society. Could this be the reason that many drug users and alcoholics are not successful and they usually end up being consumed by the product that they are addicted to? For generations drug and alcohol use have been certainly used as descriptors of stereotypes for instance the pot-smoking jazz musicians of the 40's and 50's were always linked to African-Americans just as blunts and 40 oz.'s are linked to African Americans today. Even in a state where marijuana is legal we still see an undesirable life being linked to the use of drugs and alcohol. This studies main question for the public is: Could the "War on drugs" propaganda be a self-fulfilling prophecy for all those who choose to use psychoactive drugs? We have learned, as a society, over the years that alcoholism and drug abuse are genetic and some people are more susceptible to it than others. This study proposes that all this anti-drug propaganda could be contributing to our drug problem and the people it is effecting more than the drugs themselves.