Social problems may fruitfully be looked at as constructed phenomena, that is, what constitutes a problem is the concern that segments of the public feel about a given condition. From the constructionist perspective, that concern need not bear a close relationship with the concrete harm or damage that the condition poses or causes. At times, substantial numbers of the members of societies are subject to intense feelings of concern about a given threat which a sober assessment of the evidence suggests is either nonexistent or consider ably less than would be expected from the concrete harm posed by the threat.Such over-heated periods of intense concern are typically short-lived. In such periods, which sociologists refer to as "moral panics," the agents responsible for the threat-"folk devils"-are stereotyped and classified as deviants. What accounts for these outbreaks or episodes of moral panics? Three theories have been proposed: grassroots, elite-engineered, and interest group theories. Moral panics are unlike fads; though both tend to be relatively short-lived, moral panics always leave an informal, and often an institutional, legacy.

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There are two alternative theoretical perspectives developed in the sociological study of a moral panic: the moral perspective and the interest perspective. Usingas illustration a May 1982 national moral panic about drugs that occurred in Israel. thisarticle argues that both perspectives must be used and integrated into onecoherent model for a better and fuller sociological explanation of moral panics. The article provides a detailed account of the Israeli panic and an analysis clustered along two axes. One axis uses the interest perspective to analyze the riming of the panic by focusing on the question of why it happened when it did. The other axis uses the moral perspective to interpret the specific conrenr of the panic, focusing on why the panic was about drugs. Direct all communications to:Crusades to transform the public's attitudes toward specified issues, change legislation. and/or attempt to "deviantize" (Schur 1980) others. Thus, moral crusaders often create what Cohen's (1972) outstanding work called Moral Panics in which . . . a condition, episode. person. or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests: its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricadesare manned by editors. bishops. politicians. and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions: ways of coping areevolved. or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears. submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible (p. 9). 1984. Sociology. Englewood Cliffs. NJ: Prentice-Hall. Gusfield. Joseph R. 1963. Symbolic, Crusade: Siarus Poliricx and the American Temperance ~. 198 I . The Culture yf Public, Problems: Drinking. Driving and the Synibolii, Order.