An approach to the study of drug sub-culture groups and a model for predictive research in the identification and isolation of heroin addicts are developed in this thesis. The basic methodologies employed are the linguistic methods of Kenneth Pike and Claude Levi-Strauss for use in the analysis of social phenomena. Communicative mechanisms by which members of a group of addicts will establish and maintain the territorial integrity of their social subsystems are isolated and identified by the use of sound and visual recording devices in a controlled experiment attempting to examine the relationship of behavior patterns to the communicational patterns and interactional dynamics of the subjects. The use of audio-visual devices permits the investigator to repeatedly examine segments of behavior. In the study of drug addiction it is necessary to examine the social and cultural matrices from which the pathology springs and the communicative networks, channels, and patterns which serve it and support it. (Author/SJM)