According to Merton’s paradigm people commit crimes because of lack of opportunity to achieve societal goals. These individuals are considered to be within the “innovators” group. Society overall has a culture that people in America are expected to follow. Those, especially minorities, individuals sometimes don’t have the resources or opportunities to gain sufficient economical means to be successful in America. These resources and opportunities include: education, wealth and power. Wealth is one of the goals of many individuals because they want be able to afford necessities in life as well as support themselves and their family. When there is a lack of opportunity, some will do whatever it takes to achieve these goals by any means even if they are illegal.…show more content… The reason he said he was doing it was to help his wife, who has breast cancer, recover. Even though, he had enough marijuana plants to distribute 30 pounds. At the time, medical marijuana was not approved and they may have not had access to medical necessities to care for his wife. Medical accessibility is looked at as a societal goal because it is necessary and often times, unaffordable to minorities and those in poverty. His optimal goal was to help his wife with breast cancer and he was determined to do it by any means possible, even if those means were illegal. His wife possibly found out previously that marijuana helped her with the pain and made her feel better, therefore her husband tried to help in any way possible. Ricardo and his wife may have not had access to medical resources as others in society