Drugs and Crime

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Drugs and Crime

• BUT FIRST, EXAM II

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Exam II Scores
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Drug Use

• History
• Relationship between drugs and crime
• Drug Control Strategy
• The Legalization Debate
• Theories of Drug Use

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A Long History of Substance Use

• The use of chemical substances to get high
  dates back to ancient times
• Mesopotamian writings (4,000 years ago) identify
  opium as the plant of joy
• Until recently, most drugs legal
• Winston Churchill (1912) used a cocaine
  solution common cure all drugs were
  opium-based

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Criminalization of Drugs

• Late 1800s in U.S.
• Moral Crusaders, especially religious
• Medical field began to suggest morphine and
  opiates were habit-forming and constituted a
  disease
• The temperance movement
• Passing Drug Laws
• 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act
• 1914 Harrison Narcotics Act
• 1937 Marijuana Taxation Act

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The Relationship Between Drugs and Crime

• Drug-defined offenses
• Possession and Sales
• Drug-related offenses
• Drug induced rage ? assault
• Rob to feed drug habbit
• Drug-using lifestyle
• Crimes relevant to lifestyle

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Drug Control Strategies

• War on Drugs 500 Billion over past 20 years
• Source Control
• Interdiction
• Punishment (Deterrence)
• Drug Education
• Drug Testing
• Drug Treatment

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Drug Legalization?

• Pro?
• Reduce crime by eliminating drug-defined crimes
  
• Reduce violence generated by black market
• Reduce police corruption (?)
• Con?
• Increased drug use and social cost

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Theories of Drug Use?

• Most theories of crime can also explain drug use
  (social learning, social control)
• The Gateway argument
• Are cigarettes a gateway to pot?
• Is pot a gateway to hard drugs?
• Alternative explanation
• Something causes both cigarette and pot use,
  both pot use and hard drug use