Summary Thoughts About Drugs and Violence (From Drugs and Drug Use in Society, P 271-280, 1994, Ross Coomber, ed. - See NCJ 159452)

• NCJ Number: 159474
• Author(s): J J Collins
• Date Published: 1994
• Length: 10 pages
• Sale Source: Greenwich University Press
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

This paper contains some general statements about the drugs-violence connection, the undue influence of popular myths about the drug problem on research and public policy enterprises, and research recommendations.

Abstract

The major points presented in this paper include: (1) The pharmacological effects of drugs (alcohol excepted) are not major factors accounting for interpersonal violence when demographic and other correlates of violence are controlled. (2) Costly drug use is etiologically important to the occurrence of robbery. (3) Drug distribution system violence is an important contemporary problem in need of systematic attention from researchers. (4) Myths have tended to grow up around the drug problem for political and economic reasons. (5) The tripartite (pharmacological, economic compulsive, systemic) conceptual framework for understanding drugs and violence needs elaboration; and (6) The most appropriate conceptual model for understanding the drug and violence relationship is one that incorporates multiple factors including social, economic, and cultural variables. Figure, references