NCJ Number
187920
Journal
Journal of Addictive Diseases Volume: 20 Issue: 1 Dated: 2001 Pages: 49-72
Date Published
2001
Length
24 pages
Annotation
A study of the relationship of the degree of use of each of 10 types of illicit drugs with each of 8 types of violent criminal offenses used data from 612 young adults who were black, lived in the inner city in Philadelphia, and were of low socioeconomic status.
Abstract
The study used prospective data from the time of birth to provide 51 control variables on factors other than drug use that might be predictive of later violent behavior. The participants were born between 1959 and 1966. The data covered the time from birth to age 24. Results unexpectedly revealed an association between greater frequency of marijuana use and greater likelihood of committing weapons offenses. This association did not exist for any of the other drugs, except for alcohol. Results also revealed an association between marijuana use and the commission of attempted homicide/reckless endangerment offenses. In addition, cocaine/crack and marijuana were the only two types of drugs for which the frequency of use was significantly related to the frequency of being involved in drug selling. The most frequent types of violent acts of offenses were assaults and weapons offenses. The females reported approximately one-third as many assaults as the males, but the females unexpectedly reported almost three-fourths as many weapons offenses as the males did. However, some of the offenses may have been exclusively for self-defense. The analysis concluded that inner-city, low-income black young adults who tend to use relatively more marijuana also tend to become more involved later in selling drugs and in violent illegal behavior. However, these findings might not apply to a middle-class black population. 30 references