Essay: Drug Crime

Over the years, drugs have constantly been linked with crimes. The most basic crime being committed here is the possession of drugs. This as mentioned is the most common case of crimes being taken into consideration recently. But another allegation is that of people using drugs and then commit crimes under the influence of drugs. According to sources, “Drugs are related to crime in multiple ways. Most directly, it is a crime to use, possess, manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as having a potential for abuse (such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and amphetamines).

Drugs are also related to crime through the effects they have on the user’s behavior and by generating violence and other illegal activity in connection with drug trafficking” (Spiess and Fallow, 2000: 1). The number of crimes being committed under the influence of drugs has increased to a great extent in recent years, which has triggered this problem into an issue which needs to be solved. This can be judged by the results of a research that was carried out by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), where victims of criminals were asked if the criminal appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol or not. According to the results of this survey, around thirty percent of the victims could not figure out if this was the case, but nearly thirty-one percent of the victims claimed that the criminal or the offender was clearly under the influence of either drugs or alcohol. The use of drugs, as mentioned previously has been associated with crime. But, it is at times believed that drugs might be one of the driving forces behind crimes and not just the sole factor (Spiess and Fallow, 2000: 1).