Are Drugs the cause of most crimes in us? (unemployment, Mexican, illegal)

[perfctplace3]

DEA, Stats & Facts (http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/statistics.html - broken link)

After reading through the info on this website above I've noticed the corresponding crime rate has increased in areas that have the most drug sales/use. Robberies rates are skyrocketing in these areas for addicts to buy drugs.

Most of our drugs are coming from Mexico including marijuana and crack cocaine hidden in compartments with legitmate shipping cargo in trucks. The drug dealers are also moving to areas where the police departments are underfunded or non-existant.

I have wondered if part of our economy is based on the drug trade and that is the reason it is getting worse.

[Rcm58]

Great link and info Thanks!

[Billiam]

of corse it is! if it weren't for drugs, baltimore would actually be a safe city (about 90% of crime is from drugs in Bmore) and have a good reputation and mabey not be so abandoned, drugs ruin great cities

[GreenOR]

I wouldn't say marijuana is really a cause of crime, and if it is this is only due to the fact that it is illegal. However, alcohol and hard drugs are almost always involved in crimes -- especially violent ones. You'd be shocked at how many violent offenders were under the influence of alcohol at the time of their crime. I would actually say that it's a tie between alcohol and crack cocaine in being related to crimes. I say this from the perspective of someone (not myself, a friend) who has worked as a CDC counselor for many years within the prison, and with pre-release inmates.

[compelled to reply]

This is precisely why we should stop wasting money on this "durg war", pouring more people into our revolving-door criminal justice system for the drugs themselves wasting our tax money,not to mention people holding up your local Burger King (They are that desprate down here!) so they can purchase narcotics and drugs illegally. You are never going to stop these people, and the general population has enough common sense to stay away from hard drugs. Think about it, spend money enforcing "illegal" drugs and all of the problems associated with the criminality of the drug trade.

Solution- Legalization and education!! Watch our violent crime rate tumble and our (already very low) unemployment levels shrink!

I also second the above statement.

And no, I don't smoke pot.

[jessiegirl_98]

I actually work in a prison, helping prisoners with drug problems (i.e., those whose crimes were directly related to alcohol/drug use) and it's a great program, which drastically reduces recidivism because yes, there is a link between drug use and crimes. However, our government doesn't see this link and is cutting the funding to our program, and many others. They don't realize that spending money to intervene in prison prevents many from coming back....sigh..... Also, they don't realize that spending money on education, etc also reduces crime rates and makes us safer. The biggest predictors of crime in cities are related to unemployment and a lack of education. If we work on these problems (which co-occur with drug/alcohol abuse) we could greatly reduce the number of individuals in our prisons and be safer
Stepping down from my soap box :-)

[TXTwizter]

I have often wondered if illegal drugs were legal, would we still have the problems we have now. At least the government would be able to tax them and make money off of them. Probably make more than we spend on the War on Drugs! But thats just my opinion.

[perfctplace3]

I don't think legalizing drugs is a good idea unless the drugs are lowered in potency. People don't have power over getting addicted to them and it destroys their brains and body.

I like to have a glass of wine once in a while, but I don't feel like it has power over me. For some people perhaps marijuana can be a mild drug? I read it is laced sometimes with other drugs to get people hooked to harder stuff. Also as long as the marijuana is coming from Mexican drug lords it is linked to crime.

There is a lot of info on that website and many interesting facts that I hadn't read before. I hope some take the time to read the articles and stats especially to get an idea about the area they are living in or moving to.

[mhsquire]

There's definitely a relationship between such drugs and crime. Aren't most murders in the US over the drug trade between drug dealers and their customers? People with drinking problems tend to get into violent confrontations.

I don't know if legalizing hard drugs would help. Alcohol's legal and as GreenOR mentioned, alcohol and crack are the most involved drugs in crimes. Drug dealers may become less threatening, but drug users would probably just get worse with lower prices and greater availability. I think a better solution wold be to address the reasons why people use and sell these drugs and help them get out of such situations. Vocational education and providing jobs come to mind.

[compelled to reply]

Legalizing would eliminate "drug dealers" as we know it, and there would no longer be this whole layer of sleaze between the supplier and the consumer. It just becomes another commodity. You have to realize that many in our inner cities are living in desprate poverty, and sometimes it's the only way to feed their kids (selling drugs), because we have created ourselves a "welfare state" over the past 75 years. Suddenly what these people are doing isn't illegal anymore, eliminating much of the violence, just turning it into another industry. You can "educate" some of the drug dealers all you want, but at the end of the day, it's that or starve.