Introduction
Consensus is rising in the matters of drug usage and beyond, that the criminalization of specific drugs is counterproductive and does not convey the planned objectives. Proof is growing showing that criminalization of drug usage, is what’s causing a lot of public health and in fact criminal harm. Some of the effects brought about by this policy include adulterant drug usage, HIV infections through sharing of injections and a bigger set of derivative problems linked to the criminal market. These policies are the ones responsible for the creation of crime organisations and corrupt officials who strategise themselves to counter the policies. An editor of a medicinal journal in the UK (Dr. Fiona Godlee), supports this by sharing her opinion that, drug usage ought to be treated as a medical issue instead of criminalizing it. She goes further to suggest that, this aspect could significantly lessen criminal activities at the same time improve health.
The perception that drug use is associated with crime has reigned not only among sociology researchers but it has also been perpetuated by the media. In addition to social problems, drug use has been associated with harms that are suffered by users. Whereas there is truth in these views, an elaborate look into these views reveal that these associations are mainly a making (more so with specific drugs like heroin), as there is no direction of causality. In essence the society, through the media and government policies, has come to criminalise drug users and therefore it has become de facto that drug users are criminals. This paper critically examines the views that criminalisation of drug use leads to greater social problems and harms individuals. The central viewpoint is that it is not an absolute truth that drug use is not an obvious cause of crime.
Heroin usage in association to criminal activities
Certain drugs such as heroin have been historically labelled and associated with crime and therefore concerns of crime associated with heroin is deeply rooted in a historical belief than an evidential matter. Carnwath and Smith (2002) point out that, there was a widespread use of heroin among male youths belonging to America’s lower class members who dwelt in cities as the 20th century set in. Unfortunately, individuals who usually consumed heroin were already harbouring antisocial tendencies such as prostitution and gambling. On such grounds, it became very easy to create a community of de facto criminals. One of the ungrounded notions was that heroin use would influence men to rape yet the truth is that heroin use leads to low libido (Carnwath & Smith, 2002).
Historically, the association between heroin use and crime has been explained by psychiatrists citing heroin as an addictive substance that leads to impaired reasoning (Carnwath & Smith, 2002). Whereas such an explanation does not shed enough light into this relationship, modern reasoning that heroin and crime are related due to an economic reasoning has not been satisfactory either. This is more due to the fact that researchers fail to consider poly-drug use among criminals thus the contribution of heroin may be exaggerated. Consequently, it is true that many drug users who engage in criminal activities most probably harboured the anti-social activities prior to engagement in drug use.
Criminalizing drug usage has been seen to undermine public-health response. In Mauritius for example, there has been a long history of drug use. The people in this country have shifted from smoking heroin to injecting it for a faster effect. The use of injections usually leads to significant health harms, especially in this era of HIV and AIDS. “The Dangerous Drug-Act-2000 in Mauritius states that anyone in possession of drug paraphernalia including syringes has committed an offense. Therefore, the police harass drug users and intervene or intimidate NGO workers as they try addressing the issue of needle sharing” (Kean, 2003). This issue generates more harm than remedy in the sense that people who engage in this activity are more prone to infection.
Additionally, addicts have been tagged with criminal records. They fight back to recoup their footing, even after stopping usage. Due to the delay in the process of criminal record clearance, former drug users find it difficult getting employed as a result of stigma. There efforts to regain normal working capacity are hence frustrated.
When examining the relationship between drug use and crime, it is important to establish the direction of causality. This is one of the aspects that both researchers and the media fail to do. Stuart (2008) highlights the fact that the media as well as governments paint disproportionately the use of certain drugs as the cause of crimes. For instance, stereotyping heroin users and crack cocaine consumers as risk individuals in terms of crime eventually perpetuates criminal tendencies among such communities since this group of people feel barred from the society (Taylor, 2008). Whereas this is an aspect of drug use leading to crime, Carnwath & Smith (2002) report that already formed criminals also tend to go for drugs such as heroin thus ruling out drug use as the absolute cause factor for criminal behaviour. Even in cases where alcohol is well known to cause violence as cited by Winlow and Hall (2006), this relationship is weak since most alcohol users view that violence is an inevitable part of drinking and is its done as “part of the show” (p. 96).
Drug usage and crime in the US
In the US the image of a drug addict is that they are perilous youths of colour males who can rob and steal to get money they will use to get drugs or females engaged in prostitution who deliver crack babies because of drug usage (Hathaway, 2001). These esteemed misconceptions are the continuing erroneous basis of the ill conceived criminalization of drug usage. Essentially, the vast majority of the US’s drug users are Caucasians. As stated by McNamara (2000), “the fact that minorities are arrested and incarcerated at vastly disproportionate rates for drug offenses contributes to false stereotypes and permits the continuation of one of the most irrational public policies in the history of the United States”. Blacks are only about 15 percent of drug users although more than 1/3 of persons taken into custody for drug related offences are blacks.
In addition to this, comparatively few of the approximated 81 million unlawful drug users go ahead and commit any other crime. McNamara goes ahead and explains that, a study done in two large cities in the US shows that most policemen hired in a span of 18 years had been users of illegal drugs. The study showed that they dint commit other offences but instead got back their footing out of their earlier drug usage. At one point McNamara brings on board a scene where after a hard day’s work policemen were having a drink. He says most of them had complains with reference to the junkies who supposedly made their work very hard. As they continued discussing they took prodigious quantities of alcohol without being aware they were using drugs which could be more lethal than heroin. As a matter of fact, McNamara points out that most of them perished in driving accidents as a result of alcohol usage, than were killed by criminals who use drugs while on duty. Therefore in relation to drug usage there is no justification that it is strongly related to criminal activities. The proof given here shows that former drug users are now being hired to combat crime.
Decriminalization of drug usage in the US
It is also true that, currently, more than 86 years following the federal government’s first narcotic outlawing, “public and police attitudes toward the dangerousness of drugs are shaped by ignorance of their impact and by mistaken prejudices regarding their users” (McNamara, 2000). Furthermore, these are the very illogicalities leading to the criminalization of these drugs. As explained by (Lupton, 1997) on the other hand, people taking Prozac and Valium together with other psychoactive remedial drugs, are considered patients. “Yet millions of our own citizens using heroin, cocaine or marijuana have been, and are still regarded as dangerous enough to be caged in brutal prisons, frequently under mandatory sentences more characteristic of a totalitarian society than a democracy” (Lupton, 1997).
Earlier on the drive towards criminalization of drug usage was embodied in Christian values and believes. The proponents of this campaign ensured the inclusion of this version of sin in the penal code after pushing for support from several other groups. A good example of this is the Harrison-Narcotic-Act-1994 (Keane, 2003). This Act laid emphasis on statements alleged to the fact that, it was the responsibility of the white man to save lesser races. “Those moving to criminalize drugs made references to Negroes under the influence of drugs, murdering whites, degenerate Mexicans smoking marijuana and “Chinamen” seducing white women with drugs” (Bean, 2004). As much as this racist garbage would be disregarded today, it was relatively significant in the passing of anti-drug legislations. Furthermore some of the created legislations lacked relevancy, for example opium usage in America had been declining for 17 years prior to the Federal Government’s move to outlaw it.
Contrary to known facts, blacks are more susceptible to the unenthusiastic effects of drug usage. A lot of politicians are now describing decriminalization of drug usage as a racist move. This further subliminally reinforces the fear that a person of color is more vulnerable to drug addiction and the harms drugs can cause.
In the early days of America’s history, “the set legislations the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness included the right to ingest whatever chemicals one wished. These rights were not simply an omission by Thomas Jefferson” (Healey, 2002). Jefferson reprimanded France for passing legislative measures putting control on diet and medicines. He said that a nation controlling what its people eats and the kind of medication the people took can easily be in charge of what its people think. As much as this might sound farfetched, the Clinton administration was embarrassed when journalists revealed that, his government was clandestinely making payments to TV stations, publications and newspapers to secretly introduce corrective material on drug usage for educational purposes.
Researchers who are well conversant with the disparity in the connection and causation have unceremoniously ignored 2 maxims of behavioral science by pressing forward compelled self-restraint as new whilst, actually it is still the criminalization of specific drugs available in our society together with the same decriminalization of drug users. As shown by (Ezard 2001), people have demonized drug use linking it to most of the criminal activities and most of the convicted individuals. The author further asserts that:
High correlations of illegitimacy, illiteracy, extreme poverty, lack of health care, child abuse, failure in school, smoking, gambling, unhealthy diets, poor employment history and a host of other variables are also present in criminal populations. Drug use as the sole explanation for criminal behavior is no more persuasive than these other characteristics (Ezard, 2001; Harthaway, 2001).
Additionally, researchers know that historical behavior containing the use of specific drugs/chemicals, can’t be used to precisely foresee the future actions of a particular person. But as shown by (Roleff, 2004) “the assumption that the presence alone of a particular chemical in a person’s bloodstream is cause for imprisonment replaces the fundamental American right of presumption of innocence with the police-state mentality of assumed guilt”.
Effects of the criminalization of drug usage
Arguments on the decriminalization of drug usage, and over reforms in drug policies, are matters of significant controversy. As connected to criminal activities, it is interesting to note that, criminalizing drug usage is seen to spark more violence than even its usage. There has been evidence showing that the end of alcohol criminalization in the US in 1933 led to instant decrease in violence, homicide and robberies. This is proof that legalizing drugs could possibly posse comparable impacts. As shown by (Sclaler, 1998), “once those involved in the narcotics trade have a legal method of settling business disputes, the number of murders and violent crime could drop”. This is further supported by Robert Sweet of the federal court. Sweet says current policies that decriminalize drug usage through the employment of criminal laws are a mistake. He says when alcohol was decriminalized it gave birth to gang wars while spurring the forming of well recognized criminals of the time. He further says, if this is to be applied to the current drug situation, the rate of violence and intimidation that is realized in drug cartels would diminish (Kanner, 1990).
There are numerous effects embodied in the criminalization of drug usage. Some of these consist of: minimum decrease in the utilization of controlled substances; failure to diminish aggressive criminal activities; failure to noticeably lessen drug imports, supply and street level sales; failure to lessen the extensive accessibility of drugs to the possible user and failure to discourage persons from the involvement in the drug business. Other effects attached to this topic as stated by the New York County Lawyers’ Association (2006) are:
Failure to impact upon the huge profits and financial opportunity available to individual “entrepreneurs” and organized underworld organizations through engaging in the illicit drug trade; the expenditure of great amounts of increasingly limited public resources in pursuit of a cost-intensive “penal” or “law-enforcement” based policy; failure to provide meaningful treatment and other assistance to substance abusers and their families; and failure to provide meaningful alternative economic opportunities to those attracted to the drug trade for lack of other available avenues for financial advancement (New York County Lawyers’ Association 2006).
Conclusion
People decriminalizing drug usage believe that corrective facilities are full of violent criminals who are supposed to be isolated from the community. “Yet, according to the Sentencing Project, 60 percent of all Federal inmates are currently imprisoned on drug charges, and one-fifth of all state prisoners are serving time for drugs, a thirteen-fold increase since 1980” (Starrick, 2007). The vast majority of these wrongdoers are not violent. It is also evident in the federal data that, 1/3 of all inmates are illegitimate aliens. This is unfair as most of these people removed from the system are not violent. The author further says, “there is supposed to be room to house the murderers, rapists, child molesters, and thieves who actually do belong behind bars, many of whom are currently released far too early because of overcrowded conditions” (Starrick, 2007).
In a synopsis, it is not easy to absolutely say that drug use leads to crime. There is failure when looking at the many factors that may be involved in this relationship, some of which include historical labelling of drug users as criminals and disproportional reporting by the media. It is important to examine the direction of causality before making any conclusion on drug use and crime relationship and also the thought of crime (such as violence among alcohol users) as an accepted culture by those who drink. Therefore as discussed in this paper criminalization of drugs tends to bring with it more damage than it reduces, thanks to laws attempting to wipe out drug usage. Furthermore there is no justifiable proof linking criminal activities to drug usage.
List of references
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