Addiction And Criminality Essay Example
Addiction And Criminality Essay Example

Addiction And Criminality Essay Example

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  • Pages: 7 (1712 words)
  • Published: April 8, 2018
  • Type: Case Study
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Two of the main questions when trying to understand drugs and drug consumption are establishing who takes drugs and why do people take drugs. The Crime Survey for England and Wales 201 2/1 3 (CSCW) estimates that 1 in 3 adults have taken illicit drugs and 8. 2% have taken illicit drugs in the last year the same survey estimated that 36.

7% of 16 to 24 year olds have taken illicit drugs in their lifetime whilst 16. 3% Of them have taken illicit drugs in the last year.

There may be many reasons why people consume drugs; social causes of drug use, Different social née;arks, and drugs consumption as an example of social learning - an individual may observe someone they admire taking rugs and decide to imitate or they may simply experiment with the substance

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and find it a pleasurable experience. The existence of drugs in a society the explicitly forbids it means that the government and law enforcement officers has do what is necessary to protect the best interests of its citizens. Attach 1 Astatine is a drug that IS man made in laboratories and was discovered by a Dir Cal Stevens in 1961 it was originally believed to be an alternative anesthetic to PC or phenylalanine. Legal Astatine has switched to veterinary medicine and as of January 2006 Astatine is now a class C drug.

It is believed that some Astatine is smuggled into the I-J illegally from countries such as India where it is sold illegally over the counter in some pharmaceutical Markets as a form of pain medicine (buckler 2011).

The chemicals that are needed to make Astatine

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have to be man-made so as a result Astatine is difficult to produce and very hard to synthesis giving Astatine that is sold illicitly a street value of EWE per gram. Data from the 201 1 crime survey shows that Astatine has become increasingly popular as they found that 714,000 16-59 year olds have tried Astatine in their lifetime ND 207,000 in the last year.

Astatine comes in three forms; as a white/ brown powder that can be sniffed, in pill form -(which like its powder form takes approximately twenty minutes to react with the body) the drug can be dangerous because often the drug is mixed with other drugs making it difficult for the user to be sure what they are taking.

The drug can also be found in liquid form and is injected into the body giving it a faster reaction time.

People use Astatine for Various reasons; many describe the drug as having pain killing qualities and the effects can last between 3 to 4 hours, like any other drugs Astatine can be used in social situations thus why it has become ever more popular as a 'club drug' among teenagers and young adults. However like most other drugs Astatine usage can have serious long term consequences, it has been known to cause kidney damage and abdominal pains. In an article in The Guardian Rickrack (2010) explained how "Two users in their ass's had to have their bladders removed because they had incurred so much damage from the drug'.

Although Individuals who choose to engage in the usage of drugs such as Astatine may experience detrimental side effects it IS not just

the individual who feel the side effects, their family have to come cope with their change in behavior as well and wider society who pay the taxes that fund the medical bills of those who have been made ill by the drugs. Many people do not have the means to fund their drug infused lifestyles as a result turn to criminality. Patch 2 There is in some ways a common understanding that drugs run parallel with crime as consumption of illicit drugs causes maybe issues within society.

So as result there is an assumption that tackling drug related issues means tackling crime. Supporting evidence for the perspective that illicit drug use is equivalent to criminality comes from the NEW English and Welsh Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Programmer (NEW-ADAM) who interviewed 5000 arrestees and sampled drug using offenders who came to the attention of the police and found that 69% of those interviewed and sampled tested positive in a urinalysis and 64% of those who tested positive admitted to committing crimes in the past 1 2 months compared to 29% of those who did not test positive.

This is therefore evidence that there is a strong positive correlation between drugs and crime.

Bennett & Holloway, 2005) It is however very difficult to establish a causal relationship between drugs and crime. There are different models of causal relationship between drugs and crime. Many drug users may commit crimes in order to acquire drugs and a side effect of a certain drug may make individuals more predisposed to certain behaviors and therefore leading them to engage in criminal behavior in these ways drug use may cause crimes.

There

is also the idea that crime causes drug use, some criminologists argue that crime may put persons amongst other individuals who have already tried drugs or follow a lifestyle which is drug entered and an individual may choose to consume drugs in order to give them the courage to engage in criminal behavior in these ways crime may cause drug use. Hammerless, et al.

2013 conducted a study into substance use by young offenders in which Nearly 300 interviews with Youth Offending Team (HOT) clients across England and Wales were achieved they concluded that whilst there is a co-location on a drug and crime problem the causes for both may be due to life difficulties, stating that "When confronted with life difficulties, then those with poorer coping skills may adopt an escape based n immediate excitement and hedonism involving drugs and offending'.

This is therefore supporting evidence for the idea that perhaps engagement in the consumption of drugs and delinquent behavior is due to a common cause. There are various different theoretical perspectives on drug crime association, one perspective is the spectrographically perspective which is the idea that individuals commit crimes because of the direct effect drug consumption has on them, the systematic perspective is in regards to crimes that can be associated with the marketing or distribution of drugs I. . Arterial disputes. Another theoretical perspective is economic-compulsive where the substance user is lead to committing acquisitive crimes in order to fund his/her drug use.

(Bean, 2008) Evidence to support a causal link been drugs and crime is conflicting. In NEW-ADAM study 63% of offenders believed that drugs had impacted their offending behavior whilst

Allen (2005) found that users began offending before they started using drugs and their offending did not increase move they started taking drugs.

To conclude, there maybe a need to discriminate between the types of drugs, forms of drugs and he type of individual in order to come a conclusion on whether drugs equals crime as is no definitive answer as to whether drug usage causes individuals to commit crimes or whether engaging in criminal behavior prompts individuals to commit crimes Patch 3 The use of drugs is often viewed as immoral by society and the global stance on drug use tends to be one of prohibition/crystallization although drug use is becoming more accepted in some societies.

Critics of prohibition argue that Crystallization has failed to prevent drug use and that it is difficult to regulate drug markets whilst prohibitionists say in order to fight against and intro drug use it is important to have strict penalties in place and would point out that the rates of drug use in the LIKE has fallen as result of prohibition. Disintermediation of drug use within society would mean that those who choose to concerns drugs are free to do so.

This position makes the assumption that individuals making this decision are educated on the effects of drug use and are able to make a rational decision.

It can therefore be argued that decommissioning certain drugs would allow for aggressive marketing towards those that are over representative in the population of those with addiction. Legalization can be placed in the middle of the spectrum between the strict prohibition and disintermediation. A critique of legalization wood be that control

and production of substances would still lay in the hands of criminals, however legalization would allow the government to maintain control.

Recent examples of the legalization of marijuana are in the state of Colorado in the United States where in December 201 3 it became the first state to to legalese the sale of cannabis by licensed stores "Regulators have issued 348 recreational pot licenses: 136 for retail stores, 1 78 for cultivation, 1 for infused edibles and other spin-off products, and three for testing' (Carroll, 2014), in the Uruguayan parliament passed the the worlds most far reaching cannabis law in December 2013 when they passed a law that legalized the growing, selling, and smoking Of Cannabis.

These two examples of legalization in other states may push other governments to consider legalization as a method for tackling drug usage. The misuse of Drugs Act 1971 attempts to control and regulate drug usage, unlawful supply, intent to supply, import or export as well as the manufacturing of controlled drugs. The Act divides controlled drugs into three classes; class A which includes Heroin, Cocaine and L SD, Class B includes Cannabis and Codeine whilst Astatine and Chat are Class C drugs.

In March 2005 the Minster Responsible for drugs commissioned a report on Chat from the Advisory council on the misuse of drugs (CACM).

Chat which is a green plant which contains two stimulants that produce effects that are similar but less powerful than amphetamines; the drug is chewed over for a few hours. Chat originates from Africa but with developments in immigration and travel is becoming ever more popular in Europe. There are many risks thought

to be associated with Chat consumption of which include; heart related issues such as high blood pressure and heart palpitations, increased libido, insomnia, reduced appetite, feelings of anxiety and aggression there is also concerns about the potential for users of Chat to develop mouth cancers in the long term.

Evidence however for the believed side effects of Chat is limited and a ban on the substance may give rise tot there issues, east Africans may become the target of law enforcement officers in stop and search patrols which would only aid in helping to further strain the relationship between law enforcement ND an already marginal community (Ash, et al. , 2012).

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