again why the link between crime and drugs….not all drug users are involved in other crime yet everytime i see a crackdown on petty theft or violence, drugs dogs are brought in.
From experience [and I have hung around with all sorts of people who have done all sorts of things over the years] I’d say that there are some proper nutters about – but many are psycopaths with mental illness who would be violent whether they take drugs or not. I’m sure you have come across people who would start a ruck in an empty house..
Although it is definitely not all recreational drug users, there certainly is an significant minority who do get caught up in crime and violence.
This is because of prohibition – the fact that drugs are illegal raises the stakes for all who take them. People get busted for relatively small amounts, brought up before the beak (magistrates) or the fiscal,they get a criminal record or go to HMP and then can’t get a job, so some turn to crime to get money for their drugs and partying.
Others deal and of course you can’t go to the civil courts and old bill when you are ripped off, so they settle their differences by violence. The illegality makes drugs far more expensive than the real cash value of the the chemicals used to make them, which fuels the black economy.
There is also a culture of burglary and street robbery as a rite of passage amongst youth who feel there are no other opportunities for them, and a desire for expensive class a drugs will obviously increase the crime. But this has as much to do with rampant consumerism and a lack of community spirit being promoted through the media as drugs….
All of this will continue and get worse until society accepts that people will use drugs and fully tolerates use of the less harmful substances in a recreational form.
