Substance Abuse, Crime, and Societal Interventions: An Essay

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SUBSTANCE USE AND SOCIETY
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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Relationship between Drugs and crime...........................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9
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Introduction
The essay will be discussing the factors associated with drugs used in a country and the impact
of the same on an individual. This also includes the study of the major impact that includes crime
related to use of drugs. The essay will be analyzing the major features and major factors that are
involved in motivating an individual to consume drugs and eventually commit a crime. The
study will be done to briefly understand the link between drugs and crime and evaluate the
methods that can be used in order to intervene in the situation and avoid the occurrence of the
same in the future. There will be a study of various intervention methods and techniques that can
be used by the community and the society in order to study the drug status and also apply the
same in order to deal with the need to reduce crime.
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The relationship between Drugs and crime
Background of Drug consumption
Drug consumption can be understood as a brain disorder that is very complex that they are
unable to decide the difference between good and bad. They can be considered as the substance
of abuse thus they can create major disorder in the brain and create massive dysfunction in the
brain. The person becomes an addict and incapable to decide the consequences and decide that
they have become addict to such substance in their life. The consumption of drug can be harmful
to an individual and also to the people close to them thus resulting in reinforcement on an
individual to consume drugs again and again. The effects of drugs can be seen on the physical
and mental functionality of an individual thus affecting the individual with the daily work in
their life. In the drug statistics of UK, this can be said that there is around £10.7 billion per year
drugs are being trafficked every year. The illegal drug market is around £5.3bn. Synthetic
consumption of drugs can lead to severe drugs habit an individual can have. There can be a
number of reasons for an individual to move towards drugs. Some of the causes could be the
genetics of an individual that leads an individual to consume a particular drug thus making them
addicted to that drug to deal with that particular diseases in life, this makes them psychologically
dependent on the particular drug (Via-Sosa et. al., 2013).
Another reason is the environment they have been living in, this may be due to social seclusion
and lack of effective support from family and friends that lead an individual towards drugs that
lead to addiction. Some time due to stress people tries drugs that are suggested to them by some
friends or peers. Most of the people in a weak state of mind do not actually try to resolve the
situation rather they try an escape route from that and leads to temporary mental stability and
calmness they can possess in life. Some people start taking drugs due to parental influence and
the scenario they might have seen in their house for a very long time thus taking care of the
needs of an individual in terms of drugs. Some children get influenced through that and start
taking drugs on a very early age. Children who are getting abused and constantly facing
aggression and being bullied by parents or siblings try to cope up with the situation by taking
drugs as this is the easiest route they can identify. The brain tries to functions as per the side-
effects of drugs and gradually diminishes the capability of an individual to identify the difference
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between correct and incorrect (Via-Sosa et. al., 2013). This eventually makes an individual
aggressive, they start hallucinating, and they grow towards crime.
Drugs and crime
Many relationships between drugs and crime can be the understood basis on the type of drugs
and the duration it has been taken in order to deal with the level of addiction. Many of the cases
show some kind of psychological and economic relationships that can affect the overall scenario
of the mental state of an individual. Drugs affect the mental development of an individual, thus
driving them to aggression and epidemics. They try to develop an aggressive solution in all
cases. The classification drugs and violence can be understood as: Psychopharmacological,
Economic-compulsive, Systemic (Bean, 2014).
Psychopharmacological
This kind of impact can be understood as a direct impact of drugs on the mental development of
an individual thus affecting their perception and personality. This has been identified that around
14% of the drugs are the ones that actually raises certain impulse in the mind of an individual
thus creating a psychopharmacological impact on an individual by mixing it with alcohol and
other drugs that release certain impulse that creates violent streak in an individual (Shariff and
Rhemtulla, 2012). As per the psychopharmacological claims the use of marijuana, heroin, or
cocaine ingestion directly promotes violent behavior that might have been suppressed or that
might be absent in an individual and might create any situational provocation. This has been seen
that any single drug cannot create an aggressive behavior unless mixed with something else.
Increase in victimization can also be one of the major reasons for making people violent and
pushing them towards drugs. Some of the cases say that addicted people often appear (and
sometimes are) potential customers rather than others targets for crimes such as robbery, rape, or
hate crimes. The growing intoxicated people are mostly known to be offensive, annoying, and
obnoxious and they show these characteristics in their appearance, conduct, and speech. Drug
addicts conduct unpredictable and ambiguous this as they have no clear signals to others drugs
use not only impairs their perception signals but also their transmission and they fails in showing
their intention. Finally, active drug market sometimes flushes with cash and raise the number of
a drug user. The crime surveys shows that the drug users are increasing day by day thus the
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number of property crimes and offensive behavior with women and children has been identified
(Shariff and Rhemtulla, 2012).
Economic-compulsive violence
This kind of violence has expected to occur in the cases when the people who are addicts try to
arrange funds to buy drugs. Their desperation and compulsive behavior to buy drugs motivate
them to try illicit methods and they try every possible way to buy drugs and make effective uses
of the money to buy drugs. This can be prime cases of heroin addicts. Growing addiction has led
many young individuals to work in drug dealing as a full-time business thus leading to a rise in
the number of illegal drug dealers and rising the number of addicts in the society. As the addict
believes that there is a huge amount in selling drugs and there is huge drug market they keep on
involving themselves in smuggling of drugs and this has led to a large number of property crimes
and income-generated violent crimes like kidnapping and murders. The increase in crime has not
only seen on a large level but also in small crimes like robbery and theft. Another factor that can
be seen that the rise in the price of the drugs like Cocaine does not have a major impact on the
development of business, and the addicts are still persistent to buy drugs (Gaines and Kremling,
2013). This small term these prices do not influence any addict. They put more effort in illegally
smuggle the drug from which a good portion size is kept by themselves to be used, remaining is
sold on higher rates thus eventually raising crime on the streets to arrange funds to buy them
(Gaines and Kremling, 2013).
Systematic Violence
This kind of violence is generated by a systematic pattern that has been used by an individual
and eventually helping them in generating a violent streak in society. Due to the lack of
documented deals and illegal communication, there is lack of contracts and proper evidence of
selling and buying the drugs. This leads to a situation of cheating and lack of trust among the
buyer and seller and they move towards a more violent solution against each other. Many reasons
for increases in violence and crime may be due to the number of participants being young and
high in energy, they lack in foresight thus engage themselves in violence, this has been observed
that most of the seller are also young (Klepser, 2014). Sometimes the value of the drug is so high
that their return is very high this might initiate violence to claim for the return, like for cocaine
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the smallest unit is worth a lot of cost. Some time the rising strength of law and order also results
in the adverse and opposite effect on the people. They try to become more aggressive and more
violent to fight against the laws enforced on them thus raising crime in every section. The rise in
aggressive users leads the sellers to sell them in more protective and open spaces thus leading to
unreliable behavior among buyers and sellers. Increase in a number of buyers and sellers in the
drug market have raised a lot of internal competition and violence (Klepser, 2014). There are
various drug selling gangs that uses relatively criminal and an aggressive behavior in order to
deal with the rivals. In some cases rich lifestyle has also been noticed to be one of the major
factors that can make an individual go towards drugs, sometimes to show off and sometimes
under influence of peers.
Intervention
This is the need of the society to treat the drug abused individual and their causes effectively in
order to reduce the ratio of people affected by drugs use. The intervention is needed to
understand the society and the environment causing drug use in society. One such method can be
Community mobilization this indicates the involvement of the community in drugs prevention
activities and encourage awareness among the people in order to deal with the needs of the
society to know about the variety of drugs, their availability and the harmful effect of the drugs.
This intervention is helpful in guiding the youth to stay away from the harmful sources of drugs.
Community mobilization is a very essential activity to collect the community and mutually
arrange the session and proposes activities; this will reduce the number of drug addicts and help
in controlling crime. The community will put a watch on the crime occurring due to drugs and
make preventive measures for the same. The community can use media and other social features
in society and promote awareness (Roy-Byrne, et. al., 2014). They can motivate community
policy makers, neighborhood members, teachers at local schools, police, parents, and merchants
to be involved with community prevention interventions. Media advocacy can be used in order to
deal with the media resources like television, radio, and local newspapers to be used in order to
deal with the spread of information and awareness about drugs to the minute sections of society.
This will also give a message to the dealers as well to make them understand the consequences
of selling drugs (Roy-Byrne, et. al., 2014).
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Collecting feedback and evaluation of the applicability of the current service may result in better
development and structuring of policies to be used in order to reduce crime from drugs. This
strategy can help in understanding the links in the whole network and making effective
development in the evaluation strategy and use formal linkages, interventions, and resources for
the prevention and use of harmful and illegal drugs in the society. Another strategy is the
Environmental Strategy that can be used in order to deal with the needs of the society and collect
effective evidence to know the related environmental features pushing an individual to do drugs
and eventually leading them to crime and violent behavior. Environmental strategies can help
intervention by a) focusing on the change in the community systems rather than focusing on
individual behavior; b) using local media to target major leaders of the community and also
attempt to change individual behavior through the use of media messages and developing
platform for the same c) Using the community to mobilize for system change also they target
groups of drugs user and d) seek facilities and strategy to reduce supply and also reduce demand
for drugs (Wechsberg , et. al., 2013).
Another intervention that can be taken in account by understanding the needs of the environment
includes the Retail Environment Strategy that can be used in order to capture and monitor the
retail standards of the community by dealing with the drugs and provoking an individual to use
drugs. This includes the identification of high risk inventorying drugs that can be used in order to
deal with the needs of the economy. Developing some standard store policies that are well
written and posses standard features to be used in the system. Identification of harmful drugs and
posting signage and legal notices against such structures in order to deal with harmful effects and
make people aware of the outcomes and also advising them with low-risk products and
restricting an age group to sell the products to an individual (Wechsberg, et. al., 2013). Home
and school intervention strategies can be used in order to deal with the potential resources of
drugs and potential steps that could be taken at home in order to raise the production needs and
demands in the development of an individual. Parents can monitor the activities of the individual
and also help in developing an understanding of the facilities and demands of an individual and
making effective development of intellect and making effective use of the same. Parents can
guide their young children about the potential place and the measures they need to take while
entering new professional and educational life. Schools can also take efforts in keeping children
well informed and well guided about the harmful chemicals that can make children addict. Some
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of such chemicals come from paints, glues, correction fluid, other solvents, concentrated alcohol
products (including cleaners) and many others. Schools should also make strict policies and
service training to deal with future issues and aware students about them (Johnston, et. al., 2013).
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Conclusion
The above discussion has highlighted major factors that have been influencing an individual to
take drugs and motivate them to commit a crime. This can be concluded from the above
discussion that major factors that cause an individual to commit a crime under the influence of
drugs include features like economic factors, that make them violent to arrange funds, increase in
the cost and reduction in the demands of an individual. There have been some causes identified
that are due to internal factors of the society and circle that influence an individual to commit a
crime. Peer influence and negligence from family can lead an individual to go towards drugs.
The application of various intervention techniques has also been analyzed in order to understand
future factors and potential steps that can be taken to reduce crime. These strategies suggest a
mutual contribution of individual and community that can be used in order to deal with the needs
of the society.
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References
 Via-Sosa, M.A., Lopes, N. and March, M., 2013. The effectiveness of a drug dosing
service provided by community pharmacists in polymedicated elderly patients with renal
impairment—a comparative study. BMC family practice, 14(1), p.96.
 Bean, P., 2014. Drugs and crime. Routledge.
 Shariff, A.F. and Rhemtulla, M., 2012. Divergent effects of beliefs in heaven and hell on
national crime rates. PLoS One, 7(6), p.e39048.
 Gaines, L.K. and Kremling, J., 2013. Drugs, crime, and justice: Contemporary
perspectives. Waveland Press.
 Klepser, M.E., 2014. Socioeconomic impact of seasonal (epidemic) influenza and the role
of over-the-counter medicines. Drugs, 74(13), pp.1467-1479.
 Roy-Byrne, P., Bumgardner, K., Krupski, A., Dunn, C., Ries, R., Donovan, D., West, I.I.,
Maynard, C., Atkins, D.C., Graves, M.C. and Joesch, J.M., 2014. Brief intervention for
problem drug use in safety-net primary care settings: a randomized clinical
trial. Jama, 312(5), pp.492-501.
 Wechsberg, W.M., Jewkes, R., Novak, S.P., Kline, T., Myers, B., Browne, F.A., Carney,
T., Lopez, A.A.M. and Parry, C., 2013. A brief intervention for drug use, sexual risk
behaviours and violence prevention with vulnerable women in South Africa: a
randomised trial of the Women’s Health CoOp. BMJ open, 3(5), p.e002622.
 Johnston, L.D., O’Malley, P.M., Bachman, J.G. and Schulenberg, J.E., 2013. Monitoring
the Future national results on adolescent drug use: Overview of key findings, 2012.
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