SUBJECT FORENSIC SCIENCE

Paper No. and Title PAPER No. 9: Drugs of Abuse

Module No. and Title MODULE No. 29: Drugs & Crime

Module Tag FSC_P9_M29

FORENSIC SCIENCE PAPER No. 9: Drugs of Abuse

MODULE No. 29: Drugs & Crime
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Learning Outcomes

2. Introduction

3. Economic Compulsive Drug related Crimes

4. Psychopharmacological Crimes

5. Systemic Violent Crimes

6. Contemporary Situation

7. Redefined Drug related crimes

8. Summary

FORENSIC SCIENCE PAPER No. 9: Drugs of Abuse

MODULE No. 29: Drugs & Crime
 1. Learning Outcomes
After studying this module, you shall be able to know about-

 The significance of Drug related crimes

 Demarcation between drug induced crimes and related crimes
 The types of drug related crimes and their psychology

2. Introduction
The main organised crime activity is the supply of unlawful goods and services to
uncountable numbers of citizen consumers. It is also intensely involved in legitimate business
and in labour unions. It employs illegal methods like exploitation, radicalism, coercion and
tax-evasion to turn out or control lawful rights and governance, and to extract illegitimate
returns from the public. Organised crime also degrades public representatives to deter
legislative intervention and is becoming gradually refined. In India, additionally to its
traditional domains of activities which incorporated extortion, seeking protection money,
contract killing, bootlegging, gambling, prostitution and smuggling, now added is drug
trafficking among other drug related crimes.

Drug-related crime is assessed to reason for a large portion of the economic and social costs
of illicit drug usage and also to form a huge portion of overall crime. However, when
evaluating criminal activity it is awfully challenging to sort out crime which is directly
caused by drug use from the crime that is associated to drug use but is initiated by other
factors. The peculiarity is significant because, when calculating the costs or benefits of drug
policy reform, only crime which is triggered by drug use should be considered. Drug related
crime indisputably accounts for a large part of the peripheral costs of illicit drug use. In a
substantially quoted paper, Goldstein (1985) made a distinction between three types of drug-
induced crime. First the Economic-compulsive crime arises from a requirement for extra
income to fund the drug purchases made indispensable by obsessive drug use. Second type is
the Psychopharmacological crime which is behaviour generated by the action of drugs on the
brain ensuing in debilitated self-control or decision-making capacity or violent responses to
external provocation. And third one is the Systemic violence which is seen as a feature of the
functioning of illicit markets, where legitimate implementation of contracts is impossible.

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 The economic-compulsive crime may recount to any form of strongly-desired consumption,
not only prohibited drugs. Some people may commit crime to generate money to buy alcohol,
tobacco, clothes, etc. To these direct forms of drug-related crime, a long-run indirect effects
may be added which are hard to evaluate but may be important. For instance, if drug use
damages logical capability, educational achievement and employment prospects, avaricious
offense turn out to be more recompensing comparative to legal earnings generating activity
and crime becomes a rational response to lack of opportunity for some. Most crimes result
from a range of factors like personal, situational, cultural, or economical. Even when drugs
are a cause, they are expected to be only one factor among many.

3. Economic Compulsive Drug related Crimes

Dependency on an expensive substance (drug) can lead users to involve in criminal acts to
obtain the money they use to fund their drug habit. They may recourse to both consensual
crimes, such as drug peddling or prostitution, and acquisitive crimes e.g. shoplifting, robbery,
burglary. Such offenders are sometimes remunerated in drugs. This class of drug-related
crime also contains the counterfeiting of prescriptions and the burglarizing of drugstores by
drug users, both of which provide medicines that can be used as substitutes for illicit
products. Although many covetous crimes committed by drug users are unscrupulous, some
call for more proficiency and others involve less specialisation. For example, fraud and
embezzlement are white-collar crimes that require a specific professional environment.

While the term ‘compulsive’ proposes that a state of dependence is necessary, offenders in
this category include all those whose drug use needs to be maintained by illegal income,
which will be determined by their type and pattern of substance use, socioeconomic situation
and extent of aberrant lifestyle. Certainly, not all those who are reliant on expensive drugs
commit economic crime, they may standardise their use according to their pecuniary
resources and drug expenses, effort to upsurge their genuine income like social
remunerations, employment, pawning goods or avoid expenses by take full advantage of
income in accommodation, meals, etc. Many drug users utilise a combination of all these
means.

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 4. Psychopharmacological Crimes
According to the psychopharmacological prototype of drug related crimes, the acute or
chronic use of psychoactive substances may result in aggression and violence. The effects of
such drugs include impulsiveness, irritability, fear or paranoia, disinhibition, severe mood
swings, perceptive alterations and impaired judgement, any of which may lead to immoral
conduct. It is also imperative to include in this category crimes prompted by the victim’s
personal drug use. Such crimes are less noticeable, because countless goes unreported. Thus,
psychopharmacological crimes should also consist of crimes such as sexual assault
committed while the victim is under the effect of alcohol or other psychoactive substances,
but also burglary or assault that is made imaginable because of the victim’s helplessness and
fights started under the influence of drugs. Much of the prevailing study supports the view
that there is a strong association between alcohol intoxication and psychopharmacologically
induced crime, especially violence. Following a long way behind alcohol in this regard are
the stimulants like cocaine and amphetamines.

The use of opiates and cannabis is generally considered to be implausible to lead to

psychopharmacologically induced crime, and may even contribute to reducing it in some
individuals, as these drugs and tranquillisers have a tendency to reduce violent impulses and
aggression. However, irritability associated with the withdrawal syndrome, as well as related
psychological health complications, may be linked to increased violence. While the
pharmacology of most illegal drugs is well known, the detailed mechanisms through which
they promote violent behaviours are not completely understood although some substances,
usually stimulants, are recognised to produce psychotic events of behaviour and may well
aggravate existing behavioural problems. That supposed, no psychoactive substance can be
said to have universal criminogenic properties and both individual and environmental factors
can influence the use of psychoactive substances impacting upon the behaviour.

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 5. Systemic Violent Crimes
Systemic criminality talk about mainly to violent acts, such as assaults, homicides, committed
within the functioning of illicit drug markets, as part of the business of drug supply,
distribution and use. Violence as an approach of control is used in various situations
including territorial disputes, punishment for fraud, debt collection and clashes with the
police. In drug production and transportation countries where the rule of law is challenged,
systemic crimes may also comprehend, for example, corruption of businesses, governments
and banking systems or crimes against humanity by drug traffickers.

Systemic violence is associated to prohibition as it stems mainly from the illicit nature of a
market regarded as by huge profits and whose participants cannot resort to typical business
law. There is no inherent link with drug use, and it is less clear in common whether drugs
trafficking or drug use lead to systemic crime or the contrary, or even whether they are just
part of the identical over-all lifestyle. However, the generality of violence in drug markets
may increase the probability of drug users becoming offenders or victims of violent crimes.
Some reviewers have contended that a large proportion of drug-related crime, specifically
violent crime, is the outcome of market forces. Nevertheless, it is more to be expected that
systemic criminality follows a recurring sequence, responding to modifications in the
dynamics of explicit drug markets such as changes in drug demand and drug supply, in cost-
effectiveness and in community standards related to acceptance or rejection of violent
behaviours.

6. Contemporary Situation
Drugs are interrelated to crime in various ways. Most directly, it is a crime to use, possess,
manufacture, or dispense drugs categorised as having a potential for abuse such as cocaine,
heroin, marijuana, and amphetamines. Drugs are also linked to crime through the effects they
have on the user’s behaviour and by generating violence and other unlawful activity in
connection with drug trafficking.

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 Drug and crime relationship can be differentiated into following types:

6.1 Drug defined crimes

Violations of laws barring or regulating the possession, use, dissemination or production of

illegal drugs are the factors contributing to this crime type. For example the possession or use
of drugs, cultivation of marijuana, or illegal production of cocaine, heroin,
methamphetamine.

6.2 Drug related crimes

Crimes to which a drug’s pharmacologic effects contribute fall under this category. Offences
motivated by the consumer’s need for money to support sustained use of drugs are also the
contributing feature and apparently offences connected to drug distribution itself. An
additional dimension of drug-related crime is committing an offense to get money or goods to
sell to get money to support drug use.

6.3 Drug using lifestyle

It can be denoted as a lifestyle in which the chances and frequency of involvement in illegal
activity are amplified because drug users may not take part in the legitimate economy and are
exposed to situations that encouraging crime.

The evidences indicates that drug users are more expected than nonusers to commit crimes
that convict frequently were under the influence of a drug at the time they committed their
offense, and that drugs generate violence. Evaluating the nature and extent of the influence of
drugs on crime requires that reliable information about the offense and the criminal is
available and that explanations be consistent. India has an oppressive anti-drug law, the
Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act 1985, which provides minimum
punishment of 10 years for offences under this Act. The conviction rate in drug offences is
rather low.

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 7. Redefined Drug related crimes
Trafficking in illicit drugs have a tendency to be associated with the commission of violent
crimes. Reasons for the association between drug trafficking and violence include rivalry for
drug markets and customers, disagreements and frauds among individuals involved in the
illegal drug market and the tendency toward violence of individuals who contribute in drug
trafficking. In addition, locations in which street drug markets proliferate tend to be deprived
economically and socially. Legal and social controls against violence in such areas tend to be
ineffectual. The proliferation of lethal weapons in recent years has also made drug violence
more deadly. Although the number of drug-related homicides has been decreasing in recent
years, drugs still remain one of the main causes leading to the total number of all homicides.

The illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances poses a grave
intimidation to the health and welfare of the people and the activities of persons engaged in
such illicit circulation have an undermining effect on the national economy. It is imaginably
the most severe organised crime affecting the country and is actually transnational in
character. India is geographically located between the countries of Golden Triangle and
Golden Crescent and is a transit point for narcotic drugs produced in these regions to the
West. India also produces a substantial amount of licit opium, part of which also finds place
in the prohibited market in different forms. Illicit drug trade in India focusses around five
major substances, namely, heroin, hashish, opium, cannabis and methaqualone. Seizures of
cocaine, amphetamine, and LSD are not unknown but are minor and infrequent.

Violations of drug-related law may include drug law offences such as drug use, possession,
cultivation, production, importation and trafficking, but also other allied offences such as the
illicit manufacture and trafficking of precursors or money laundering. Drug driving, i.e.,
driving under the influence of drugs, offences are also included in this category of drug-
related crime. Studies of drug-related crime have often ignored drug law offences as the
relationship between drugs and crime is of a very different nature. In this case drugs and
crime are linked by definition in the law, rather than by any effect of one behaviour on the
other. Such offences are indeed essentially dependent on the prohibition of a set of
psychoactive substances.

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 However, it is important to consider the illicit status of these drugs as it is a factor in drug
market violence and may exacerbate economically motivated offending by increasing drug
prices. In addition, drug law offences account for a substantial share of law enforcement and
criminal justice system activities and resources. Drug use may also have an indirect impact
on crimes other than drug law offences. Indeed, from an economic perspective, which views
crime as a reaction to prices and incentives, any increase in the proportion of available
resources allocated to the enforcement of drug laws would reduce the resources allocated to
other crimes. This would make such crimes relatively less costly (through reduced probability
of arrest and shortened incarceration) and therefore may increase their incidence.

8. Summary

 Drug-related crime is assessed to reason for a large portion of the economic and social
expenses of illegal drug use and also to make up a large share of total crime. Drugs are
related to crime in manifold traditions. Most unswervingly, it is a crime to use, possess,
manufacture, or distribute drugs classified as having a potential for abuse.
 A variety of reasons and conditions lead antisocial and drug-using populations to follow
a diversity of pathways, each of which may express a precise connection between drugs
and crime. Reactions to challenge drug-related crime therefore need to be multifaceted,
differentiated and targeted.
 Many illegal drug users commit no other kinds of crimes, and many individuals who
commit crimes never use illegal drugs. However, at the most extreme levels of drug use,
drugs and crime are directly and highly interconnected and serious drug use can augment
and disseminate pre-existing criminal activity.
 Reasons for the relationship between drug trafficking and violence contain competition
for drug markets and customers, disputes and scams among individuals involved in the
illegal drug market and the affinity toward violence of individuals who share in drug
trafficking.
 The propagation of lethal weapons in recent years has also made drug violence more
deadly. Although the number of drug-related homicides has been decreasing in recent
years, drugs still remain one of the main reasons leading to the total number of all
homicides.
 Violations of drug-related legislation may include drug law offences such as drug use,
possession, cultivation, production, importation and trafficking, but also other related
offences such as the illicit manufacture and trafficking of precursors or money
laundering.

FORENSIC SCIENCE PAPER No. 9: Drugs of Abuse

MODULE No. 29: Drugs & Crime