Cannabis and Crime

It's a perennial question: do drugs cause crime? More specific to our purposes, does cannabis cause crime?

It’s a perennial question: do drugs cause crime? More specific to our purposes, does cannabis cause crime?

As ever, there doesn’t appear to be a definitive answer to this, other than “it depends what you mean...”

Does cannabis “cause” crime in the sense that it somehow “makes” the user act in a way that’s against their fundamental nature? Does it “make” good people do bad things? This has been one of those immovable cornerstones of anti drug rhetoric since the early decades of the twentieth century; it persists to the present day. However, persistence doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily true. Let’s consider this further.

In academia, substance use of any sort other than (arguably) alcohol gets off to a pretty bad start. In Psychology, the subject is usually lumped in as "abnormal", "criminal" or "forensic" (all pretty negative). In the case of Sociology, it's usually classed as "deviant" or "subcultural" (again, pretty negative). Pharmacology tends to focus mainly on the physical and/or mental harms caused by drug use, and the treatment substance use receives from Criminologists is pretty self-explanatory. Nowhere, to our knowledge, is there an academic discipline of any sort that openly celebrates the positive or benign aspects (and really, there are many of these) of non-medical substance use.

Certainly, even the most ardent anti-prohibitionist would have to admit that there is without doubt a connection of some sort between cannabis and crime. In the most obvious level, this stems from the legal status of cannabis; in most countries, dope is illegal, and therefore if caught in possession without an officially or medically approved reason - together with an accompanying permit from the appropriate governmental department - is going to lead to legal problems of some sort.

Therefore, individuals who may otherwise be completely law abiding citizens but who enjoy a smoke of weed of an evening as a relaxant, social lubricant or whatever immediately - in the eyes of the law at least – fall under the classification of “criminal”. If actually apprehended, then these individuals become public criminals and the consequences of being labelled as such can potentially be quite far reaching. While all of this is correct hypothetically it should be said that, where tokers truly are model citizens in all other walks of their lives, the chances of being busted are in actuality quite remote. The point of this is to make it clear that on a very obvious level it could be said that cannabis use is linked to crime. At the risk of sounding pedantic, a more accurate way of expressing this would be: “cannabis use in countries where it’s illegal makes the user a criminal in theory but only if they are apprehended while in possession of cannabis will this become a reality.”

In 1985, a guy called Paul Goldstein put together a thing called “Goldstein’s Tripartite Framework” in an attempt to disentangle all of the different strands of evidence, fact, myth, rumour and downright lies surrounding the whole question of drugs and crime. Goldstein was at this time specifically concerned with violent crime, but the theoretical framework he came up with works well when applied to any sort of “drug-related” crime, which is what we’re going to do here; just because someone uses a lot of weed but never touches, say, cocaine, does not disqualify them from involvement in violent crime. This whole idea that stoners are a peaceful bunch is a myth like so many others (consider, for example, Charlie Manson and various Family members). But I’m getting ahead of myself...we’ll come back to all of that in a while.

This “Tripartite Framework” is not without its flaws, but we still think it covers all of the bases and we still refer to it in our work today.

Essentially, Goldstein broke drug related crime into three types: Psychopharmacological, Economic Compulsive and Systemic. We’ll look at each of these in order.

Psychopharmacological Crime

This model “suggests that some individuals, as a result of short or long term ingestion of specific substances, may become excitable, irrational, and may exhibit violent behaviour.”

While this can probably be applied to some substances, for example uppers, cocaine and/or crack, and - particularly - alcohol, there’s very little in the way of evidence to indicate that it applies to cannabis (nor, come to that, the opiates). Smoking or eating weed even for decades seems unlikely to result in the sort of psychological changes required to “make” most users violent. Where the user has pre-existing, underlying mental health problems is, of course, a whole other ball game.

As applied to cannabis and opiates, Goldstein says this is “largely discredited” and points out that it had been even in the 1920’s when a guy called Lawrence Kolb – in a staggering example of common sense thinking, given the date – described as an “absurd fallacy” the whole notion of crime committed while on drugs. This notwithstanding, even as late as the 1950’s, stories would appear in the press concerning “deranged negroes”, Hispanics, Chinese, and pretty much any other ethnic minority group “running amok”, “raping and pillaging” while under the influence of the “evil weed marihuana”...or variations on that basic, highly racist theme. Fact: in the case of most users, this scenario is simply not true. However, the truth or facts of the matter didn’t stop people believing it, and – amazingly - we still come across individuals who adhere to this view even now.

It should be noted that one place this line is trotted out from time to time is in the law courts as a defence of some sort for a (usually) reprehensible act. In these situations, drug use is presented as a sort of defence or excuse for criminal actions; simply put “it was the drug that made me do it”.

There was a protracted court case in Scotland back in the early years of the last decade involving the highly unpleasant murder of a teenage girl by her boyfriend. As part of his defence, the lawyer for this odious specimen told the court that the accused was smoking several ounces of cannabis a week in the months leading up to the time of the murder. Fortunately, neither the jury nor the judge bought any of it and this character is currently serving a long, long stretch. “It was the drug that made me do it”: piffle.

Economic Compulsive Crime

This part suggests that some drug users engage in economically oriented crime, e.g., robbery, in order to support costly drug use; so “economically oriented crime” on the part of the user to generate income for their drug of choice. I don’t think there’s a lot of need to dwell on this too much when it comes to cannabis users, although I can see where it applies to users of certain other substances. Let’s be honest, the extent of most cannabis users involvement in this sort of thing probably extends as far as a bit of dealing in order to fund and guarantee their own supply, or they might set up a few lights and grow a couple of plants.

I’ve searched high and low for evidence to indicate that cannabis users commit acquisitive crime (robbery, mugging, shoplifting etc) in order to “feed their habit” and, other than the odd highly spurious case in line with the one above where straws are being clutched at by criminals in an attempt at justification, I’ve found absolutely nothing to lend any credence to this in relation to cannabis.

Systemic Crime

This one “...refers to the traditionally aggressive patterns of interaction within the system of drug distribution and use” and as such is where we find most of the crime associated with drugs. Basically, it’s about the crime, violence and general mayhem the goes hand in hand with trafficking and dealing. This goes from low level local dealing right up to international cartels worth gazillions of pounds.

One would traditionally have associated this kind of thing as specific to substances with a – supposedly – high addiction potential, so cocaine and heroin. And conversely, the kind of thing commonly associated with cannabis trafficking and dealing is something altogether more benign, laid back and non violent. In the past, we’ve interviewed grower/dealers about how they might handle, say, a non-payment situation. None of them indicated that they’d be prepared to resort to violence – though to be fair, this very much depended on the amount in question – and would much rather simply not have any further dealings with the person; further, they’d put out the word that this person was a bad debt risk and not to be trusted.

While this was the case a decade ago, the whole scene has very much changed now. Where one would find individual dealers (a lot of them students) or a loose confederation of dealers working primarily for themselves but prepared to front each other a few ounces of weed or some money here and there, this is largely no longer the case. Where the attitude used to be “there’s plenty of trade and therefore money to go around”, this is largely no longer the case.

In the past decade or so, organised and highly criminal groups have taken an interest in cannabis wholesaling and dealing. The chances are that this was always the case with resin, but a lot less so with weed. Where these characters used to focus on drugs with a high dependence potential (heroin, cocaine) they’ve been looking more towards more sustainable and lower risk revenue streams (cannabis can be grown in the UK easily whereas heroin and cocaine still have to be imported and there are a lot of risks attached to that).

So organised crime has moved into the cannabis market and along with this has come some business practice previously alien to the scene. Again, we return to Goldstein for more about this. He lists a number of examples of systemic violence traditionally associated with “hard” drugs. We would suggest that he revise this to include and incorporate big time cannabis dealing. Here are a few examples:

Disputes over territory between rival drug dealers; Assaults...committed within dealing hierarchies as a means of enforcing normative codes; Robberies of drug dealers and the usually violent retaliation by the dealer or his/her boss; Punishment for failing to pay one's debts.

In short, all of the nonsense commonly associated with the movement of “hard” drugs.

There is one part of organised crime that always seems to attract people who are in it purely for the kick of the violence. “Enforcers” is one name for them; “sadistic thugs” is another. These characters are there because of the omnipresent potential for violence and mayhem that exists in that world. Money can be an attraction, drugs as well, but it’s the violence that gets these guys’ motor running. If they weren’t involved in trafficking and dealing they’d be smuggling people, organs, weapons; anything, in short, that’s got the promise of bloodshed with it.

I recently saw Oliver Stone’s new film “Savages” in which two weed growers find their easygoing, freewheeling lives going to shit when a Mexican Cartel decides to muscle in on their patch. It’s fiction, for sure, and the UK isn’t America with Mexico just over the border. However, some gentlemen of my acquaintance in British Columbia, Canada and in Arizona, America tell me they have had visits from representatives of, respectively, the Hell’s Angels and a Mexican Cartel making overtures about some sort of business alliance. Needless to say, my acquaintances are none too keen, but wonder whether they’ll ultimately have a choice in the matter.

Ah, drug hubris and folly.

Ultimately, all of the above comes back to one fundamental issue: cannabis is illegal. Just because it’s illegal doesn’t stop people from wanting it (and getting it). What’s the answer to this? That’s pretty obvious, in our view.

Resource:

Goldstein, PJ (1985) The Drugs/Violence Nexus: A Tripartite Conceptual Framework. Journal of Drug Issues 15(4): 493-506.

Kolb, L (1925) Drug Addiction and its Relation to Crime. Mental Hygiene 9:74-89