Drug related offenses

Résumé du document

In modern societies it is easy to recognize that consuming drugs is an every day reality. It is not only taking heroin or marijuana, but also smoking, taking painkillers, having a coffee, a tea or excessive intake of alcohol on Saturday as a required "Saturday night" obligation. The illegal drug market remains a major income of the international and also national organized crime. Obviously, the same could be said about the market of the so-called legal drugs which involve the main pharmaceutical firms, or the powerful manufacturers of tobacco, alcohol. My study focuses mainly on the impact of the usage of illegal drugs. Transporting, producing, dealing, consuming any kind of illegal substances is only a part of the offenses drugs can induce. Entering the web of drug abuse can lead to different sorts of violent, sometimes desperate behaviors like assault or prostitution to fund the demanding habit. Throughout the twentieth century, the states have progressively become concerned with the frightening spread of the illegal drug addiction and its damaging effect. Thus a whole range of different tools have been implemented throughout the world to fight it.

Extraits

[...] I The addiction and the drug related offences As we are here dealing with the drug scope it is necessary to stop a moment on the meaning of this word. As Whittacker explained it, “technically, a drug is any substance which modifies the functions of the organism, and many drugs have the positive function of healing or alleviating diseases.”[1] The reaction of the individual will of course differ from one to the other, consideration must be given to the “actual behaviour and subjective experience,” and “other influences such as culture, context and expectations”[2] and also given to the strength {e.g. [...]

[...] Indeed Home Office Research suggests that for every extra spent on helping addicts, would be saved in dealing with the after effects of drug related crime, which at a whole, are estimated to cost 4 billion pounds a year. Whittacker, The Global Connection. Cape 1987 [2]Zinberg Drug, Set, and Setting: the Basis for Controlled Intoxicant Use, New Haven: Yale University Press South, Drugs, Alcohol and Crime; The Oxford Handbook of Criminology pp 914, by Maguire, Morgan and Reiner, R . Oxford University Press third edition 2002 Drugscope . Dependence. [...]

[...] London Routledge see note 13 BBC News: “Experts debate drug related crime.” 18 September 2002 BBC News: “Drug and Crime link grows” August 2000 see note 20 BBC News: “Tackling drug related crime” February 2002 Metropolitan Police: “Drugs Directorate” BBC News: and Drug crimes threaten July 2002 Hough M Drug Misuse and the Criminal Justice System: A review of the Literature”, Criminal justice Matters, No 24 Summer 4-5 Burr A “Chasing the Dragon: Heroin misuse, Delinquency and Crime in the context of South London Culture” .British Journal of Criminology 27/4: 333-57 Ruggiero V “Brixton London: A Drug Culture Without a Drug Economy?” 1993, The International Journal of Drug Policy 83-90 Jarvis G and Parker H “Young heroin users and Crime” British Journal of Criminology 29/2: 175-85 BBC News Asia Pacific “Burma joins fight against drugs”. US Dept of State: supports International Fight against N. Korean narcotics” May 2003 EU: “Contribution of the European Commission to the Implementation of the EU-Central Asia Action Plan on Drugs”. Home Office: Government's Ten-Year strategy for Tackling Drugs” Crime Reduction toolkits: “Communities against Drugs” Home Office. Crime and Policing: “drugs and crime” 16 March 2003 Gossop M. NTORS: National Treatment Outcom Research Study. [...]

[...] The drug culture has been integrated within the twenty first century. It is a fact. It cannot be expected a reversal of this trend with short term policies, or well-minded but useless prevention. A consistent application of the drug laws must be the rule, not the exception: one drug related offence should be enough a warning for the authorities. It is easy too understand that nowadays it is not the case, a single figure illustrates the remaining problem: as it has been already presented, small number of offenders are responsible for huge numbers of crimes, thus 664 addicts surveyed committed 70,000 offences over a three month period[36]. [...]

[...] The sub-culture is now completely integrated. One major element of this integration in the UK is the clubbing movement providing a large scope to the diffusion of all drugs particularly the synthetic ones. An unavoidable link with the number of violent offences has been established by the English authorities. Almost seven out of every ten people arrested test positive for illegal drugs, a Home Office Survey suggests. Moreover, confirming the previous report, it affirms that the drug related crime in the UK is rising, and in some part of the country has doubled.[22]The report presents a range of data concerning the state of the country in the drug issue: A hardcore of offenders in ten- commit an average of 240 offences a year to fund their drug habit. [...]