Substance abuse and violence

Abstract

The terms “substance abuse” and “violence” conjure up dramatic and menacing images. On the production and distribution side, we think in terms of Afghan warlords controlling 90 per cent of the world’s heroin and Columbian drugs cartels fighting each other for market share. On the consumption side, we think of the crack-head or the junky literally incapable of reason, but nonetheless heavily involved in opportunistic and predatory street crime to secure the next fix. These images of drug abuse and violence are inextricably linked in the popular imagination, and the media distorts and presents an over-simplified account of reality of the “common enemy”; that is the international organized criminal, the street-level pusher and the off-his-head drug user.