NCJ Number
93286
Date Published
1983
Length
28 pages
Annotation
The reconceptualization of the alcoholic as a victim of a disease has made alcoholics more willing to acknowledge their problems and to seek help; this approach might work equally well for the heroin addict.
Abstract
The public view, reinforced by the media, is that heroin addicts and alcohol abusers are responsible for a substantial amount of crime. The research literature confirms that drugs do play a role in a crime, either in directly causing it or in removing certain inhibitions against it in some individuals. However, alcoholics, particularly those on skid row, are also victims of crime. Heroin addicts tend to be marginal people concentrated in poor and working-class communities and minority ghettos. The criminality assoicated with heroin addiction is not an effect of the drug but rather a result of the substance's illicit status, which has given rise to a subculture of users and dealers who charge high prices. As with some types of alcoholics, heroin addicts are both victims and victimizers. Historically, the United States has criminalized drug abuse: heroin is illegal and is likely to remain so in the future. However, the moral condemnation of drugs will not eradicate the problems to be faced. A new focus on the nature of the problem of heroin addiction might stimulate addicts' desire to obtain help. Notes and a list of 49 references are provided.