Expensive Drug Use and Illegal Income: A Test of Explanatory Hypotheses

• NCJ Number: 156635
• Journal: Criminology Volume: 23 Issue: 4 Dated: (November 1985) Pages: 743-764
• Author(s): J J Collins; R L Hubbard; J V Rachal
• Date Published: 1985
• Length: 22 pages
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This paper examines the hypotheses that heroin use is more strongly related to income crime involvement than cocaine use, and that drug use is discretionary and can largely be predicted by the amount of illegal income available.

Abstract

Data were obtained from 3,575 individuals entering selected drug treatment facilities, pertaining to type and frequency of drug use, amount expended for illegal drugs, type and frequency of their involvement in various criminal activities, and amount of illegal income they secured. The results confirmed a relationship between daily heroin use and involvement in income-generating crime. This relationship remains robust after variations explained by other correlates of drug use and crime were controlled. Contrary to the popular belief that cocaine is used primarily by the middle class and is not physiologically addictive in the way that heroin is, this analysis showed that regular weekly and daily cocaine users were as likely as heroin users to seek out sources of illegal income. 3 tables, 7 notes, and 51 references