Otherwise, marijuana is hardly mentioned in any of these papers. Goldstein notes that the end of alcohol prohibition ended the systemic violence related to alcohol. The purpose of this paper was not to make policy recommendations, but includes a discussion of the option of selective decriminalization for drugs not linked to violent crime, including the legalization of marijuana and heroin. Decriminalization is an alternative that should be seriously considered by policy makers who are primarily concerned with the reduction of drug-related violence. An in-depth study of cocaine use contains no mention of marijuana, but does include notice of alcohol and heroin use as confounding variables in understanding the relationship between cocaine use and crime.
Cocaine is the major contributor to economic compulsive violence.
Heroin is the major contributor to systemic violence involving males, and cocaine is the major contributor to systemic violence involving females. Politicians and the press are lazy about applying a sound knowledge base to policy development and public relations strategies. Drug users typically try to avoid violent predatory offenses. This fact is also reflected in the small proportions of economic compulsive violence that we found in our two street studies. Use of drugs is often financed by working in a variety of roles in the illicit drug business.