The expenditures now being made in both criminal justice and the prevention and treatment of addiction are staggeringly large compared to the expenditures in the late 1960s. They exceed even the most aggressive plans of that era. Even the linkage of drug use and crime remains fraught with controversy as many people believe that the connection is no more than coincidental. While some are filled with doubt about the connection of alcohol and other drug use and violence, I have a different perspective based on 30 years of working with individual criminals. It is clear to me that the desire to get money for prohibited drugs is only one of many ways that drugs cause crime.
Values matter a lot in human behavior and they matter especially in both crime and drug use.
When people get well from both crime and addiction, they develop new values that place concern for others and delayed gratification, to say nothing of religion, on far higher levels of importance than when they were pursuing, deadly careers as criminals and drug addicts. This intoxicated impairment quite literally leads people to commit impulsive, destructive crimes, including crimes of violence. Intoxicated people are also more likely to cause accidents and to be the victims of accidents, including motor vehicle accidents, than are people whose brains are working without the impairing effects of alcohol and other drugs. Alcohol use is a major cause of violence, although alcohol is so cheap that even the poorest people can get it without committing income-generating crimes. The connection of alcohol use and violence should give the would-be legalizers cause for second thoughts.