Psychosocial aspects of addiction.

ANY serious attempt at an analysis of the problem of narcotic addiction must take into consideration the fact that there exist today two diametrically opposed points of view regarding the etiology and solution to this problem. On the one hand, there is the law enforcement view which approaches the narcotic addiction and all of its attendant problems as a vice involving criminal behavior. The natural consequence of this position, and it has been the dominant one in the United States for forty years, is to punish the addict in the hope that he will be reformed or deterred by the threat of (or actual) incarceration. This hope has been apparently in vain. Incarceration as a matter of fact has been incorporated into the addict's concept of his role. It is no accident that the addict on the street will frequently say to a peer: "I'm about due for a bust (to be arrested)." The current study of addiction in the Chicago area revealed that in its sample population of 400 the average addict between the ages of ten and 25 has spent 15 per cent of his life in prison. There was every indication that these addicts on an average would continue to spend this same proportion of a year (about two months) in a prison setting. The recidivism rate for addicts by even the most conservative estimates is extremely high. Of some 9,000 arrests in Chicago in 1957 for crimes involving narcotic drugs, 86 per cent involved persons with previous drug violations. In addition, at least 50 per cent of those interviewed in this sample indicated that they first became addicted in the years 1955, 1956, and 1957. This is at least four years after the so-called epidemic years (1947-51). These interview results were checked against individual arrest records which confirmed former observations.