Research published in Journal of Psychopharmacology This suggests that different substances have very different associations with criminal behavior and police arrests. The study shows that some psychedelics, such as psilocybin, tend to be associated with lower arrest rates, while other substances, such as PCP and GHB, show strong associations with violent and nonviolent crimes. These findings provide evidence that the effects of drugs on society are not uniform and are highly dependent on the specific substance being used.
Jesse J. Norris, an associate professor of criminal justice at the State University of New York at Fredonia, conducted the study to examine the role of substances that scientists have less studied in connection with crime. He found that many studies focused on common drugs such as alcohol and cannabis, but little attention to chemicals like phencyclidine, also known as PCP. He wanted to investigate how these less common substances were linked to both police arrests and crimes that people reported themselves.
Norris explained that two specific motivations led him to explore this topic. “Firstly, PCP is stereotypically associated with extreme violence, and there are certainly some anecdotes that support that, such as people under the influence of PCP committing cannibalism or decapitating someone,” Norris said. He found that there was little systematic research on PCP and no widespread agreement on the association between PCP and violence.
Since the National Survey on Drug Use and Health collects data on criminal activity and PCP use, he decided to test the association between the two. The survey is a nationally representative survey, meaning it surveyed tens of thousands of Americans, designed to reflect the demographics of the entire country. Norris intended to see if the violent stories associated with PCP were reflected in the larger population.
The second reason for the study relates to recent evidence suggesting that psilocybin use is associated with a decreased likelihood of being arrested for various crimes. While these findings are interesting, Norris thought the logical next step was to conduct a broader analysis. This analysis incorporates all hallucinogens and all available means of criminal activity.
“Therefore, this study, based on responses from more than 500,000 U.S. residents from 10 years of NSDUH data, examined the association of each psychedelic drug with a variety of outcomes, including arrests for several different crimes and self-reported criminal behavior such as assaulting others and repeated theft,” Norris explained.
He noted that this type of research is important because psychedelics are becoming increasingly popular among researchers and the general public. He believes that a good evidence base is needed to understand the potential effects of psychedelics on people’s behavior.
Researchers used data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health collected between 2014 and 2023. This resulted in a total sample size of 544,740 people. The survey asks participants about their drug use at various points in time, such as within the past month, within the past year, or at any point in their lives. They will also ask if they have ever been arrested for a variety of crimes, including assault, theft, and drunk driving.
Additionally, the survey includes questions about admitting to having committed a crime, such as selling drugs or assaulting someone, even if you were not arrested. To analyze this information, Norris used a method called multivariable logistic regression. This is a statistical tool used to predict the likelihood of an event, such as an arrest, based on a variety of factors.
In this research, results are often presented as adjusted odds ratios. Odds ratios are a way to compare whether the probability of a particular event is higher or lower in one group than in another group. An odds ratio greater than 1 indicates an increased likelihood. Less than 1 indicates decreasing likelihood. The word “adjusted” means that researchers consider factors such as age, gender, income, and education level to ensure that these variables do not distort the results.
This finding provides evidence that PCP is strongly associated with violence. “This study found that people who used PCP in the last month were more than 10 times as likely to have been arrested for a serious violent crime in the past year,” Norris said. Serious violent crimes include serious crimes such as murder, rape, and aggravated assault.
“These days PCP users are also much more likely to have been arrested for a sex crime or to have admitted to assaulting several people in the past year,” Norris told SciPost. Although researchers are unsure whether PCP causes these behaviors, these findings suggest a close link between PCP use and violent crime. Although PCP use is fairly rare and most violent crimes are not related to PCP, the authors suggest that it is worth considering whether some violence could be prevented by interventions for PCP users.
GHB, another rarely used substance, also showed a strong association with criminal activity. GHB is a central nervous system depressant and is sometimes used as a club drug. The study suggests that GHB users are much more likely to be arrested for crimes such as arson, burglary, burglary, and fraud.
One finding regarding GHB was particularly unexpected for researchers. “We did not expect that the association between certain drugs and certain crimes would be so strong,” Norris admitted. “For example, women who have used GHB in the past year are more than 100 times more likely to be arrested for a sex crime than non-GHB users.” However, he noted that some of these effect sizes may be misleadingly large due to the small number of users who participated in the study.
Focusing on psychedelics yielded more diverse results than previous studies. Psilocybin was associated with a decreased likelihood of several different types of arrest. People who had used psilocybin at some point in their lives were less likely to be arrested for assault, robbery, theft, or fraud.
“Today, many people are optimistic about the potential for psychedelic drugs like psilocybin to positively influence people’s emotions and behavior,” Norris said. “However, the results of my research on psychedelics have been mixed, suggesting that this optimism may be premature, at least when it comes to the effects of psychedelics on criminal behavior.”While psilocybin showed a protective association, other psychedelics with very similar effects on the brain showed very different results.
For example, a group of drugs called tryptamines, including DMT and a synthetic drug called “foxy” (5-MeO-DiPT), were associated with an increased risk of arrest. Users of these drugs were much more likely to be arrested for arson or robbery. Other drugs, such as LSD and a plant called Salvia divinorum, showed mixed results, with higher odds of some crimes and lower odds of others.
“Similar to previous research, my study found that psilocybin was often associated with a decreased likelihood of arrest,” Norris explained. “But other psychedelics, which have very similar effects on the brain, have had very different results, either increasing the odds of arrest overall, or increasing the odds of some crimes and decreasing the odds of others.” He suggested that factors such as the type of people using these drugs and the social context in which they are used, rather than the effects of the substances themselves, may be driving these results.
Social context refers to the environment, people, and culture surrounding drug use. This is often referred to as “settings”. Norris noted that although the study took into account variables such as education and income, socio-economic confounds may remain. Socioeconomic confounding refers to differences in economic or social status that could not be measured in the study.
“For example, psilocybin may induce psychological changes that reduce criminal behavior,” Norris said. “But psilocybin may not have such an effect, and psilocybin users simply tend to be the type of people who are less likely to be arrested in the first place.” This means the drug may not be the cause of the lower arrest rate. Rather, people who choose to use it may already be less likely to commit crimes.
The study also investigated how these patterns changed for youth under 18 years of age. For these young people, psychedelics had almost no protective effect. Instead of being associated with fewer arrests, psychedelic use by minors was often associated with an increased risk of arrest or violent behavior.
“Additionally, the fact that psilocybin is associated with a lower likelihood of arrest for adults but not for juveniles, and that it is associated with a decreased likelihood of arrest for whites but not for African Americans, suggests that it may not be psilocybin itself that is influencing people’s behavior,” Norris said. This finding regarding race is consistent with previous research suggesting that minorities are less likely to benefit from psychedelics. This is often due to structural racism and various social pressures rather than biological differences.
One of the most notable results concerned cannabis. “Although cannabis was not the focus of the study, we were surprised to find that cannabis use was consistently associated with higher odds of arrest and self-reported criminal behavior,” Norris said. Cannabis use measures have the highest odds ratios for many types of crime, providing evidence against the idea that cannabis use is unrelated to criminal behavior.
There are some important caveats that readers should keep in mind to avoid misunderstandings. “It is important to point out that a statistically significant association between a particular drug and a particular crime, even a large association that increases the odds by a factor of 10, does not necessarily mean that the drug is causing the criminal behavior,” Norris cautioned. “Whether that’s the case requires further research.”
Although the study is survey-based, it has limitations because people don’t always remember or report their actions accurately. It is also difficult to know whether drug use occurred before or after the crime. Norris noted that the next logical step for this study would be to conduct a similar analysis using more detailed variables regarding psychedelic use. This includes finding out how recently or frequently participants used each psychedelic.
“I’m currently working on one such project involving a single psychedelic drug,” Norris said of future plans. This upcoming study may help scientists understand whether the timing and frequency of drug use alters its relationship to crime. So far, the study highlights that the relationship between matter and law is highly complex and dependent on many social and chemical factors.
The study, “Drug Use Predictors of Arrests and Self-Reported Criminal Behavior in the United States: The Role of Psychedelics and Rarely Used Drugs,” was authored by Jesse J. Norris.
