Report to Congress - Chapter 5 - Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy - Feb 1995

Report to Congress - Chapter 5 - Cocaine and Federal Sentencing Policy - Feb 1995

Empirical Findings on Crack and Powder Cocaine and Psychopharmacologically Driven Crime The limited evidence to date suggests that psychopharmacologically driven crime may be least important in explaining the association between crime and both crack and powder cocaine. With respect to violent crime, the 1990 Goldstein et al., Homicide Study found that only three of the 118 exclusively crack-related homicides in the study were psychopharmacological in nature, and in two of these three cases the victim precipitated the crime. The study concluded that there were another two psychopharmacologically driven homicides in which crack was involved. However, alcohol also was involved in these two cases, and overall, some 21 alcohol-only homicides were considered to be psychopharmacologically driven - considerably more than for any other drug - suggesting that alcohol may have played a significant role in these two crack-related cases. Id. at 664 (table 2), 665.

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