Dr. Jesse J. Norris
Dr. Jesse J. Norris, an associate professor of Criminal Justice at SUNY Fredonia, had an article published recently.
The article documented associations between rarely used drugs like PCP and psychedelic drugs like LSD with arrest and self-reported criminal behavior.
Entitled, “Substance use predictors of arrest and self-reported criminal behavior in the United States: The role of psychedelics and rarely used drugs,” it was published in Journal of Psychopharmacology.
The study, which analyzed over 500,000 responses from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, found that recent PCP use was strongly associated with several measures of violent crime. The results for psychedelics were mixed: psilocybin use was associated with decreased odds of arrest for several offenses, but the use of peyote, DMT, and some related drugs was associated with increased odds of arrest, and LSD and salvia were associated with increased odds of some offenses but decreased odds of others.
Dr. Norris noted that the findings suggest that more research is needed to understand whether and how the drugs can contribute to criminal behavior.
