[Drugs and criminal issues: assessment of research in Quebec]

Although research on the link between drugs and crime is not a major concern for many Quebec researchers, the last five years have been the scene of an increasing number of studies on the subject. These studies can be divided in four groups: 1) criminal policies; 2) studies on prevalence; 3) relation between drugs and crime; 4) intervention and its impact. Results of these studies put additional pressure for adequate treatment of addicts having problems with the law. Social workers in rehabilitation centres have thus noticed an increasing number of addicts who had or were going through problems with the law. Yet a great proportion of addicts having problems with the justice system are not reached by rehabilitation services: it is those people who present the most deteriorated bio-social profile. Is it really worthwhile to intervene with this type of clientele? The answer is yes as long they can be kept in treatment sufficiently long. In any case, the simple judiciarization of a person says nothing of his character (e.g. violent, liar or fraudulent) or of his pathology (e.g. psychopath, sociopath ...). In fact, given the illicit nature of certain drugs, the simple fact of using can lead to criminalization. The challenge in research in this field will consist in better defining factors related to perseverance in treatment and therapeutic ingredients associated to the desired impact.