The drugs-violence nexus among American and Canadian youth

This paper examines the relationship between drug use and violence among representative samples of students in the United States and Ontario, Canada. Canada has significantly lower levels of violent crime than the United States, but students report similar rates of drug use. Using logistic regression analysis, we find a similar relationship between drug use and violence among adolescents in the two countries. All the drugs considered-cannabis, cocaine, and alcohol binge drinking-are significantly related to violent behavior; whether the perpetrator or the victim. The most noteworthy difference may be that in Ontario, drug use appears to be even more highly correlated with violence than in the United States.