Drugs of Abuse and the Elicitation of Human Aggressive Behavior, Peter N.S. Hoaken, Sherry H. Stewart
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London ON, Canada N6A 5C2
Department of Psychology and Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
http://www.ukcia.org/research/AgressiveBehavior.pdf“While cannabis has historically been excoriated for being a social “menace” and for inducing homicidal rages (Julien, 1992),
more contemporary research indicates cannabis-intoxicated individuals are in fact less likely to act aggressively.” (p.10)
“…The effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) (the primary psychoactive component of cannabis) on aggressive behavior have been studied at length, with the preponderance of studies focusing on the acute effects of THC intoxication. The results of these studies suggest that while low doses of THC may slightly increase aggression,
moderate and high doses can suppress or even eliminate aggressive behavior (Myerscough & Taylor, 1986; Taylor, 1976).” (p.10)
As for alcohol and its links to violence:
“Conventional wisdom tells us that individuals who are under the influence of alcohol will act aggressively. This is a situation in which conventional wisdom is likely correct—crime studies consistently implicate alcohol intoxication as one of the most significant factors in violent behavior. In large-scale review of 26 studies, involving 11 countries, it was determined that 62% of offenders convicted of a violent crime had been consuming alcohol shortly before committing the crime in question (Murdoch, Pihl, & Ross, 1990).
Alcohol was more than twice as likely to be a contributing factor to violent crimes than nonviolent crimes, and in those studies that measured level of alcohol, violence was associated with heavy drinking. Another recent study, conducted with homicidal offenders in Finland, indicated a relationship between severity of alcohol use and violence.” (p.3)
“Alcohol consumption has also been associated with a wide range of types of violence, including but not limited to sexual aggression (Parks & Zetes-Zanatta, 1999; Seto & Barbaree, 1995; Testa, 2002), family and marital violence (Caetano, Schafer, Fals-Stewart, O’Farrell, & Miller, 2003; Leonard & Jacob, 1988; Leonard & Senchack, 1996), child abuse (Kaufman-Kantor & Straus, 1990), and suicide (Brent, Perper, & Allman, 1987). While crime studies of this sort are purely correlational and thus open to interpretation, manipulative controlled laboratory studies have confirmed alcohol’s role in aggressive behavior. There are now several relevant meta-analyses of experimental studies of the alcohol–aggression relationship, all of them concluding that
even moderate doses of alcohol increase a participant’s likelihood of acting aggressively (Bushman, 1993, 1996; Bushman & Cooper, 1990; Hull & Bond, 1986; Ito, Miller, & Pollock, 1996; Steele & Southwick, 1985).” (p.4)
Emphasis using
bold font all mine.
