ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests a transition from a deterministic criminology to the study of pathways. It highlights the understanding of the deviant trajectory taken by regular cocaine users, particularly by analysing the process embracing the passage from one stage of consumption to the next. The chapter also highlights a drug user's trajectory by three stages: the onset stage; the stage of mutual reinforcement; and the economic-compulsive stage. At the onset stage, drug use is a function of contacts with other users as well as the amount of money available. Two situations may be observed: onset linked to opportunity and onset linked to petty crime. At mutual reinforcement stage, the relation between crime and the consumption of psychoactive substances becomes bidirectional: the use of drugs facilitates criminal activities and the latter help to support the costs of the former. The economic-compulsive stage of the drug/crime relation takes place as the drug addiction trajectory is well advanced.
