Is there a strong correlation between people who commit

[raccoon]

burglaries and armed robberies and the likelihood of them being drug users?

[left-of-center2012]

1. I don't know about "strong"

But I've often heard or read in news reports that someone arrested had committed the crime(s) to pay for their drug addiction.

[Warpy]

2. Britain had a pilot program in the 70s-80s that ran for 10 years

wherein they registered hard core addicts and supplied them with a steady dose of their drug of choice.

By the end of the program, all addicts were working, street crime had declined by 80%, and 50% of the former hard core addicts had simply tapered themselves off the drugs and were clean.

The program was not expanded or extended, probably because of Thatcher preferring the punitive approach.

The results, however, spoke for themselves.

[cherokeeprogressive]

3. Magic 8 Ball says "Signs point to yes". nt

[auntpurl]

4. The other way around

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1360-0443.1989.tb00786.x/abstract (it's a scholarly journal article, but you can read the abstract)

Heavy opioid misusers are more likely to commit crimes, but crimes are not more likely to be committed by heavy opioid misusers. (Also, it depends on the crimes.)

However, taking context into account, to wit:

1. Opioid misusers are more likely to come from poorer backgrounds
2. Opioid misusers are more likely to have experienced childhood abuse
3. Opioid misusers are less likely to have access to services that can help them
4. Opioid misusers often have a "dual diagnosis": addiction and a mental health issue together

You do end up with a lot of drug misusers committing crimes that may or may not be drug-related.

Disclaimer: I have worked in prisons with substance abuse misusers.

[Igel]

5. Define "strong."

This report (Australian) finds that 1/5 to 1/3 of robberies have the perps saying money for drug is a significant favor. 2x the % for food.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/policy-and-research/illicit_drug_use_and_criminal_behavior_literature_review_2010.pdf finds all kind of methodological problems with studies, but that's probably because it's not happy with the results of the lit survey and the implications. It reports percentages typically in the 20s or low 30s for chronic drug users and robbery, about 10% points less for "predatory crime." The problems are real--most of the time there's not just one factor predisposing a person to commit a crime. But for all that, dissing studies because it can't ascribe a percentage of robberies or crimes against persons to causality "chronic drug use" in isolation is pushing to the point of inanity.

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/DRRC.PDF
This is from the '90s, when drug use was more of a problem and trying to sort out what to do about it in terms of the "war on drugs." It's numbers aren't out of line with prior years or numbers from 15 years later, however. Alcohol, not good. Mix in weed and coke and it's worse.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4070162/
This flips the script. It looks not at # of robberies with drug use as a predisposing factor but at convicted robbers who were drug abusers prior to conviction. Numbers are stunning, and while they say that alcohol has the "highest relationship" with aggressive crimes I suspect that's because the categories are alcohol alone, mixed drugs/alcohol, and drugs alone. Notice that this is the page that goes directly to your question: The answer is, "Yes." Most of the others have that entailed, given population statistics, but this one flat-out answers it.

http://www.policyalmanac.org/crime/archive/drug_related_crime.shtml
It's a page linked to by Wiki. Don't have time or interest to peruse it.

The one stat I found most striking was the % of arrestees who said they stole to get money for drugs versus stealing to get money for food.