Youth gangs have been part of the U.S. urban landscape for over 200 years. From the earliest mentions of gangs in the social commentaries of post-Revolutionary War America, gangs have been linked to the use and trafficking of illicit intoxicants. In the late eighteenth century, for example, gangs such as the Fly Boys, the Smith's Vly gang, and the Bowery Boys were well known in the streets of New York City (Sante, 1991). As European immigration increased in the early nineteenth century, gangs such as the Kerryonians (from County Kerry in Ireland) and the Forty Thieves formed in the overcrowded slums of the Lower East Side (of New York City). Gangs proliferated quickly in that time, with such colorful names as the Plug Uglies, the Roach Guards, the Hide-Binders (comprised mainly of butchers), the Old Slippers (a group of shoemakers' apprentices) and the Shirt Tails...