The study examined the distribution of various forms of drug problems across 36 big-city neighborhoods and probed the nature and extent of organized community responses to drugs. It tested two contradictory hypotheses about the effect that neighborhood drug problems should have on communities: that they should either stimulate or undermine organized community action. The 198 informants for the study were asked to describe the target neighborhoods with respect to income, race, characteristic crime problems, and recent neighborhood trends. The data suggest that drug problems in a community stimulate confrontational forms of community involvement against drugs. The study also re-examined research on the social and economic correlates of community activism. Unlike a great many prior investigations of crime prevention, the study found that poor and minority neighborhoods were better represented by confrontational tactics. This result challenges the implication of past research on crime prevention. Multivariate analyses show that a third factor -- the organizational capacity of the community -- also stimulates confrontational activism. 5 tables, 2 figures, and 13 references