Drug a violent criminal for advancement (9)
I believe the answer is:
elevation
'advancement' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'drug a violent criminal' is the wordplay.
'drug' becomes 'e' (e is another name for ecstasy).
'criminal' is an anagram indicator.
'a'+'violent'='aviolent'
'aviolent' is an anagram of 'levation'.
'e'+'levation'='ELEVATION'
'for' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for elevation that I've seen before include "Side of a building; height" , "Architectural drawing" , "Height - promotion" , "Drawing of the external face of a building" , "Height above a given level" .)