Assessing the concordance between illicit drug laws on the books and drug law enforcement: Comparison of three states on the continuum from “decriminalised” to “punitive”

Běláčková, Vendula; Ritter, Alison; Shanahan, Marian; Hughes, Caitlin

doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2016.12.013

Cited by 23 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Drug policy reform is often necessary, but not sufficient to achieve public health goals because of gaps in translating formal laws to policing practice [ 52 , 53 ]. To close such gaps, PEP initiatives bundling occupational safety information with relevant legal content demonstrate clear promise.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring improvement in knowledge of drug policy reforms following a police education program in Tijuana, Mexico

et al. 2017

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BackgroundMexico’s 2009 “narcomenudeo reform” decriminalized small amounts of drugs, shifting some drug law enforcement to the states and mandating drug treatment diversion instead of incarceration. Data from Tijuana suggested limited implementation of this harm reduction-oriented policy. We studied whether a police education program (PEP) improved officers’ drug and syringe policy knowledge, and aimed to identify participant characteristics associated with improvement of drug policy knowledge.MethodsPre- and post-training surveys were self-administered by municipal police officers to measure legal knowledge. Training impact was assessed through matched paired nominal data using McNemar’s tests. Multivariable logistic regression was used to identify predictors of improved legal knowledge, as measured by officers’ ability to identify conceptual legal provisions related to syringe possession and thresholds of drugs covered under the reform.ResultsOf 1750 respondents comparing pre- versus post training, officers reported significant improvement (p < 0.001) in their technical understanding of syringe possession (56 to 91%) and drug amounts decriminalized, including marijuana (9 to 52%), heroin (8 to 71%), and methamphetamine (7 to 70%). The training was associated with even greater success in improving conceptual legal knowledge for syringe possession (67 to 96%) (p < 0.001), marijuana (16 to 91%), heroin (11 to 91%), and methamphetamine (11 to 89%). In multivariable modeling, those with at least a high school education were more likely to exhibit improvement of conceptual legal knowledge of syringe possession (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 2.6, 95% CI 1.4–3.2) and decriminalization for heroin (aOR 2.7, 95% CI 1.3–4.3), methamphetamine (aOR 2.2, 95% CI 1.4–3.2), and marijuana (aOR 2.5, 95% CI 1.6–4).ConclusionsDrug policy reform is often necessary, but not sufficient to achieve public health goals because of gaps in translating formal laws to policing practice. To close such gaps, PEP initiatives bundling occupational safety information with relevant legal content demonstrate clear promise. Our findings underscore additional efforts needed to raise technical knowledge of the law among personnel tasked with its enforcement. Police professionalization, including minimum educational standards, appear critical for aligning policing with harm reduction goals.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring improvement in knowledge of drug policy reforms following a police education program in Tijuana, Mexico

et al. 2017

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“…86 There is indeed little in common between the thick cultural description of the historical development of national drug laws 87 and the production of composite harm indexes designed to monitor and compare the social cost of these legal frameworks. 88 Likewise, mapping studies which chart the characteristics of national legal frameworks and lead to the construction of typologies of domestic drug policies 89 require a different methodology from implementation studies which assess the concordance between law in the books and law in action, 90 or from impact-assessment studies which purport to highlight statistical association between specific policies and their population-level effects on the basis of complex statistical model specifications and mathematical formulae. 91 The comparative process itself, a quest for similarities and differences, can be carried out along very different lines.…”

Section: Methods Of Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fixing Transnational Drug Policy: Drug Prohibition in the Eyes of Comparative Law

Colson

2019

Journal of Law and Society

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Drug prohibition allows us to study over a significant period of time how penal provisions framed at a supranational level flow, settle, and unsettle across different countries. At a time of growing doubt about the benefit of criminalization of drug use, it also provides a case‐study as to how epistemic communities may rely on comparative research to identify best practices and promote them as normative alternatives in the face of a long‐entrenched legal dogma. In order to explore these issues, this article looks at the UN drug control system from the perspective of comparative law. It shows how the concept of legal transplant provides a useful tool to understand the limits of transnational criminal law designed on a global scale to tackle the ‘drug problem', and it clarifies the various types of legal comparison that might contribute to addressing this failed transplant.

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“…86 There is indeed little in common between the thick cultural description of the historical development of national drug laws 87 and the production of composite harm indexes designed to monitor and compare the social cost of these legal frameworks. 88 Likewise, mapping studies which chart the characteristics of national legal frameworks and lead to the construction of typologies of domestic drug policies 89 requires a different methodology from implementation studies which assess the concordance between law in the books and law in action, 90 or from impact assessment studies which purport to highlight statistical association between specific policies and their population-level effects on the basis of complex statistical model specifications and mathematical formulae. 91 The comparative process itself, a quest for similarities and differences, can be carried out along very different lines.…”

Section: Methods Of Comparisonmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fixing Transnational Drug Policy: Drug Prohibition in the Eyes of Comparative Law

Colson

2019

SSRN Journal

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Drug prohibition allows us to study over a significant period of time how penal provisions framed at a supranational level flow, settle and unsettle across different countries. At a time of growing doubt about the benefit of criminalisation of drug use, it also provides a case study as to how epistemic communities may rely on comparative research to identify best practices and promote them as normative alternatives in the face of a long entrenched legal dogma. In order to explore these issues, this article looks at the UN drug control system from the perspective of comparative law. It shows how the concept of legal transplant provides a useful tool to understand the limits of transnational criminal law designed on a global scale to tackle the 'drug problem', and it clarifies the various types of legal comparison that might contribute to addressing this failed transplant. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research benefited from a financial support of the Cardiff University International Visiting Fellow scheme and of the Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht in Hamburg. I wish to thank Bhupinder Chimni, Stewart Field and Grégoire Mallard, who provided valuable insight in the course of the research, and Monica Roman for her copy-editing.

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Assessing the concordance between illicit drug laws on the books and drug law enforcement: Comparison of three states on the continuum from “decriminalised” to “punitive”

Cited by 23 publications

References 34 publications

Measuring improvement in knowledge of drug policy reforms following a police education program in Tijuana, Mexico

Measuring improvement in knowledge of drug policy reforms following a police education program in Tijuana, Mexico

Fixing Transnational Drug Policy: Drug Prohibition in the Eyes of Comparative Law

Fixing Transnational Drug Policy: Drug Prohibition in the Eyes of Comparative Law

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