Auras of Detection: Power and Knowledge in Drug Prohibition

Abstract

Drug checking is an evidence-based strategy for overdose prevention that continues to operate (where it operates) in a legal “gray zone” due to the legal classification of some drug checking tools as drug paraphernalia—the purview of law enforcement, not public health. This article takes the emergence of fentanyl in the U.S. drug supply as a starting point for examining two closely related questions about drug checking and drug market expertise. First, how is the epistemic authority of law enforcement over the material realities of the drug market produced? Second, in the context of that authority, what are the socio-political implications of technologically advanced drug checking instruments in the hands of people who use drugs? The expertise that people who use drugs maintain about the nature of illicit drug market and how to navigate the illicit drug supply has long been discounted as untrustworthy, irrational, or otherwise invalid. Yet, increased access to drug checking tools has the potential to afford the knowledge produced by people who use drugs a technological validity it has never before enjoyed. In this article, I engage with theories of knowledge production and ontological standpoint from the field of science, technology, and society studies to examine how law enforcement produces and maintains epistemic authority over the illicit drug market and to explore how drug checking technologies enable new forms of knowledge production. I argue that drug checking be viewed as a form of social resistance against law enforcement’s epistemological authority and as a refuge against the harms produced by drug criminalization.

A distributed model to expand the reach of drug checking

“…The emergence of community drug checking is not a coordinated response and has rarely been spearheaded by public health as a publicly funded, comprehensive overdose prevention service (Carroll, 2021; Palamar et al , 2019; Peacock et al , 2021). Rather, what exists is a scattering of pilot projects, research initiatives, grassroots and sometimes unsanctioned services.…”

Challenges for drug checking services in Scotland: a qualitative exploration of police perceptions

“…Policing responses to services, even amongst those which exist within the same legislative framework, differ according to the 'unique implementation contexts' of services, including whether the surrounding area is undergoing gentrification and the extent of open-air drug scenes [18,55]. This highlights that police support-in-principle for harm reduction services may not always translate into supportin-practice, depending on the level of pressure on police to respond to community concerns [6,8,55]. Participants in our study discussed the use of police liaison officers to mediate potential tensions between communities and DCS.…”

“…The first relates to the legality of the service itself, and the legal protection afforded to staff. Services operate with different levels of protection in this regard, ranging from explicit legislation or 'legal exemptions' protecting their operation, to varying degrees of informal, tacit acceptance by local police forces [5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. The second relates to the protection of clients from being charged for drug offences by police when entering, leaving, and travelling to services [12].…”

“…One clear exception is the Netherlands, where there is an agreement with the public prosecutor that people will not be prosecuted for possession when trying to access DCS [15]. However, generally, DCS rely on police discretion and informal agreements, leaving prospective clients potentially vulnerable to criminalisation [5,6,8]. Despite the lack of explicit legal protection for those accessing the service, there is little in the literature exploring policing practices in the vicinity of DCS and limited available information on how such practices vary across jurisdictions.…”

Everywhere and for everyone: proportionate universalism as a framework for equitable access to community drug checking

“…Broader structural policy interventions such as decriminalization are needed to address this context and would reduce barriers to drug checking. Drug checking's mandate and messaging should also reflect universal principles of a right to know and quality control, rather than solely detecting and reporting risks and harms [9,51]. An exclusive focus on the risks of substances and mitigating harms in drug checking messaging feeds into stigmatization and is less accepting of substance use that is not as inherently harmful.…”