Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs

Earp, Brian D.; Lewis, Jonathan; Hart, Carl L.; Reform, Allied Professionals for Drug Policy

doi:10.1080/15265161.2020.1861364

Cited by 86 publications

(49 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…Stricter, more reliable, more enforceable protections against the impacts of drug criminalization are desperately needed. De-criminalization of substance use remains an effective strategy for resolving these and other related concerns [43,44].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Bronze Age of drug checking: barriers and facilitators to implementing advanced drug checking amidst police violence and COVID-19

Carroll

Mackin²,

Schmidt³

et al. 2022

Harm Reduct J

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Objectives Unpredictable fluctuations in the illicit drug market increase overdose risk. Drug checking, or the use of technology to provide insight into the contents of illicit drug products, is an overdose prevention strategy with an emerging evidence base. The use of portable spectrometry devices to provide point-of-service analysis of the contents of illicit drugs been adopted by harm reduction organizations internationally but is only emerging in the United States. This study aimed to identify barriers and facilitators of implementing drug checking services with spectrometry devices in an urban harm reduction organization and syringe service program serving economically marginalized people who use drugs in Boston, Massachusetts (USA). Methods In-vivo observations and semi-structured interviews with harm reduction staff and participants were conducted between March 2019 and December 2020. We used the consolidated framework for implementation research to identify implementation barriers and facilitators. Results This implementation effort was facilitated by the organization’s shared culture of harm reduction—which fostered shared implementation goals and beliefs about the intervention among staff persons—its horizontal organizational structure, strong identification with the organization among staff, and strong relationships with external funders. Barriers to implementation included the technological complexity of the advanced spectroscopy devices utilized for drug checking. Program staff indicated that commercially available spectroscopy devices are powerful but not always well-suited for drug checking efforts, describing their technological capacities as “the Bronze Age of Drug Checking.” Other significant barriers include the legal ambiguity of drug checking services, disruptive and oppositional police activity, and the responses and programmatic changes demanded by the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusions For harm reduction organizations to be successful in efforts to implement and scale drug checking services, these critical barriers—especially regressive policing policies and prohibitive costs—need to be addressed. Future research on the impact of policy changes to reduce the criminalization of substance use or to provide explicit legal frameworks for the provision of this and other harm reduction services may be merited.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Bronze Age of drug checking: barriers and facilitators to implementing advanced drug checking amidst police violence and COVID-19

Carroll

Mackin²,

Schmidt³

et al. 2022

Harm Reduct J

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…This will likely involve the extensive use of discretion in response to drug possession and offenses related to drug use, and an emphasis on effective treatment in lieu of prosecution. Insofar an entire community's response to substance use and overdose is shaped and constrained by their criminalization (Earp et al, 2021), abandoning the failed "War on Drugs" approach to substance use is critical to addressing the present crisis as we slowly emerge from that of the pandemic (del Pozo & Beletsky, 2020).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

CommunityStat: A Public Health Intervention to Reduce Opioid Overdose Deaths in Burlington, Vermont, 2017–2020

Pozo

2021

Contemporary Drug Problems

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From 2017 to early 2020, the US city of Burlington, Vermont led a county-wide effort to reduce opioid overdose deaths by concentrating on the widespread, low-barrier distribution of medications for opioid use disorder. As a small city without a public health staff, the initiative was led out of the police department—with an understanding that it would not be enforcement-oriented—and centered on a local adaptation of CompStat, a management and accountability program developed by the New York City Police Department that has been cited as both yielding improvements in public safety and overemphasizing counterproductive police performance metrics if not carefully directed. The initiative was instrumental to the implementation of several novel interventions: low-threshold buprenorphine prescribing at the city’s syringe service program, induction into buprenorphine-based treatment at the local hospital emergency department, elimination of the regional waiting list for medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), and the de-facto decriminalization of diverted buprenorphine by the chief of police and county prosecutor. An effort by local legislators resulted in a state law requiring all inmates with opioid use disorder be provided with MOUD as well. By the end of 2018, these interventions were collectively associated with a 50% (17 vs. 34) reduction in the county’s fatal overdose deaths, while deaths increased 20% in the remainder of Vermont. The reduction was sustained through the end of 2019. This article describes the effort undertaken by officials in Burlington to implement these interventions. It provides an example that other municipalities can use to take an evidence-based approach to reducing opioid deaths, provided stakeholders assent to sustained collaboration in the furtherance of a commitment to save lives. In doing so, it highlights that police-led public health interventions are the exception, and addressing the overdose crisis will require reform that shifts away from criminalization as a community’s default framework for substance use.

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“…The paper by Earp, Lewis, and Hart (2021) offers a strong criticism of the so-called "war on drugs." The authors very convincingly argue that the war "has worsened many aspects of public health while disproportionately targeting certain racialized communities."…”

Section: Open Peer Commentariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…London, UK: Transform Drug Policy Foundation. Accessed February 11, 2021. https://transformdrugs.org/ publications/the-alternative-world-drug-report-2ndedition Earp, B. D., J. Lewis, and C. L. Hart. 2021 There were also 76,700 people in federal prison for drug violations in 2018, but more than 99% of them were sentenced for trafficking, not just possession.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The fact that Black and Hispanic populations have disproportionately high incarceration rates for drugs, albeit not quite to the same degree as for other offenses, only adds to the sense of failure. Earp, Lewis, and Hart (2021) raise ethical issues but emphasize the effect on social wellbeing. "[E]ven if racial discrimination in drug arrests, prosecutions, and sentencing could somehow be eliminated, drug prohibition itself would remain unjust and harmful on balance" (5).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Ending the War on Drugs Need Not, and Should Not, Involve Legalizing Supply by a For-Profit Industry

Caulkins

Reuter

2021

The American Journal of Bioethics

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Drug enforcement is unattractive, to put it mildly, particularly in the United States. Few try to defend current U.S. policies, let alone those from before recent reforms.The Bureau of Justice Statistics' report Prisoners in 2019 lays bare the toll (Carson 2020a). At the end of 2018, state prisons held 176,300 individuals whose most serious offense was drug-related. That was 14.1% of all state prisoners, slightly more for Whites (16.3%) and less for Blacks (12.7%). For 3.7% of state prisoners, the most serious offense was drug possession.

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Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs

Cited by 86 publications

References 82 publications

The Bronze Age of drug checking: barriers and facilitators to implementing advanced drug checking amidst police violence and COVID-19

The Bronze Age of drug checking: barriers and facilitators to implementing advanced drug checking amidst police violence and COVID-19

CommunityStat: A Public Health Intervention to Reduce Opioid Overdose Deaths in Burlington, Vermont, 2017–2020

Ending the War on Drugs Need Not, and Should Not, Involve Legalizing Supply by a For-Profit Industry

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