The Experts below are selected from a list of 360 Experts worldwide ranked by ideXlab platform
Letizia Paoli - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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if supply oriented Drug Policy is broken can harm reduction help fix it melding disciplines and methods to advance international Drug control Policy
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2012Co-Authors: Victoria A Greenfield, Letizia PaoliAbstract:Critics of the international Drug control regime contend that supply-oriented Policy interventions are not just ineffective, but they also produce unintended adverse consequences. Research suggests their claims have merit. Lasting local reductions in opium production are possible, albeit rare; but, unless global demand shrinks, production will shift elsewhere, with little or no effect on the aggregate supply of heroin and, potentially, at some expense to exiting and newly emerging suppliers. The net consequences of the international Drug control regime and related national policies are as yet unknown. In this paper, we consider whether “harm reduction,” a subject of intense debate in the demand-oriented Drug Policy community, can provide a unifying foundation for supply-oriented Drug Policy, one capable of speaking more directly to Policy goals. Despite substantial conceptual and technical challenges, we find that harm reduction can provide a basis for assessing the net consequences of supply-oriented Drug Policy, choosing more rigorously among Policy options, and identifying new Policy options. In addition, we outline a practical path forward for assessing harms and Policy options.
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if supply oriented Drug Policy is broken can harm reduction help fix it melding disciplines and methods to advance international Drug control Policy
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2012Co-Authors: Victoria A Greenfield, Letizia PaoliAbstract:Critics of the international Drug-control regime contend that supply-oriented Policy interventions are not just ineffective, but, in focusing almost exclusively on supply reduction, they also produce unintended adverse consequences. Evidence from the world heroin market supports their claims. The balance of the effects of Policy is yet unknown, but the prospect of adverse consequences underlies a central paradox of contemporary supply-oriented Policy. In this paper, we evaluate whether harm reduction, a subject of intense debate in the demand-oriented Drug-Policy community, can provide a unifying foundation for supply-oriented Drug Policy and speak more directly to Policy goals. Our analysis rests on an extensive review of the literature on harm reduction and draws insight from other Policy communities' disciplines and methods. First, we explore the paradoxes of supply-oriented Policy that initially motivated our interest in harm reduction; second, we consider the conceptual and technical challenges that have contributed to the debate on harm reduction and assess their relevance to a supply-oriented application; third, we examine responses to those challenges, i.e., various tools (taxonomies, models, and measurement strategies), that can be used to identify, categorize, and assess harms. Despite substantial conceptual and technical challenges, we find that harm reduction can provide a basis for assessing the net consequences of supply-oriented Drug Policy, choosing more rigorously amongst Policy options, and identifying new options. In addition, we outline a practical path forward for assessing harms and Policy options. On the basis of our analysis, we suggest pursuing a harm-based approach and making a clearer distinction between supply-oriented and supply-reduction Policy.
Alex Stevens - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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being human and the moral sidestep in Drug Policy explaining government inaction on opioid related deaths in the uk
Addictive Behaviors, 2019Co-Authors: Alex StevensAbstract:Abstract Background With Drug-related deaths at record levels in the UK, the government faces two potential sources of pressure to implement more effective policies. One source is the individuals and families who are most likely to suffer from such deaths; i.e. working class people living in de-industrialised areas. The other source is experts who argue for different Policy on the basis of research evidences. Aim This article aims to explain why, in the face of these two potential sources of pressure, the UK government has not implemented effective measures to reduce deaths. Method The article uses critical realist discourse analysis of official documents and ministerial speeches on recent British Drug Policy (2016–2018). It explore this discourse through the theoretical lens of Archer's (2000) ideas on ‘being human’ and by drawing on Sayer's (2005) work on the ‘moral significance of class’. Results Members of economically ‘residual’ groups (including working class people who use heroin) are excluded from articulating their interests in ‘late welfare capitalism’ in a project of depersonalising ‘class contempt’ through which politicians cast the people most likely to die as passive, ‘vulnerable’ ‘abjects’. Conservative politicians dismiss ‘evidence-based’ ideas on the reduction of Drug-related death through a ‘moral sidestep’. They defend Policy on the basis of its relevance to conservative moral principles, not effectiveness. This is consistent with the broader moral and political pursuit of partial state shrinkage which Conservative politicians and the social groups they represent have pursued since the 1970s.
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advancing the science methods and practices of Drug Policy research
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2016Co-Authors: Tim Rhodes, Alex Stevens, Alison Ritter, Tom DecorteAbstract:The International Journal of Drug Policy (IJDP) has linked with the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP). The Journal and the Society have entered into a non-exclusive partnership in which ISSDP affiliates with IJDP, making IJDP its official journal. IJDP and ISSDP share a concern for advancing the science, methods and practices of Drug Policy research in a global context. The partnership brings together two key actors in the development and dissemination of research on global Drug policies.
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the Drug Policy ratchet why do sanctions for new psychoactive Drugs typically only go up
Addiction, 2014Co-Authors: Alex Stevens, Fiona MeashamAbstract:It has been much more common for Drugs to be subjected to tighter rather than looser control as Drugs and evidence about their effects have has emerged. We argue that there is in place a Drug Policy ratchet which subjects new psychoactive substances (NPS) to increasing control through the continuation of historical patterns that involve the attribution to emerging Drugs of guilt by three different kinds of association: guilt by deviant association; guilt by lunatic association; and guilt by molecular association. We use our contemporary ethnographic experience of Drug Policy-making to show how these processes continue to be applied to Policy on NPS, alongside selective, narrative use of evidence and the ‘silent silencing’ by absorption of the concept of evidence-based Policy. We show that the Drug Policy ratchet cannot be justified as an example of the precautionary principle in action, as this principle is itself not rationally justified. We conclude that recognition of the Drug Policy ratchet and its mechanisms may help researchers and Policy-makers to improve regulation of NPS.
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Drug Policy harm and human rights a rationalist approach
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2011Co-Authors: Alex StevensAbstract:Background: It has recently been argued that Drug-related harms cannot be compared, so making it impossible to choose rationally between various Drug Policy options. Attempts to apply international human rights law to this area are valid, but have found it difficult to overcome the problems in applying codified human rights to issues of Drug Policy. Method: This article applies the rationalist ethical argument of Gewirth (1978) to this issue. It outlines his argument to the ‘principle of generic consistency’ and the hierarchy of basic, nonsubtractive and additive rights that it entails. It then applies these ideas to Drug Policy issues, such as whether there is a right to use Drugs, whether the rights of Drug ‘addicts’ can be limited, and how different harms can be compared in choosing between policies. Result: There is an additive right to use Drugs, but only insofar as this right does not conflict with the basic and nonsubtractive rights of others. People whose freedom to choose whether to use Drugs is compromised by compulsion have a right to receive treatment. They retain enforceable duties not to inflict harms on others. Policies which reduce harms to basic and nonsubtractive rights should be pursued, even if they lead to harms to additive rights. Conclusion: There exists a sound, rational, extra-legal basis for the discussion of Drug Policy and related harms which enables commensurable discussion of Drug Policy options.
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Drugs crime and public health the political economy of Drug Policy
2010Co-Authors: Alex StevensAbstract:Drugs, Crime and Public Health provides an accessible but critical discussion of recent Policy on illicit Drugs. Using a comparative approach - centred on the UK, but with insights and complementary data gathered from the USA and other countries - it discusses theoretical perspectives and provides new empirical evidence which challenges prevalent ways of thinking about illicit Drugs. It argues that problematic Drug use can only be understood in the social context in which it takes place, a context which it shares with other problems of crime and public health. The book demonstrates the social and spatial overlap of these problems, examining the focus of contemporary Drug Policy on crime reduction. This focus, Alex Stevens contends, has made it less, rather than more, likely that long-term solutions will be produced for Drugs, crime and health inequalities. And he concludes, through examining competing visions for the future of Drug Policy, with an argument for social solutions to these social problems.
Victoria A Greenfield - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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if supply oriented Drug Policy is broken can harm reduction help fix it melding disciplines and methods to advance international Drug control Policy
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2012Co-Authors: Victoria A Greenfield, Letizia PaoliAbstract:Critics of the international Drug control regime contend that supply-oriented Policy interventions are not just ineffective, but they also produce unintended adverse consequences. Research suggests their claims have merit. Lasting local reductions in opium production are possible, albeit rare; but, unless global demand shrinks, production will shift elsewhere, with little or no effect on the aggregate supply of heroin and, potentially, at some expense to exiting and newly emerging suppliers. The net consequences of the international Drug control regime and related national policies are as yet unknown. In this paper, we consider whether “harm reduction,” a subject of intense debate in the demand-oriented Drug Policy community, can provide a unifying foundation for supply-oriented Drug Policy, one capable of speaking more directly to Policy goals. Despite substantial conceptual and technical challenges, we find that harm reduction can provide a basis for assessing the net consequences of supply-oriented Drug Policy, choosing more rigorously among Policy options, and identifying new Policy options. In addition, we outline a practical path forward for assessing harms and Policy options.
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if supply oriented Drug Policy is broken can harm reduction help fix it melding disciplines and methods to advance international Drug control Policy
International Journal of Drug Policy, 2012Co-Authors: Victoria A Greenfield, Letizia PaoliAbstract:Critics of the international Drug-control regime contend that supply-oriented Policy interventions are not just ineffective, but, in focusing almost exclusively on supply reduction, they also produce unintended adverse consequences. Evidence from the world heroin market supports their claims. The balance of the effects of Policy is yet unknown, but the prospect of adverse consequences underlies a central paradox of contemporary supply-oriented Policy. In this paper, we evaluate whether harm reduction, a subject of intense debate in the demand-oriented Drug-Policy community, can provide a unifying foundation for supply-oriented Drug Policy and speak more directly to Policy goals. Our analysis rests on an extensive review of the literature on harm reduction and draws insight from other Policy communities' disciplines and methods. First, we explore the paradoxes of supply-oriented Policy that initially motivated our interest in harm reduction; second, we consider the conceptual and technical challenges that have contributed to the debate on harm reduction and assess their relevance to a supply-oriented application; third, we examine responses to those challenges, i.e., various tools (taxonomies, models, and measurement strategies), that can be used to identify, categorize, and assess harms. Despite substantial conceptual and technical challenges, we find that harm reduction can provide a basis for assessing the net consequences of supply-oriented Drug Policy, choosing more rigorously amongst Policy options, and identifying new options. In addition, we outline a practical path forward for assessing harms and Policy options. On the basis of our analysis, we suggest pursuing a harm-based approach and making a clearer distinction between supply-oriented and supply-reduction Policy.
Peter Reuter - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Drug Policy and the public good a summary of the second edition
Addiction, 2019Co-Authors: Thomas F Babor, Jonathan P Caulkins, Benedikt Fischer, David R Foxcroft, Isidore Obot, Jurgen Rehm, Peter Reuter, Robin Room, Maria Elena Medinamora, Ingeborg RossowAbstract:The second edition of Drug Policy and the Public Good presents up-to-date evidence relating to the development of Drug Policy at local, national and international levels. The book explores both ill ...
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addiction research centres and the nurturing of creativity rand s Drug Policy research center
Addiction, 2011Co-Authors: Jonathan P Caulkins, Peter Reuter, Rosalie Liccardo PaculaAbstract:In September 1989, amid an emotional and ideological debate regarding problematic Drug use in the United States and the ‘war on Drugs’, RAND’s Drug Policy Research Center (DPRC) was created through private foundation funds. The purpose of this new research center was to provide objective empirical analysis on which to base sound Drug Policy. Twenty years later, RAND’s DPRC continues its work, drawing on a broad range of analytical expertise to evaluate, compare and assess the effectiveness of a similarly broad range of Drug policies. More than 60 affiliated researchers in the United States and Europe make up the Center, which attempts to provide objective empirical analyses to better inform Drug policies within the United States and abroad. This paper provides a look back at the creation, evolution and growth of the Center. It then describes how the Center operates today and how it has maintained its clear identity and focus by drawing on the analytical capabilities of a talented group of researchers from a broad range of academic
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Drug Policy and the public good
2010Co-Authors: Thomas F Babor, Jonathan P Caulkins, Griffith Edwards, Benedikt Fischer, David R Foxcroft, Keith Humphreys, Isidore Obot, Jurgen Rehm, Peter Reuter, Robin RoomAbstract:Drug Policy and the Public Good presents the accumulated scientific knowledge of direct relevance to the development of Drug Policy on local, national, and international levels. The book explores b ...
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comprar Drug Policy and the public good thomas f babor 9780199557127 oxford university press
2009Co-Authors: Thomas F Babor, Jonathan P Caulkins, Griffith Edwards, Benedikt Fischer, David R Foxcroft, Keith Humphreys, Isidore Obot, Jurgen Rehm, Peter Reuter, Robin RoomAbstract:Tienda online donde Comprar Drug Policy and the Public Good al precio 49,40 € de Thomas F. Babor | Jonathan P. Caulkins | Griffith Edwards | Benedikt Fischer | David R. Foxcroft | Keith Humphreys | Isidore S. Obot | Jurgen Rehm | Peter Reuter | Robin Room | Ingeborg Rossow | John Strang, tienda de Libros de Medicina, Libros de Medicina Familiar y Comunitaria/General - Medicina general
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an analysis of uk Drug Policy
2007Co-Authors: Alex Stevens, Peter ReuterAbstract:Despite the long-standing political prominence of the problem, relatively coherent strategies and substantial investment, the United Kingdom remains at the top of the European ladder for Drug use and Drug dependence. This study by Professor Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland, USA, and Alex Stevens of the University of Kent, England, assesses the evidence relating to the UK Drug problem and analyses the impact of current policies.
Casey Quinn - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Searching for Truth: Internet Search Patterns as a Method of Investigating Online Responses to a Russian Illicit Drug Policy Debate
Journal of Medical Internet Research, 2012Co-Authors: Andrey Zheluk, James Gillespie, Casey QuinnAbstract:Background: This is a methodological study investigating the online responses to a national debate over an important health and social problem in Russia. Russia is the largest Internet market in Europe, exceeding Germany in the absolute number of users. However, Russia is unusual in that the main search provider is not Google, but Yandex. Objective: This study had two main objectives. First, to validate Yandex search patterns against those provided by Google, and second, to test this method's adequacy for investigating online interest in a 2010 national debate over Russian illicit Drug Policy. We hoped to learn what search patterns and specific search terms could reveal about the relative importance and geographic distribution of interest in this debate. Methods: A national Drug debate, centering on the anti-Drug campaigner Egor Bychkov, was one of the main Russian domestic news events of 2010. Public interest in this episode was accompanied by increased Internet search. First, we measured the search patterns for 13 search terms related to the Bychkov episode and concurrent domestic events by extracting data from Google Insights for Search (GIFS) and Yandex WordStat (YaW). We conducted Spearman Rank Correlation of GIFS and YaW search data series. Second, we coded all 420 primary posts from Bychkov's personal blog between March 2010 and March 2012 to identify the main themes. Third, we compared GIFS and Yandex policies concerning the public release of search volume data. Finally, we established the relationship between salient Drug issues and the Bychkov episode. Results: We found a consistent pattern of strong to moderate positive correlations between Google and Yandex for the terms "Egor Bychkov" ( r s = 0.88, P < .001), “Bychkov” ( r s = .78, P < .001) and “Khimki”( r s = 0.92, P < .001). Peak search volumes for the Bychkov episode were comparable to other prominent domestic political events during 2010. Monthly search counts were 146,689 for “Bychkov” and 48,084 for “Egor Bychkov”, compared to 53,403 for “Khimki” in Yandex. We found Google potentially provides timely search results, whereas Yandex provides more accurate geographic localization. The correlation was moderate to strong between search terms representing the Bychkov episode and terms representing salient Drug issues in Yandex–“illicit Drug treatment” ( r s = .90, P < .001), "illicit Drugs" ( r s = .76, P < .001), and "Drug addiction" ( r s = .74, P < .001). Google correlations were weaker or absent–"illicit Drug treatment" ( r s = .12, P = .58), “illicit Drugs ” ( r s = -0.29, P = .17), and "Drug addiction" ( r s = .68, P < .001). Conclusions: This study contributes to the methodological literature on the analysis of search patterns for public health. This paper investigated the relationship between Google and Yandex, and contributed to the broader methods literature by highlighting both the potential and limitations of these two search providers. We believe that Yandex Wordstat is a potentially valuable, and underused data source for researchers working on Russian-related illicit Drug Policy and other public health problems. The Russian Federation, with its large, geographically dispersed, and politically engaged online population presents unique opportunities for studying the evolving influence of the Internet on politics and Policy, using low cost methods resilient against potential increases in censorship. [J Med Internet Res 2012;14(6):e165]
