Swedish Drug Policy: A Successful Model?

The shift in Swedish drug policy since around 1980 towards a more strict model has according to the official point of view been successful by comparison with the earlier, more lenient drug policy. However, available systematic indicators show that the prevalence of drug use has increased since around 1980, that the decrease in drug incidence was particularly marked during the 1970s and that some indicators point towards an increase during the 1990s. The shift towards a more strict policy.     

Assessing the Relationship between Immigration Status and Drug Use

The immigration–crime connection has been the basis for numerous immigration policy decisions. However, there are theoretical arguments and empirical evidence both for and against the positive relationship between immigration and crime. Moreover, much of this research has failed to focus specifically on illegal immigrants. The current study examines drug use patterns among 3,050 recently booked arrestees in Maricopa County, Arizona, from April 2007 to September 2008. Using logistic regression, the authors isolate the effects of immigration status on several types of drug use while controlling for relevant individual and situational characteristics. Findings show that illegal immigrants are generally less likely to use drugs when compared to US citizens, with the exception of powder cocaine use. The paper concludes with a discussion of the study's implications for the larger body of research on immigration and crime, as well for immigration and enforcement policy and practice.     

Urban Drug Problems, Policymakers and the General Public

The main focus of this paper is: how strong are people's opinions and policy preferences on the issue of drugs and drug users influenced by their own exposure to drug problems? From a general population survey conducted in eleven European cities, it is concluded that opinions and policy preferences are influenced only to a limited degree by exposure. The people who are not exposed to drug problems in their neighbourhood are more strongly inclined towards a repressive approach than the people who are affected by drug nuisance. Personal experiences with illicit drugs play an important part in the viewpoints. People who have tried drugs themselves lean far more strongly towards a health approach. That tendency is even stronger among those who are exposed to drug-related nuisance.     

药品数据保护的比较分析与立法选择

TRIPS协议第39.3条首次在国际层面规定了数据保护的义务。我国是否履行了该义务的入世承诺,是中美之间重要的争议。为缓解相关的国际压力,需要构建合理的数据保护制度,梳理世界各国如何实施第39.3条具有重要的借鉴意义。从数据保护的属性来看,包括禁止占用（商业秘密）、数据专有权和市场专有权等立法模式。在具体制度上,依据TRIPS协议第39.3条,各国详细规定药品数据受保护的条件,重点界定新型化学成分与新药的关系及其范围,明确数据保护的权利内容和保护期限,构建保障公共健康的数据保护限制制度。我国应借鉴这些规定,修订《药品管理法》以完善药品数据的保护。     

Using the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program to further understand the relationship between drug use and gang membership

In this paper, we examine the relationship between drug use and gang membership using data from the Arizona Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program, which collects both self‐report and hard measures (i.e., urinalysis) of drug use. Our analyses revealed that self‐reported recent drug use (i.e., drug use in the past three days) and urinalysis outcomes were similarly associated with the gang‐membership variables. These findings suggest that self‐reported data obtained from gang members is a particularly robust method for gathering information on their recent behavior. Additionally, our results were supportive of the social facilitation model, showing that current gang members were significantly more likely to use marijuana and cocaine compared with former gang members. The implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

Using Booking Data to Model Drug User Arrest Rates: A Preliminary to Estimating the Prevalence of Chronic Drug Use

Public policy is often concerned with the size and characteristics of special populations that are difficult to reach in household surveys. Chronic drug users, who often live outside conventional households, provide the illustration motivating this paper. An alternative to household surveys is to question chronic drug users where they congregate—jails, treatment programs, and shelters, for example. Using such opportunistic data for prevalence estimation raises difficult problems for statistical inference: Study subjects who arrive at the collection points cannot be deemed a random sample of the general population. However, if we could estimate the rates at which chronic drug users arrive at the collection points, then we could use those estimates to weight the sample to represent the population. This paper presents a modified Poisson mixture model used to estimate the stochastic process that accounts for how chronic drug users get arrested. It uses that model to estimate arrest rates for 38 counties using up to sixteen quarters of data from the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring survey.

A Rush to Judgment?: The Origin of the 2001 Australian “Heroin Drought” and its Implications for the Future of Drug Law Enforcement

This paper reassesses the origins of what has been referred to as the Australian “heroin drought.” It looks at the theories that circulated in drug policy circles immediately after the supply shortage was discovered in 2001. It concludes that there may have been a ”rush to judgment” as these inferences were based on unsatisfactory data. As such, none of the theories that were advanced at the time hold true — the shortage was almost certain to have been the result of a Taliban- enforced reduction of Afghanistan grown opium. As interdiction strategies were one of the main theories for the shortage, this might seem disappointing, especially as supply reduction strategies struggle to maintain relevancy against a growing shift to demand reduction and harm reduction strategies. But this situation should not be the case — drug seizures should not be hailed as law enforcement's central strength in this or any other situation. Instead, the strong point of policing should be seen as the broad approach it takes to reduce crime through its attack on all criminal enterprises, not just its assault on a particular criminal sector — like the drug trade.     

Drug policy in Canada--the way forward

This article is one of a series commissioned to mark the tenth anniversary of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, discussing past developments and future directions in areas of policy and law related to HIV/AIDS. It takes a critical look at Canada's drug policy. Despite calls for a balanced approach focused on reducing drug-related harm, Canada's method of dealing with problems of illicit drug use has remained prohibitionist in nature, and by far the greatest part of federal funding is devoted to supply-reduction initiatives. Considerable changes in policy and law are needed to significantly reduce the harms associated with injection drug use in Canada. These include developing a comprehensive and integrated strategy, exploring alternative legal frameworks, piloting innovative approaches to reducing injection-related harms, and investing in broad social policies that address the determinants of injection drug use.     

广东地区打击外国人涉毒犯罪中的难点问题研究

当前，国际上毒品供给能力持续增强，国内毒品需求不断上升，广东地区因其特殊的地理位置、国际化程度高、物流业发达等因素成为我国与国际贩毒集团斗争的桥头堡。影响广东地区外国人实施毒品犯罪的因素复杂，既有国际因素也有地方因素，既受我国外交政策影响也受外国人管理制度影响，同时也受办案程序、办案队伍素质、经费保障等多项因素干扰。探讨在打击外国人涉毒犯罪中存在的问题有利于找准原因，提出解决方法。     

毒品滥用行为网络防控体系的多维建构

毒品滥用行为的网络化为其防控带来了新的命题,传统的防控体系愈发难以适应网络空间的特性,亟需根据空间要素、主体要素、对象要素的新变化构建科学的网络防控体系。在模式维度,应推动刑事政策由"重刑治毒"转向"打早打小",推动法律体系分纵向、横向两个角度实现网络化。在主体维度,应肯定网络服务提供者的独立地位,使其与毒品滥用者、毒品贩卖者、主管部门在毒品滥用行为网络防控中产生有效互动。在客体维度,应当构建毒品与毒品信息并行的二元对象模式,并且推动对象防控的信息化。     

反思严惩毒品犯罪的传统刑事政策

我国历来对毒品犯罪打击甚严,但从长期的实践来看,一味严惩毒品犯罪效果不甚理想。我们应客观地对毒品犯罪进行评价,在打击毒品犯罪时落实宽严相济的刑事政策,严格规范侦查手段,注重打击与教育相结合,从而获得禁毒效果的最大化。     

The Narrow Margins of the Dutch Drug Policy: A Cost-Benefit Analysis

In order to introduce more structure to the debate it seems worthwhile to make a rough cost-benefit analysis of the probable effects of the Dutch drug policy in various areas. A multi-disciplinary analysis of this nature makes it possible to bring together the arguments put forward by the protagonists from various perspectives and to some extent balance them against each other. In a traditional cost-benefit analysis the anticipated effects are assessed in financial terms. This is only possible to a very limited extent when it comes to drug policy. The article is limited to cataloguing as fully as possible the most significant pros and cons of the Dutch drug policy found in the literature on the subject. As a conclusion attention is paid to whether changes such as decriminalisation or re-criminalisation of drug use will yield a better cost-benefit analysis against the background of this overview.     

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

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.     

论广东贩毒犯罪案件的特点及查缉对策

由于广东所处的特殊地理位置和特定的社会经济环境,改革开放以来贩毒犯罪案件较为突出。为了有效地侦查贩毒案件,本文具体分析了贩毒犯罪案件的一些特点,并在此基础上提出缉毒的具体侦查对策。     

On the Resilience of Illegal Drug Markets

This paper argues that the concept of resilience is a fruitful way of understanding the impact of repressive policies on illegal drug markets. For the purpose of this article, resilience is defined as the ability of market participants to preserve the existing levels of exchanges between buyers and sellers, despite external pressure aimed at disrupting the trade. The first part of the paper highlights how some of the core features of illegal drug markets, a decentralized structure and high prices, contribute to increasing their resilience to attacks. The second part develops a framework that can be used to compare markets on the basis of their resilient properties. Some of the empirical and policy implications of the framework are discussed in the conclusion.     

Sentencing Female Drug Offenders: Reexamining Racial and Ethnic Disparities

This study analyzes the relationship between race/ethnicity and sentencing outcomes for female drug offenders in Florida. Grounded in the focal concerns perspective, the research examines whether, in the specific case of drug offenders, minority women are treated more harshly than White women. Interaction models are estimated to determine the influence of drug offense type on racial and ethnic sentencing disparities. Differences in sentencing outcomes are also examined following significant policy changes in the state. In general, the findings suggest that minority female drug offenders are disadvantaged at both the incarceration and sentence length decisions. It also appears that perceptions of dangerousness associated with female offenders' race/ethnicity and offense are incorporated into sentencing authorities' patterned responses. That is, the level of disparity between Black, Hispanic, and White females is conditioned by type of drug offense in the interaction models. The changes in sentencing policy also impact the role of race and ethnicity in sentencing decisions. By analyzing drug offenders exclusively, the current study clarifies the role of race in sentencing decisions for females. In contrast to prior research that examined all offense categories together, the current study suggests that for drug offenses, minority females may, in fact, be deemed more dangerous and culpable than White female drug offenders.