BREAKING THE CYCLE OF DRUGS AND CRIME: FINDINGS FROM THE BIRMINGHAM BTC DEMONSTRATION

Research Summary: We compared 137 felony defendants arrested before the implementation of Breaking the Cycle, a pretrial intervention with felony defendants that included drug testing, supervision, and drug treatment as needed, to 245 BTC participants. We found Significant lower rates of arrest and self-reported drug use and crime among BTC participants during the next year.
Policy Implications: Systematic intervention aimed at all drug-involved felony defendants, not just selected defendants, is effective, but may encounter substantial challenges in achieving collaboration across criminal justice agencies, services providers, and levels/branches of government.     

台湾地区毒品戒治与再犯之研究（节选）

反毒、禁毒的刑事政策归纳其中不外“断绝供给、减少需求”也就是“缉毒、戒毒、拒毒”等三大重点。目前 ,台湾地区参与戒毒工作的有医疗、宗教、矫正机关及观护等四大体系。《毒品危害防制条例》于 1998年 5月 2 2日公告施行以来 ,“缉毒”与“拒毒”已有成效 ,使得药物、毒品滥用之情形获得控制 ,毒品犯占整体犯罪人口之比例减缓增长 ,但“戒毒”却无进展。可见戒治与计划之成效有待加以检讨 ,以达到对毒品及药物成瘾者累犯、再犯严重情形之有效控制。     

河南省毒品犯罪的态势及对策

河南省毒品犯罪受国际毒潮的侵袭和国内毒品犯罪的影响,呈现出新的发展态势,主要表现在:毒品犯罪案件持续上升;吸毒人员继续增多,毒品消费市场进一步扩大;毒品犯罪职业化、团体化、网络化、武装化日趋明显;省内外贩毒分子相互勾结犯罪增多,境外毒品向我省渗透加剧等。必须采取相应的对策予以解决。     

构建“禁毒系统工程”体系的思考

禁毒系统工程指从系统思想出发,将禁毒工作视为由相互联系因素所构成的有机整体,运用系统工程的方法进行各项禁毒措施的制定、实施和监督、反馈,并通过国家或各种社会力量来保障实现总体目标的管理方法。其子系统包括禁毒决策系统、禁毒实施系统、禁毒监控系统、禁毒反馈系统四部分。禁毒系统工程体系要有效运作,就要有计划地协调各子系统开展禁毒工作,子系统与禁毒相关工作的管理与控制、设计与开展都必须服从于禁毒系统工程的需求。     

色质联用技术在毒品检验中的应用

毒品检验是打击毒品违法犯罪的一种重要手段,特别是色质联用技术在毒品检验中的广泛使用,拓展了禁毒工作内涵。其优势:1.测定毒品中的各种成分和含量;2.推断藏匿毒品的重量;3.检验毛发中的毒品等。     

The rise and rise of fentanyl in postmortem casework

Forensic toxicology laboratories are navigating a period of time with increasing drug overdose deaths, an opioid epidemic, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the illicit drug market flooded with novel psychoactive substances. In New York City, the Department of Forensic Toxicology has experienced a 56% increase in postmortem casework in the past decade with fentanyl detected in 80% of all overdose deaths. Over a period of 2.5 years, 15,638 postmortem cases were tested for the presence of fentanyl and fentanyl analogs using liquid-chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LCMSMS). Fentanyl was detected in approximately one third of cases and of these 4447 cases with femoral blood. A twofold increase in cases with high concentrations of fentanyl (>100 ng/mL) was observed between 2021 and 2022. The minor metabolite and precursor chemical, 4-ANPP (4-anilino-N-phenethylpiperidine) may help differentiate between illicit and licit fentanyl. 4-ANPP blood concentrations were <10 ng/mL in 98% of the cases and the 4-ANPP:fentanyl ratio was <0.67 for 99.1% of blood specimens. Only six cases had 4-ANPP concentrations higher than the corresponding fentanyl blood concentration. This study also highlights, the changing fentanyl analogs found in postmortem cases since 2016 in NYC with the emergence of fluorofentanyl initially identified in 2020 and continuing to dominate in comparison with the prevalence of other analogs, many of which are no longer detected in casework. The detection of one of the latest drugs to be mixed with fentanyl, namely xylazine, has also increased in prevalence by 36.7% in 2022 compared with 2021.     

War and Gender Inequalities in Health: The Impact of Armed Conflict on Fertility and Maternal Mortality

Recent studies have found significant excess mortality in women during and immediately after armed conflicts. This article directly assesses one of the most likely explanations, namely that war negatively affects reproductive health. Armed conflicts may contribute to sustain high fertility levels through increased social insecurity, loss of reproductive health services, and lower female education. Further, war's deteriorating impact on health infrastructure is expected to increase the relative risk that women die from complications associated with pregnancy and childbirth. These claims are tested in a global time-series cross-national study from 1970 through 2005. Three major findings are reported. First, armed conflicts are associated with higher overall fertility in low-income countries only. Second, maternal mortality rates are elevated, albeit moderately, in conflict countries. Third, conflicts in neighboring countries are associated with lower maternal mortality, possibly indicating that health interventions among refugee and host populations are relatively successful. While addressing one of the least successful UN Millennium Development Goals, this study also responds to the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, in which Article 16 specifically calls for the “Secretary-General to carry out a study on the impact of armed conflict on women and girls.”     

Temperance Culture and the Repression of Scientific Inquiry Into Illegal Drug‐Altered States of Consciousness

American scientific inquiry into the understandings of drug‐altered states of consciousness is underdeveloped primarily because government regulations embedded within a temperance culture has repressed it. Despite preliminary evidence of the therapeutic value of altered states of consciousness associated with the use of illegal drugs to both physical and mental health, science has been able to do little to understand this potential. Within this essay, we examine the influence of this temperance culture on government regulations and its impingement on scientific practice in the study of illegal drug‐altered states of consciousness as the explanation for much of the failure of science to adequately explore these lines of inquiry. Much of our analysis is based upon examples from research in the area of alcohol studies, as the temperance movement arose primarily in response to this particular drug.     

Changing Control of the Open Drug Scenes in Oslo— Crime,Welfare, Immigration Control,or a Combination?

Over the last few years there has been a societal move away from a perception of drug users as criminals to a perception of the users as sick. Contrary to what one may expect from such a change, reported drug crimes against the penal code are at record-high levels. It is the contradictory inherent in these tendencies that will be emphasized and highlighted in this article. The open drug scenes in Oslo and the police control of the scenes have changed. During the last few years there has been a growing element of foreign citizens in the drug scenes, and the police control has focused on the foreigners. Could part of the explanation of the contradictions be that there is a differentiation of how the different users are handled? Are there different forms of social control employed toward Norwegian and foreign actors in the open drug scenes? This article puts forward arguments that this is actually the case, driven by a consistent association of foreign actors in the drug scene with organized crime, and a stricter Norwegian legislation and approach to immigration questions, with a tendency toward a conflation of immigration and criminal law.     

Effects of cocaine and heroin,and their combination,on the development rate of Calliphora vomitoria (Diptera: Calliphoridae)

Insects present on or near decomposing bodies are collected by forensic entomologists and used to estimate the post-mortem interval. Drugs metabolized by a person before death may affect the rate of development of insects feeding on the corpse. This study aimed to determine the effects of cocaine and heroin main metabolites on the development rate of the Calliphora vomitoria (Diptera: Calliphoridae) and their implications on minimum post-mortem interval determination. Groups of 250 eggs each were placed into four separate pots of 150 g of minced pork meat being either un-spiked, or spiked with benzoylecgonine, morphine, or a combination of both. Larval length (mm) and weight (mg) measurements were taken twice daily and the rate of development of the insects’ life cycle was monitored until eclosion. Results show that cocaine-fed larvae developed less in length and weight than the control group. Heroin-fed larvae showed a more fluctuating pattern, being smaller and lighter than the control group for most of their larval cycle, but overtaking them in both parameters towards pupation. Combination-fed larvae seemed to favour the effects of cocaine. The three conditions also had a significant impact on the length of the insects’ life cycle. Cocaine and drug combination treatments increased the length of the second and third instar stages, but led to the shortening of pupation and accelerated eclosion. Conversely, heroin treatment led to lengthier pupation. Interestingly, the effects of the drug combination seemed to mirror more precisely those of cocaine.These findings indicate that both cocaine and heroin, singularly and in combination, have sizable effects on blowflies’ development rates, potentially biasing post-mortem interval estimations.