Stimulant Use: Harm Reduction, Treatment, and Future Directions
In fact, more Americans use illegal stimulant drugs than all opioids combined, and recent data suggests they’re significantly contributing to our skyrocketing drug overdose deaths.
In fact, more Americans use illegal stimulant drugs than all opioids combined, and recent data suggests they’re significantly contributing to our skyrocketing drug overdose deaths.
We convened 25 researchers in the field of drug policy research who reflected diverse disciplines, points in their career, institutional settings, methodological approaches, and content areas. Over the course of the day, attendees described what constrains effective drug policy research.
Through panel discussions and workshop activities, attendees examined how researchers can best engage and collaborate with community-based organizations and people who use drugs in ways that are ethical and respectful of their expertise.
This report examines one strategy – “drug-induced homicide” – that the evidence suggests is intensifying, rather than helping, the problem and calls for leaders to turn toward proven measures to address rapidly increasing rates of overdose deaths.
Historically, when a “drug problem” is seen as affecting primarily Black and Brown communities, government intervention focuses on law enforcement. Over the past 40 years, this has resulted in the incarceration of massive, unprecedented numbers of people, primarily people of color.
The 2015 report Above the Law: An Investigation of Civil Asset Forfeiture Abuses in California is a multi-year, comprehensive look at asset forfeiture abuses in California. It reveals the troubling extent to which law enforcement agencies have violated state and federal law.
The 2011 report Drug Courts Are Not the Answer finds that drug courts are an ineffective and inappropriate response to drug law violations. It calls for reducing the role of the criminal justice system in responding to drug use by expanding demonstrated health approaches, including harm reduction and drug treatment, and by working toward the removal of criminal penalties for drug use.
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