Nicked: Drug users’ views of drug enforcement

Most countries drug strategies comprise a combination of drug treatment, drug enforcement, and drug prevention. While there has been a tendency in public policy documents over the last few years to emphasise the importance of basing policy on evidence of need and impact, in fact, there is relatively little evidence focused specifically on the impact of drug law enforcement.

In this article, the researchers report on drug users’ views of major drug enforcement operations in their local area. The three drug enforcement operations they were looking at were carried out by the police in three different geographical areas. In each area, they interviewed a snowball sample of local heroin users. Most of those interviewed who had been involved in a drug raid described the experience as shocking, upsetting, and profoundly unsettling.

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