The activities of authorised agencies such as police, customs, border services, and investigative bodies to enforce drug control laws and address criminal activities related to the production, trafficking, and distribution of illicit substances. These activities may include investigations, intelligence gathering, interdiction, and collaboration with national and international partners to disrupt organised crime networks. Law enforcement plays an important role in protecting public safety and maintaining the rule of law, and is most effective when coordinated with broader public health, prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts as part of a balanced and comprehensive response to substance use.
Law Enforcement
Changing Patterns of Substance Misuse in Adult Prisons and Service Responses
Inspection findings were supplemented by fieldwork in eight prisons in 2014 to generate an overall picture of drug use and responses to it in prisons in England and Wales. In the face of rapidly changing and varied drug use patterns, policy...
The Effectiveness of Illegal Drug Interventions
This Health Research Board document reviews evidence on the effectiveness of interventions in the areas of prevention, harm reduction and long-term recovery from addiction to illegal drugs. It asks which interventions are effective for...
How to Tackle America’s Opioid Crisis?
Much the result of a poor understanding of how to treat chronic pain, the United States has in recent years been rocked by an unprecedented drug crisis: The opioid epidemic. Opioids include drugs derived from opium, such as heroin, as well...
Fentanyl Isn’t Just Deadly for Drug Users: Police Are Getting Sickened
This article describes how fentanyl is affecting police officers and medical examiners across the US as they try to investigate it. Read more...
N.E. Fentanyl Deaths 'Like No Other Epidemic' - Boston Globe
Mexican cartels are delivering vast quantities of the inexpensive and powerful synthetic drug fentanyl to New England, causing the highest rate of fentanyl-related deaths in the nation while creating a plague that the area’s top drug...
Alcohol Treatment Matrix Row 5: Safeguarding the Community
Time to consolidate the lessons of the course’s last five instalments about treatment intended to safeguard the community, the final row of the Alcohol Treatment Matrix. A common theme is the contradiction between treatment centred on the...
ISSUP at the 22nd Annual National Institute on Drug Abuse International Forum
The 22nd Annual National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) International Forum was held in Montreal, Canada from June 16th – 19th, 2017.
Long Lasting Effects of Chronic Heavy Cannabis Abuse
Abstract Background and Objectives The purpose of this study was to evaluate the extent of short-term memory impairment and schizophrenia-like symptoms in heavy and systematic cannabis users and the association between the severity of abuse...
Drug Misuse and Dependence: UK Guidelines on Clinical Management
Often called the Orange Book, this is guidance for clinicians treating people with drug problems. This 2017 version offers new guidelines on: prison-based treatment new psychoactive substances and club drugs mental health co-morbidity...
SAMHSA Opioid Overdose Prevention Toolkit
This toolkit offers strategies to health care providers, communities, and local governments for developing practices and policies to help prevent opioid-related overdoses and deaths. Access reports for community members, prescribers...