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
Effect of Initiating Drug Treatment on the Risk of Drug-Related Poisoning Death and Acquisitive Crime among Offending Heroin Users
Abstract Background A recent Cochrane review of randomised trials identified a lack of evidence for interventions provided to drug-using offenders. We use routine data to address whether contact with treatment services reduces heroin users’...
Drug-Treatment Systems in Prisons in Eastern and South-East Europe
This research project on drug-treatment systems in prisons in Eastern and South-East Europe looks in detail into the situation of drug users among criminal justice populations and the corresponding health-care responses in nine countries in...
Characteristics of Persons Who Inject Drugs and Who Witness Opioid Overdoses in Vietnam
Abstract Background Persons who use opioids have a high risk of overdose and associated mortality. In Vietnam, little is known about the characteristics of this population and the persons who are witness to those overdoses. One approach to...
Barriers to Retention in Methadone Maintenance Therapy among People who Inject Drugs in Bangkok
Abstract Background Methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) is a mainstay for treating opioid use disorder and preventing and managing HIV among people who inject drugs (PWID). While previous research suggested low dosing of methadone and high...
Trends in Deaths Involving Heroin and Synthetic Opioids Excluding Methadone, and Law Enforcement Drug Product Reports
Summary What is already known about this topic? Opioid overdose deaths in the United States have been increasing since 1999, initially driven by prescription opioid misuse and more recently by heroin and other illicit opioid use. What is...
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...
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...
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...