By U.S. Bureau of Justice Assistance

his brief reviews activities undertaken by states to expand the use of telehealth for justice-involved individuals with SUDs during the COVID-19 pandemic, shares lessons learned, and highlights considerations for governors who wish to leverage telehealth services to increase access to SUD treatment for those involved in the justice system. Justice-involved individuals have historically had difficulties accessing treatment for SUDs and co-occurring behavioral health disorders. These difficulties can be mitigated by the benefits provided by telehealth, which include increased access to care for patients, reduced stigma, improved safety for staff, cost reductions for correctional institutions, and overall improvements to quality of care. In recent years, governors and state correctional and health officials have made great strides to improve access to SUD treatment for justice-involved individuals—both those within correctional facilities and on community supervision. Lessons learned for expanding these programs include ensuring access to evidence-based medication and treatment, emphasizing collaboration among justice systems and health partners, developing tailored treatment plans, reducing treatment barriers upon release, staff training, and developing robust program evaluation plans. States that have implemented telehealth services for justice-involved populations recognize several advantages for using them for treatment. States also identified several challenges with using telehealth services. States may consider these challenges and lessons learned when implementing or expanding telehealth programs for justice-involved individuals with SUDs.

Washington, DC: BJA, 2023, 6p.

By of Justice Assistance

Co-occurrence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorder (SUD) are very common, so it is crucial that SUD treatment providers incorporate initial PTSD screening and ongoing PTSD symptom monitoring. Doing so will allow for early intervention opportunities and better long-term outcomes. PTSD and SUDs often occur together, and an individual with diagnosed PTSD-SUD faces several associated long-term health risks. As a result, SUD treatment providers should consider PTSD screening at the beginning of treatment programs as well as ongoing PTSD symptom monitoring. Screening and monitoring for PTSD-SUD will allow for early intervention using strategies that are tailored for a dual diagnosis. Lifetime PTSD is a common psychiatric diagnosis (occurring in approximately 6.1 percent of adults), with even higher rates among rural, low-income communities. PTSD alone is associated with several adverse health outcomes, but individuals with PTSD also are likely to suffer from other disorders, including substance use disorders (SUDs). Individuals with both PTSD and an SUD (PTSD-SUD) report more severe long-term functional impairments than individuals with only one of these diagnoses. In addition, SUD recovery rates are much lower in people with PTSD than in those without.

Washington, DC: BJA, 2023. 6p.

By The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

From July 2021 to June 2023, the Mekong Australia Partnership on Transnational Crime and the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) organized an expert briefing series to enhance debate and collaboration on issues related to organized crime in the Mekong.

The outcome of the two-year briefing series was the creation of opportunities for discussion, collaboration and learning. It brought together a committed set of stakeholders working at the local, regional and international levels to reduce the harms of organized crime and helped build new partnerships while strengthening existing ones. The series enhanced the knowledge base on organized crime in the Mekong and helped bridge the gap between research and policy.

With the support of a dynamic set of stakeholders, the series explored some of the region’s most pertinent and pressing issues and their intersections globally.

Geneva, SWIT: The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime 2023. 69p.

By The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Despite minimal domestic production, gold has figured prominently in Kenya’s recent history. Many Kenyans can still vividly recall the ‘Goldenberg’ scandal of the 1990s, a gold export and foreign exchange fraud scheme that drained government coffers of a sum exceeding ten percent of Kenya’s GDP at the time.The late 1990s also saw the collapse of Mobutu Sese Seko’s regime in then Zaïre, followed by a devastating half-decade-long regional conflict that resulted in the loss of five million lives, mainly from war-related hunger and disease. Facing external invasion and an internal revolt, Zaïre’s successor state, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), lost control of most of the resource-rich territory in the east of the country. Since then, the smuggling of artisanally mined minerals, including gold, have fuelled an ongoing conflict that in 2022 reached an intensity not seen for a decade. Insurgent groups, pro-government militias and criminal networks all continue to benefit from the tonnes of gold smuggled out of eastern DRC each year. Kenya has long been one of the principal regional transit hubs – along with Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania – for the smuggling of this conflict gold.Almost as lucrative as the smuggling of genuine gold through Kenya are the myriad scams that seek to peddle counterfeit or non-existent quantities of the precious metal to unsuspecting buyers. The targets of these scams are often foreigners travelling to Africa in search of hit-and-run riches. Gold swindles have on occasion escalated into embarrassing diplomatic rows, most notably in 2020 when both the president of Kenya and the main opposition leader were summoned to a meeting by the emir of Dubai over an Emirati company that had been victimized by Kenyan fraudsters. Dubai is by far the most popular destination for smuggled East African gold, due to its status as a tax haven as well as a key aviation hub.The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) conducted extensive interviews with a Kenyan national whose initial career in aviation logistics – specifically the charting of private jets – gradually pulled him into the gold trafficking underworld.During these interviews, this insider provided the GI-TOC with a series of unique insights based on a decade of experience in the East African illicit gold trade. These insights will be presented through several accounts of operations in which our source was involved, ranging from fictitious customs seizures to an attempt by an Israeli businessman to commandeer an aircraft, a German with ‘gold fever’, a month-long airport standoff in the UAE and a visit to an artisanal smelting facility located in the heart of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Taken together, our source’s revelations paint a picture of an illicit economy characterized more by con artistry and double-dealing than genuine commodity trading.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime., 2023. 31p.

By Saša Đorđević

Fuel smuggling is the illegal transport, sale or purchase of petroleum products such as crude oil, petrol, diesel and other refined petroleum products. It has been a persistent illicit trade in the Balkans for over three decades.

In 2022, police and customs of the seven Balkan countries seized more than 3 000 tonnes of illegal fuel, with a retail value of €4.3 million – almost four times more than the value of fuel seized in all of 2021. Fuels are goods subject to high excise and customs duties that smugglers try to avoid paying. Alternatively, smugglers seek to profit by evading embargoes on oil imports and exports. From this perspective, the Balkan countries’ public funds lost at least €1.2 million in 2022 as a result of fuel smuggling.

However, relying solely on seizure data to evaluate the illicit fuel market may lead to misleading conclusions because of law enforcement’s inherent challenge in substantiating the unlawful provenance of fuel. This discrepancy becomes more apparent when considering the estimated scale of the issue. In Bulgaria alone, for example, the projected value of illegal fuel in 2019 reached approximately €0.5 billion, resulting in significant budget losses of €250 million.

In the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Libyan electoral crisis, both of which involved major oil-producing countries, the UN extended measures to combat illicit petroleum exports from Libya in July 2022. The EU also imposed bans on Russian oil in December 2022 and again in February 2023, as part of its response to the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the Balkans became the focus for licit and illicit fuel manoeuvres.This report analyzes the mechanisms of fuel smuggling during times of crisis and instability in the Balkans, considering both internal and external factors that contribute to the overall landscape. It identifies lessons learned from fuel smuggling in the early 1990s and then moves to explain the evolution of this activity with reference to trafficking methods, actors and routes through to 2022. The report also identifies countries in the Balkans at particular risk from fuel smuggling, as well as hotspots that allow illicit trade, particularly on rivers and seas. The report, furthermore, assesses the typical profile of criminal actors active in fuel smuggling. The research is limited to cross-border fuel smuggling operations rather than illegal distribution within a specific country.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2023. 34p.

By James Byrne and Joe Byrne

North Korea relies on the outside world to import fuel.26 With no demonstrated oil reserves and limited domestic refinery capacity, imports of refined petroleum products are vital to the regime’s stability and survival. As in all modern economies, energy—predicated on a constant flow of fuel into the country—underpins North Korea’s domestic and export economy, as well as Pyongyang’s capacity to train and field armed forces and develop weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The international community’s efforts to cap North Korea’s oil and petroleum products imports in 2017 forced Pyongyang to adapt its fuel-procurement strategy. This report finds that North Korea has been engaging organized criminal networks and participating in a regional fuel smuggling market in violation of international sanctions, and that the nation is demonstrating increasingly sophisticated and previously unseen tactics to evade detection. Even by conservative estimates, Pyongyang appears to have successfully bypassed fuel sanctions and exceeded the cap imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) each year since the introduction of the limit.27 Despite the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic and by North Korea’s restrictions on port traffic, analysis of highresolution satellite imagery of oil terminals and import facilities suggests North Korea has once again breached the import cap in 2020. Through analysis of AIS data and satellite imagery, the authors found that the proportion of fuel deliveries to North Korean ports by foreign-flagged tankers is significant and has been increasing.28 This phenomenon raises important questions about the entities behind these sanctions violations, and it calls for scrutiny of how smugglers continue to evade detection and identification while transporting fuel within some of the most heavily monitored waters in the world. In this investigation we find the following: North Korea has tapped into an existing fuel smuggling economy in East Asia to procure fuel at volume. Different national-level regulatory and pricing regimes for fuel in the region create arbitrage opportunities that smugglers have long exploited to generate immense profit. These smugglers divert fuel from the licit market to sell to various customers, one of which is North Korea. Taiwan appears to be a key locus in this regional black market for fuel. The country’s preferential fuel policies price refined petroleum products lower than those of its neighbors, creating opportunities for arbitrage and offering smugglers a cheap and readily available source of fuel. Additionally, several of the networks and entities engaged in DPRK–related fuel smuggling operate from or out of addresses or ports in Taiwan. The country’s waters are also being exploited by illicit actors conducting DPRK-related, ship-to-ship (STS) transfers of fuel in a multilayered shuttle system that bisects both “dirty” vessels traveling directly to North Korea and “clean” vessels discreetly supplying those direct-delivery tankers with fuel on the high seas. North Korea’s illicit fuel supply chain has links to organized crime. Several of the key actors in North Korea’s fuel procurement originate from, and maintain connections to, Fujian province, China and, in particular, the city of Shishi. Shishi and the nearby coastal cities of Fujian province have long been a regional smuggling hub for illicit goods, such as cigarettes, wildlife products, drugs, and fuel. These actors appear to constitute a loose criminal federation whose interests and activities intersect to smuggle fuel to North Korea. A key node in this DPRK fuel procurement network appears to be the Winson Group, a major regional oil trader. The Winson Group is headquartered in Singapore and has offices across East Asia; it has links to several shipping and oil trading companies in the region, as well as businesses registered in secrecy jurisdictions, through which it has connections to possible STS transfers of fuel that ultimately end up in North Korea. The founder of the Winson Group also has a documented history of cigarette and fuel smuggling and alleged connections to illicit DPRK-related commercial activities. This report finds that North Korea’s shipping and maritime sanctions evasion tactics are highly adaptive and growing increasingly sophisticated in response to pressure from and enforcement by the international community. While these outcomes indicate the sanctions regime has complicated and increased the cost of illicit business for North Korea, the demonstrated adaptability of the country’s maritime trade networks also underscores, in dramatic fashion, the growing cost of monitoring, detection, and enforcement. This report also highlights the need for authorities to better explore the connections between North Korea, underground economies, and transnational organized crime, and it adds to the existing but underexplored literature of the country’s links to organized criminal networks. Relying on sanctions to block North Korea’s licit avenues of procurement creates a supply-and-demand dynamic between providers of illicit goods and services—often criminal organizations—and Pyongyang. To stay abreast of North Korea’s evolving tactics for evading sanctions, this report recommends that international, government, and civil regulators proactively monitor criminal networks that provide the country with contraband goods and services, while closing regulatory loopholes in the international sanctions regime, rather than reactively investigating instances of sanctions evasion.

Washington, DC: c4ads, 2021. 84p.

By Ken Opala

Despite the August 2022 elections proceeding relatively smoothly, there is still a clear nexus between politics and crime in the country.

Election violence remains a major problem in Kenya despite attempts by the state and other actors to tackle it. Ahead of the country’s fifth general election, held on 9 August 2022, state agencies, the media and civil society predicted the re-emergence of gangs and militias keen to influence its outcome. Although the elections went off relatively smoothly there is still a clear nexus between politics and crime.

ENACT Africa, 2023. 24p.

By Olwethu Majola and Darren Brookbanks

This paper uses data and analysis to assess the UNTOC's effectiveness in addressing transnational organised crime on the continent.

The international community prescribed the United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC) as the treatment to slow the global spread of TOC. However, current diagnoses suggest that this has not been as effective as anticipated. This paper assesses the efficacy of the UNTOC and recommends some changes to the treatment that are likely to yield more successful results.

ENACT Africa, 2023. 32p.

By Gina Bou Serhal, Kristian Alexander and Rahaf Alkhazraji

This issue brief delves into the changing landscape of Italian organized crime, focusing on the ‘Ndrangheta, a potent criminal group originating from Calabria. It explores how the ‘Ndrangheta has diversified its criminal activities, including drug trafficking and environmental crimes, and its alleged connections with international criminal and terrorist organizations. The brief also sheds light on the emergence of the youthful “Baby Mafia,” or Camorra in Naples, known for its decentralized structure and social media presence glamorizing criminal life. It emphasizes Italy’s efforts to combat organized crime and the necessity for a united European approach to address the mafia’s global influence and adaptability across borders.

Stockholm: Institute for Security and Development Policy, 2023. 6p.

By J. Sean Doody, Joan A. Reid, Klejdis Bilali, Jennifer Diaz and Nichole Mattheus

Despite the immense impact of wildlife trafficking, comparisons of the profits, costs, and seriousness of crime consistently rank wildlife trafficking lower relative to human trafficking, drug trafficking and weapons trafficking. Using the published literature and current events, we make the case, when properly viewed within the context of COVID-19 and other zoonotic diseases transmitted from wildlife, that wildlife trafficking is the most costly and perhaps the most serious form of trafficking. Our synthesis should raise awareness of the seriousness of wildlife trafficking for humans, thereby inducing strategic policy decisions that boost criminal justice initiatives and resources to combat wildlife trafficking.

Crime Sci. 2021; 10(1): 19.

By Sarah Brayne and Angele Christin

The number of predictive technologies used in the U.S. criminal justice system is on the rise. Yet there is little research to date on the reception of algorithms in criminal justice institutions. We draw on ethnographic fieldwork conducted within a large urban police department and a midsized criminal court to assess the impact of predictive technologies at different stages of the criminal justice process. We first show that similar arguments are mobilized to justify the adoption of predictive algorithms in law enforcement and criminal courts. In both cases, algorithms are described as more objective and efficient than humans’ discretionary judgment. We then study how predictive algorithms are used, documenting similar processes of professional resistance among law enforcement and legal professionals. In both cases, resentment toward predictive algorithms is fueled by fears of deskilling and heightened managerial surveillance. Two practical strategies of resistance emerge: footdragging and data obfuscation. We conclude by discussing how predictive technologies do not replace, but rather displace discretion to less visible—and therefore less accountable— areas within organizations, a shift which has important implications for inequality and the administration of justice in the age of big data.

Social Problems, Volume 68, Issue 3, August 2021, Pages 608–624,

By Anthony C. Dixon, Graham Farrell & Nick Tilley

Objective

Illegal dumping of household and business waste, known as fly-tipping in the UK, is a significant environmental crime. News agencies reported major increases early in the COVID-19 pandemic when waste disposal services were closed or disrupted. This study examines the effect of lockdowns on illegal dumping in the UK.

Method

A freedom of information request was sent to all local authorities in the UK asking for records of reported incidents of fly-tipping for before and after the first national lockdown. ARIMA modelling and year-on-year comparison was used to compare observed and expected levels of fly-tipping. Urban and rural local authorities were compared.

Results

A statistically significant decline in fly-tipping during the first lockdown was followed by a similar increase when lockdown ended. The effects largely cancelled each other out. There was pronounced variation in urban–rural experience: urban areas, with higher rates generally, experienced most of the initial drop in fly-tipping while some rural authorities experienced an increase.

Conclusion

Waste services promote compliance with laws against illegal dumping. When those services were disrupted during lockdown it was expected that fly-tipping would increase but, counter-intuitively, it declined. This enhanced compliance effect was likely due to increased perceived risk in densely populated urban areas. However, as lockdown restrictions were eased, fly-tipping increased to clear the backlog, indicating temporal displacement.

Crime Science (2022) 11:8 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40163-022-00170-3

By Joel Salvador Herrera and , Cesar B. Martinez-Alvarez

A growing body of evidence suggests that criminal organizations across the Global South actively exploit natural resources in the communities where they operate with important sociopolitical consequences. In this article, we investigate the case of Mexico where the incursion of criminal groups into the mining and export-agricultural sectors impacts violence at the local level. We propose two mechanisms that explain why criminal groups diversify. First, the war-profit motive suggests that competition and state repression prompt criminal organizations to look for non-traditional sources of incomes and to build up their violence-making capacities. Second, the governance motive suggests that extracting rents from key industries represents a strategy for these organizations to establish territorial control in local communities. Using homicide data from 2007 to 2011, we demonstrate that access to primary sector revenues is associated with higher levels of violence among Mexican municipalities. Using qualitative evidence from Michoacán, we show how the introduction of criminal governance systems to rural areas was a key factor in explaining why criminal groups diversified toward mining and export-agriculture.

World Development. Volume 151, March 2022, 105769

By: Henry Peyronnin

Regulating Illicit Gold draws on C4ADS analysis of the illicit gold trade to identify obstacles facing regulators and companies as they seek to achieve compliance with conflict minerals regulations, highlights the limitations of existing US laws pertaining to illegal gold and other minerals, and explores several potential areas in which these regulations can be strengthened or extended.

US lawmakers and public officials recognize the trade in illicit gold as a pressing environmental and social problem, but no comprehensive regulatory framework exists under which to stop the flow of illicit gold to the United States. The challenge of tracing gold supply chains is complicated by four key factors: gold’s physical and commercial characteristics; the growing sophistication of illicit gold trading networks; corruption in source, transit, and destination countries; and the fragmentation of the global gold market. Although two laws partially address this regulatory gap in the United States, neither provides a strong set of rules that apply equally to public companies and private entities. Regulating Illicit Gold draws on C4ADS analysis of the illicit gold trade to identify obstacles facing regulators and companies as they seek to achieve compliance with conflict minerals regulations, highlight the limitations of existing US laws pertaining to illegal gold and other minerals, and explores several potential areas in which these regulations can be strengthened or extended.

Washington, DC: C4ADS March, 2021. 18p.

By James Allan

Litter is ugly and an overwhelming majority of Britons want action. Since the 1960s littering has increased by 500%. Years of inaction, compounded by a lack of personal responsibility and a sharp increase in littering during the COVID-19 pandemic has made the problem worse.

Policy Exchange first recommended a national and coordinated approach to litter in Litterbugs published in 2009, but it was not until 2017 that the Government published the first ever national strategy that dealt with litter and littering behaviour. Furthermore, in 2022 the Office for Environmental Protection has said that the Government has yet to move beyond mere commitments to policy delivery.

This report calls for the Government to implement a new and revitalised Litter Strategy, including a significantly more aggressive approach to fines, including higher penalties, with a Local Authority League Table to name and shame those councils that are not using their powers; a new National Litter Awareness Course (modelled on the National Speed Awareness Course), backed by educational campaigns, to transform attitudes to personal responsibility; increased investment in bin infrastructure, with consideration of bins embedded in local design codes; and a large scale pilot of a digitised Deposit Return Scheme to enhance recycling.

London: Policy Exchange, 2023. 45p.

By Sarah Gluszek, Julie Viollaz, Robert Mwinyihali, Michelle Wieland, Meredith L. Gore

At unsustainable rates and in illegal contexts, the wild meat trade is a driver of species extinction; it can also threaten ecosystem services, local food secu-rity and contribute to the risk of zoonotic disease spread. The restaurant and catering sectors are understudied groups in conservation, both with regards to the legal and illegal wild meat trade and particularly in urban areas. Restaura-teurs are key actors between wild meat consumers and suppliers and thus play a central role in the supply chain. This study applied a crime science hotproduct approach to characterize: (a) restaurateur perceptions of urban wild meat consumption; (b) wildlife species most at risk in the urban wild meat trade; and (c) the differences between restaurants in Kinshasa (DemocraticRepublic of the Congo) and Brazzaville (Republic of the Congo). Through Focus groups in both cities, participants affirmed that in urban centers wild meat is considered a luxury item and sign of wealth. Monkeys were seen as a hot product in both cities, but we found a greater variety of hot wild meat products in Brazzaville. When looking at the differences between the restau-rant tier levels, middle-tiered restaurants identified pangolin and antelopes asbeing hot products, rather than monkeys as with upper and lower-tiered res-taurants. By applying a hot product analysis, we identified the wild meat groups most likely to be targeted by the urban wild meat trade. Findings Herein offer novel opportunities to better tailor and prioritize conservation interventions against illegal trade using design against crime or other crime prevention strategies.KEYWORDSbushmeat, Congo Forest Basin, elephant, hot product analysis, illegal wildlife trade, monkeys,pangolins, wildlife trafficking†Tn behalf of Society for Conservation Biology

Conservation Science and Practice Volume 3, Issue 5, 2021.

By Richard Bade, Bradley S. Simpson, Maulik Ghetia, Lynn Nguyen, Jason M. White, Cobus Gerber

Aim: To assess the effects of social distancing and social isolation policies triggered by COVID-19 on alcohol consumption using wastewater analysis in Adelaide, South Australia.

Design: Longitudinal quantitative analysis of influent wastewater data for alcohol concentration.

Setting: Adelaide, South Australia.

Participants: Wastewater catchment area representative of 1.1 million inhabitants.

Measurements: Twenty-four hour composite influent wastewater samples were collected from four wastewater treatment plants in Adelaide, South Australia for 7 consecutive days (Wednesday–Tuesday) every 2 months from April 2016–April 2020. The alcohol metabolite ethyl sulfate was measured in samples using chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry. Data were population-weighted adjusted with consumption expressed as standard drinks/day/1000 people. Weekly consumption and weekend to mid-week consumption ratios were analysed to identify changes in weekday alcohol use pattern.

Findings: Estimated weekend alcohol consumption was significantly lower (698 standard drinks/day/1000 people) after self-isolation measures were enforced in April 2020 compared with the preceding sampling period in February 2020 (1047 standard drinks/day/1000 people), P < 0.05. Weekend to midweek consumption ratio was 12% lower than the average ratio compared with all previous sampling periods. April 2020 recorded the lowest alcohol consumption relative to April in previous years, dating back to 2016.

Conclusions: Wastewater analysis suggests that introduction of social distancing and isolation policies triggered by COVID-19 in Adelaide, South Australia, was associated with a decrease in population-level weekend alcohol consumption.

Addiction, Volume116, Issue6. June 2021. Pages 1600-1605

By Manne Gerell, Annica Allvin, Michael Frith & Torbjørn Skardhamar

Alcohol consumption and crime are closely linked and there is often more crime near pubs and bars. Few studies have considered the impact of restricting access to pubs or bars on crime, and the present study aims to provide more insight into this by using the restrictions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment. In Oslo, Norway, alcohol serving was banned twice during 2020, and at other times during the year, restrictions were placed on how late it could be served. In the present paper, these restrictions are analysed, alongside more general COVID-19 restrictions, to assess their association with crime. To identify these, we employ negative binomial regression models of daily crime counts for nine types of crime adjusted for the day of the week, the week of the year, and the year itself. This is in addition to the presence, or absence, of alcohol-related restrictions and more general COVID-19 restrictions. The findings suggest that both, general restrictions and bans on serving alcohol, reduced crime, although not universally across all crime types and times of the day. When pubs are ordered not to sell alcohol after midnight there appears to be an unexpected increase in crime.

Nordic Journal of Criminology. 2022, 23 (2), 136-155, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2578983X.2022.2100966

By Jennifer J. Carroll

Against the backdrop of a post-Soviet state set aflame by geopolitical conflict and violent revolution, Narkomania considers whether substance use disorders are everywhere the same and whether our responses to drug use presuppose what kind of people those who use drugs really are. Jennifer J. Carroll's ethnography is a story about public health and international efforts to quell the spread of HIV. Carroll focuses on Ukraine where the prevalence of HIV among people who use drugs is higher than in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and unpacks the arguments and myths surrounding medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in Ukraine. What she presents in Narkomania forces us to question drug policy, its uses, and its effects on "normal" citizens. Carroll uses her findings to explore what people who use drugs can teach us about the contemporary societies emerging in post-Soviet space. With examples of how MAT has been politicized, how drug use has been tied to ideas of "good" citizenship, and how vigilantism towards people who use drugs has occurred, Narkomania details the cultural and historical backstory of the situation in Ukraine. Carroll reveals how global efforts supporting MAT in Ukraine allow the ideas surrounding MAT, drug use, and HIV to resonate more broadly into international politics and echo into the heart of the Ukrainian public.

Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press Ithaca and London, 2019. 251p.

By The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)

This report is based on information provided to the EMCDDA by the EU Member States, the candidate country Türkiye, and Norway, in an annual reporting process.

The purpose of the current report is to provide an overview and summary of the European drug situation up to the end of 2022. All grouping, aggregates and labels therefore reflect the situation based on the available data in 2022 in respect to the composition of the European Union and the countries participating in EMCDDA reporting exercises. However, not all data will cover the full period. Due to the time needed to compile and submit data, many of the annual national data sets included here are from the reference year January to December 2021. Analysis of trends is based only on those countries providing sufficient data to describe changes over the period specified. The reader should also be aware that monitoring patterns and trends in a hidden and stigmatised behaviour like drug use is both practically and methodologically challenging. For this reason, multiple sources of data are used for the purposes of analysis in this report. Although considerable improvements can be noted, both nationally and in respect to what is possible to achieve in a European level analysis, the methodological difficulties in this area must be acknowledged. Caution is therefore required in interpretation, in particular when countries are compared on any single measure. Caveats relating to the data are to be found in the online Statistical Bulletin, which contains detailed information on methodology, qualifications on analysis and comments on the limitations in the information set available. Information is also available there on the methods and data used for European level estimates, where interpolation may be used.

Lisbon: EMCDDA, 2023.