By Chris A Rees . Michael C Monuteaux , Isabella Steidley, Rebekah Mannix , Lois K Lee , Jefferson T Barrett , and Eric W Fleegler

Firearm fatality rates in the United States have reached a 28-year high. Describing the evolution of firearm fatality rates across intents, demographics, and geography over time may highlight high-risk groups and inform interventions for firearm injury prevention.

Objective: To understand variations in rates of firearm fatalities stratified by intent, demographics, and geography in the US.

Design, setting, and participants: This cross-sectional study analyzed firearm fatalities in the US from 1990 to 2021 using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Heat maps, maximum and mean fatality rate graphs, and choropleth maps of county-level rates were created to examine trends in firearm fatality rates by intent over time by age, sex, race, ethnicity, and urbanicity of individuals who died from firearms. Data were analyzed from December 2018 through September 2022.

Main outcomes and measures: Rates of firearm fatalities by age, sex, race, ethnicity, urbanicity, and county of individuals killed stratified by specific intent (suicide or homicide) per 100 000 persons per year.

Results: There were a total of 1 110 421 firearm fatalities from 1990 to 2021 (952 984 among males [85.8%] and 157 165 among females [14.2%]; 286 075 among Black non-Hispanic individuals [25.8%], 115 616 among Hispanic individuals [10.4%], and 672 132 among White non-Hispanic individuals [60.5%]). All-intents total firearm fatality rates per 100 000 persons declined to a low of 10.1 fatalities in 2004, then increased to 14.7 fatalities (45.5% increase) by 2021. From 2014 to 2021, male and female firearm homicide rates per 100 000 persons per year increased from 5.9 to 10.9 fatalities (84.7% increase) and 1.1 to 2.0 fatalities (87.0% increase), respectively. Firearm suicide rates were highest among White non-Hispanic men aged 80 to 84 years (up to 46.8 fatalities/100 000 persons in 2021). By 2021, maximum rates of firearm homicide were up to 22.5 times higher among Black non-Hispanic men (up to 141.8 fatalities/100 000 persons aged 20-24 years) and up to 3.6 times higher among Hispanic men (up to 22.8 fatalities/100 000 persons aged 20-24 years) compared with White non-Hispanic men (up to 6.3 fatalities/100 000 persons aged 30-34 years). Males had higher rates of suicide (14.1 fatalities vs 2.0 fatalities per 100 000 persons in 2021) and homicide (10.9 fatalities vs. 2.0 fatalities per 100 000 persons in 2021) compared with females. Metropolitan areas had higher homicide rates than nonmetropolitan areas (6.6 fatalities vs 4.8 fatalities per 100 000 persons in 2021). Firearm fatalities by county level increased over time, spreading from the West to the South. From 1999 to 2011 until 2014 to 2016, fatalities per 100 000 persons per year decreased from 10.6 to 10.5 fatalities in Western states and increased from 12.8 to 13.9 fatalities in Southern states.

Conclusions and relevance: This study found marked disparities in firearm fatality rates by demographic group, which increased over the past decade. These findings suggest that public health approaches to reduce firearm violence should consider underlying demographic and geographic trends and differences by intent.

JAMA Netw Open. 2022 Nov 1;5(11):e2244221. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.44221. PMID: 36445703; PMCID: PMC9709653.

By Alice Levins

Recent decades have seen a widespread effort to imprison more people for sexual violence. The Stains of Imprisonment offers an ethnographic account of one of the worlds that this push has created: an English prison for men convicted of sex offenses. This book examines the ways in which prisons are morally communicative institutions, instilling in prisoners particular ideas about the offenses they have committed—ideas that carry implications for prisoners’ moral character. Investigating the moral messages contained in the prosaic yet power-imbued processes that make up daily life in custody, Ievins finds that the prison she studied communicated a pervasive sense of disgust and shame, marking the men it held as permanently stained. Rather than promoting accountability, this message discouraged prisoners from engaging in serious moral reflection on the harms they had caused. Analyzing these effects, Ievins explores the role that imprisonment plays as a response to sexual harm, and the extent to which it takes us closer to and further from justice.

Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2023. 215p.

By UK Parliament, House of Commons, Justice Committee

1. When a defendant is remanded into custody, this means that they are to be held in prison until the time of their trial or subsequent sentencing hearing. Schedule 1 of the Bail Act 1976 gives judges and magistrates the power to take this decision for a number of reasons, including that there are grounds for believing that the defendant might not turn up to a court hearing, that they would interfere with a witness or might commit additional crimes if released on bail. Custodial remand is intended to be used as a last resort—courts are required to justify their decision for refusing bail in line with grounds prescribed in the Act.

2. The Bail Act 1976 stipulates a presumption in favour of bail over custodial remand for all defendants awaiting trial except those on charges of murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, rape, or attempted rape. The starting point is release upon unconditional bail, where defendants await their trial in the community on the promise that they will later appear at court. Conditional bail is increasingly being used as an alternative to this, with restrictions such as curfews, limits on contact with other individuals related to a case, or geographical areas of exclusion being imposed pending trial. Failure to comply with these conditions can lead to bail being revoked and remand into custody instead.

3. Decisions on remand and bail are solely matters for the courts, with the defence and prosecution able to make submissions as to whether release on bail should be granted or denied. The defence has an automatic right to appeal against bail decisions in the magistrates’ court, as well as a right to make subsequent bail applications should circumstances change.

4. The use of custodial remand is primarily governed by the Bail Act 1976 and the Criminal Procedure Rules 2020. In addition, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 introduced the ‘no real prospect’ test, which states that defendants should not be remanded into custody if the offence is such that they are unlikely to receive a custodial sentence if convicted.

The growing remand population

5. Figure 1 below shows trends over time in the remand population in England and Wales. In the first half of the last decade, there was a decline in the remand population. However, recent years have seen a significant increase—as of 30 September 2022, the daily remand population stood at 14,507. This represented a 44% increase from 31 March 2020 when the population was 10,043. The remand prison population is currently the highest it has been for at least 50 years.

London: UK Parliament, House of Commons, Justice Committee, 2023. 55p.

By Sharon Shalev and Philippa Tomczak

Hundreds of prisoners die every year in England and Wales, resulting in tremendous harms and costs. These deaths will almost always be investigated by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) after a police investigation and before a Coroner’s inquest. PPO reports are usually produced far more quickly than inquest findings, hence could be a valuable catalyst for improved prison safety. The sustained high numbers of prisoner deaths in England and Wales suggest this potential is not being realized. This guide reports on extensive qualitative research carried out with PPO staff, prison staff, coroners and bereaved families. It also highlights the policy implications of the research findings.  

Nottingham, UK: University of Nottingham, 2023.  35p.

By Avinash Bhati

In Spring 2022, the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) launched the Task Force on Long Sentences. The group of 16 experts represents a broad range of experience and perspectives, including crime victims and survivors, formerly incarcerated people, prosecutors, defense attorneys, law enforcement, courts, and corrections. Its mission is to examine how long prison sentences—defined as 10 years or more—affect public safety, crime victims and survivors, incarcerated individuals and their families, communities, and correctional staff, and to develop recommendations to strengthen public safety and advance justice. The analysis presented here was commissioned by the Task Force to examine the relationship between long prison sentences and public safety in one state, Illinois. The project was made possible by a partnership between the Illinois Sentencing Policy Advisory Council, CCJ, and Maxarth LLC, a data analytics firm. Long sentences are often imposed with an expectation that they will prevent some crime by incapacitating individuals and deterring them from engaging in future crime after release. While there are several other purposes of sentencing, including punishing offenders, restoring victims and survivors, and deterring others from committing crimes, the research question explored in this brief is whether people serving long sentences may be confined beyond their likelihood of engaging in criminal behavior. Incarcerating individuals beyond this point would increase the size of the total prison population—and associated costs— without producing additional benefits for public safety. To examine this question, Maxarth LLC analyzed detailed arrest history data for people who were released from Illinois prisons between June 2016 and June 2019. For the 1,127 people in this release cohort who had served 10 years of more prior to release, microsimulations were created to estimate the number of arrests averted due to the individuals’ long prison terms.1 The number of arrests averted includes: (a) estimated arrests that did not happen because the person was incarcerated (incapacitation effect), (b) arrests that did not happen during a 30-month post-release tracking period because the person reduced their criminal activity (specific deterrence or rehabilitation effects), and (c) arrests that happened postrelease because the person increased their criminal behavior following their incarceration (criminogenic effect). The incapacitation effect was calculated using the length of each person’s prison stay (time served); the specific deterrence and criminogenic effects were calculated in the 30 months following each person’s release date. The analysis accounted for the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, which overlapped with the 30-month post-release tracking period for some members of the sample. See the supplemental methodology report for detailed procedures.

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2023. 30p.

By Izedomi Ayeni

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to discover the attitudes and perceptions of police officers on the legalization of recreational cannabis and crime.

Methodology: This qualitative, phenomenological methodology employed the use of semi-structured interview questions consisting of open-ended questions to understand the lived experiences of Colorado Police and Sheriff Officers and their perspectives on the experiences with the legalization of cannabis and crime. The sample size of 16 officers was selected from the sampling frame, which included Denver Police officers and Larimer County Sheriff officers.

Findings: Analysis of the data from interviews resulted in the identification of 14 major findings; 1) Officers oppose legalization; 2) Officers have an unfavorable opinion regarding legalization because they feel it can lead to increased access/use of illicit drugs; 3) Officers feel that the only reason the state legalized cannabis is for the tax revenue it generates for the state; 4) Officers’ viewpoint is that legalization has led to more violent crimes; 5) Officers perceive that Amendment 64 was designed to change perceptions about legal recreational marijuana; 6) Officers feel that legalization has led to an increase in burglary; 7) Officers are cognizant of the possibility of an increase in organized crime activities; 8) Officers expressed displeasure with the decriminalization of non-medical use, possession, and purchase of narcotics; 9) Officers express how an increase in crime has negatively impacted policing efforts; 10) Officers attribute an increase in homelessness and transient population as a symptom of the legalization of recreational cannabis; 11) Officers express frustration with lack of effective regulation; 12) Officers expressed that legalization has had no effect on timely responses to crime; 13) Officers expressed that the biggest challenge faced is maneuvering the demands of state versus federal law; 14) Officers express frustration in navigating the legal requirements relating to legal search and seizure.

Conclusions: As more states are considering legalizing cannabis for recreational use, these findings present significant suggestions for the state legislature and the members of the law enforcement community in those states.

Recommendations: Additional research should be conducted in other states to expand on the perceptions of the law enforcement community pre-and post-legalization of recreational cannabis and the impact it has on crime.

Irvine, CA: Brandman University, 2020. 217p.

By Ty Miller

In December of 2012, Washington and Colorado implemented the legalization of possession and use of marijuana for recreational purposes. Following this, January of 2014, Colorado opened the first recreational marijuana dispensaries in the United States. Although the debate about recreational marijuana has been fought in the public and academic spheres, we have limited empirical data as to the effect of these policies. With this, arguments in regard to whether marijuana should be legalized in the United States have far outpaced reliable scientific research. As more states, and potentially the federal government, begin to vote on whether to legalize, reliable research will be necessary. Sociology provides possible theoretical justifications for both sides of the recreational marijuana debate. However, there is still relatively little research on the effects of legalization in the United States. The current project analyzes changes in measures of excessive drinking, crime, DUI-related fatalities, and DUI arrests in Washington and Colorado following legalization of recreational marijuana. Each set of analyses are carried out in two parts. First, I examine the effects of legalizing possession and use in 2013. Second, I examine the effects of opening recreational dispensaries in Colorado in 2014. These separate analyses are utilized to uncover any shock-effects that might be inherently tied to legalization of possession and use or the opening of recreational dispensaries. Results indicate that, in most of the analyses, there are no significant effects of either part of legalization on the outcome variables of interest. The lone significant effect is that policing of DUI appears to increase following the legalization of possession and use in Washington and Colorado in 2013. The implications of these findings for both sociological theory and policy-making are discussed in the concluding chapter

West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University, 2018. 282p.

By Marie Gottschalk

A closer examination of media coverage, the response of law enforcement and policy makers, the legislative record, and the availability of proven, highquality treatments for substance abuse casts doubt on claims that the country pivoted toward public health and harm-reduction strategies to address the opioid crisis because its victims were disproportionately white people. Law enforcement solutions directed at people who use and sell street drugs continue to far outpace public health and harm-reduction strategies. Government support for expanding access to proven treatments for opioid use disorder that save and rebuild lives remains paltry given the scale of this public health catastrophe. And although the rhetoric has been somewhat more sympathetic, at times it rivals the excesses of the crack era. The article examines the various phases of the opioid crisis as they have unfolded over the past 25 years; related geographic and racial shifts in overdose fatalities with each new phase; media coverage of the crisis; the federal government’s response, including by the US Congress and presidents from George H.W. Bush to Joe Biden; punitive developments at the state and local levels; and the country’s poor record on prevention and making effective treatment widely available for people with substance use disorder.

Annual Review of Criminology, 2023. 6:363–98 . 39p.

By Jeffrey A. Singer and Trevor Burrus

Fifty‐one years after President Richard M. Nixon declared a “war on drugs,” overdose deaths from illicit drug use have climbed to record levels. Last November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 100,000 overdose deaths for the 12‐month period ending in April 2021, a 28.5 percent increase over the year before. Nearly 76,000 of those deaths were opioid related, and 83 percent of opioid‐related deaths involved illicit fentanyl.

Fentanyl is a highly potent opioid—about 50 times stronger than heroin—that can easily cause overdoses, particularly if users don’t know if it is in their drug supply or how much. Over the past decade, drug traffickers have increasingly preferred fentanyl because of its compact size. The smuggler’s preference for higher potency drugs is a manifestation of the “iron law of prohibition,” and it is almost the entire reason fentanyl has poisoned the American drug supply. The iron law of prohibition states that, all things being equal, as enforcement ramps up, smugglers prefer higher potency forms of a drug for the same reason those who sneak alcohol into a football game prefer hard alcohol in flasks to 12‐packs of beer. The lethal logic of the iron law of prohibition means that we cannot enforce our way out of the opioid crisis. And if fentanyl smugglers bexcome somehow easy to catch, there’s always carfentanil, which is about 100 times more potent than fentanyl and has already been showing up in America’s drug supply.

Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2022. 10p.

By Jeffrey A. Singer and Sophia Heimow 

  Every state except Alaska has laws that criminalize the possession and/or sale of paraphernalia for the consumption of illicit drugs. State-level drug paraphernalia laws prevent people who use those drugs from accessing the means to reduce the risk of infection or overdose. This makes nonmedical drug use even more dangerous because the laws often prevent access to clean needles and syringes along with products to test drugs for deadly contaminants. These laws are meant to discourage illicit drug use. Instead, they produce avoidable disease and death. Drug prohibition puts peaceful, voluntary drug users at risk of losing their liberty and often their lives. Paraphernalia laws similarly increase the risk that users will lose their lives. Some states have amended their laws to permit harmreduction programs and tools. For example, many states allow syringe services programs (also called SSPs or “needle exchange programs”) to operate within narrowly defined parameters. The goal of drug paraphernalia policy should be to save lives by reducing the risks of overdose and disease. This means removing government barriers to obtaining and distributing clean syringes and drug testing equipment. Because Alaska leaves residents free to purchase syringes and other paraphernalia in any quantity, anyone can operate an SSP and implement other harm-reduction measures. States should follow Alaska’s lead by repealing their drug paraphernalia laws so that programs aimed at reducing overdoses and disease can proliferate and succeed.

Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2022. 24p.

By Trevor Burrus and Jeffrey A. Singer.

People have used opium and its derivatives both medically and recreationally since antiquity. However, since the early 20th century, law and society have viewed people who use opioids, cocaine, and certain other psychoactive substances as immoral and even criminal. For more than 100 years, this viewpoint has destructively intruded on the patient‐doctor relationship. Government and law enforcement increasingly surveil and influence the way doctors treat pain, psychoactive substance use, and substance use disorder. This change has happened in two discernible waves, which we call Drug War I and Drug War II.

Drug War I occurred after Congress enacted the Harrison Narcotics Act in 1914, which permitted doctors to prescribe opioids to treat their patients. A wave of arrests and prosecutions of thousands of doctors ensued as agents of the U.S. Treasury Department, empowered to enforce the act, took it upon themselves to define legitimate medical practice.

Drug War II began in the 1970s, with government‐funded education/indoctrination campaigns that caused both doctors and patients to fear opioids for their addictive and overdose potential. Later, as the scientific literature led medical specialty organizations and government health officials to overcome this apprehension and take the treatment of pain more seriously, opioid prescribing increased considerably.

By 2006, federal regulatory agencies perceived what they called an “opioid crisis” and mistakenly attributed it to doctors “overprescribing” opioids and generating a growing population of opioid addicts. This formed the basis for an even more massive intrusion of federal and state power into the privacy of medical records, patient‐doctor confidentiality, and the very way in which doctors are allowed to use scientific and professional knowledge to practice medicine. Medical decisionmaking came increasingly under the purview of law enforcement, sparking a new wave of arrests and prosecutions.

Patients who had their pain controlled with long‐term opioid treatment are being denied treatment or involuntarily tapered off their pain control, as doctors fear arrest and an end to their medical careers. A growing population of “pain refugees” has emerged, with some patients turning in desperation to the black market for opioids and some even turning to suicide. As prescribing rates continue to plunge, overdoses from the nonmedical use of opioids are skyrocketing, now largely caused by illicit fentanyl.

The medical mismanagement of pain, which causes harm to patients, is best addressed through the civil tort system. Additionally, states establish professional licensing boards specifically to enforce the “standard of care” rendered by the professionals they oversee. Law enforcement has no medical expertise and should have no say in classifying narcotics and psychoactive substances. Lawmakers should avoid passing or repeal any laws that cast in stone prescribing guidelines released by any state or federal public health agencies. Federal and state law enforcement should be required to get a warrant before perusing state prescription drug monitoring program databases. Law enforcement should be required to report any suspected standard‐of‐care deviations to state professional licensing boards for review and adjudication. Neither the practice of medicine nor the act of self‐medication belongs in the realm of the criminal legal system.

Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2022. 37p.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

This report examines the emergence of new hubs for cocaine trafficking, noting that countries in Southeastern Europe and Africa – particularly those in West and Central Africa – are increasingly being used as key transit zones for the drug. Ports on the North Sea like Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Hamburg, meanwhile, have eclipsed traditional entry points in Spain and Portugal for cocaine arriving in Western Europe. Traffickers are also diversifying their routes in Central America by sending more and more cocaine to Europe, in addition to North America.

The modalities of cocaine traffickers are also examined in this report, with findings showing that the criminal landscape is fragmenting into a myriad of trafficking networks. The demobilization of fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) - who had previously controlled many of Colombia’s coca-growing regions – created an opening for others to step in, such as new, local actors; ex-FARC guerillas; or even foreign groups from Mexico and Europe. Additionally, the report reveals that so-called “service providers”, i.e., specialized groups that lend their services at all stages of the supply chain for a fee, have proliferated.

Vienna: UNODC, 2023. 184p.

By Jeffrey A. Singer

Dr. Rahul Gupta, the White House director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, stated the Biden administration would be “prioritizing harm-reduction practices because these are proven, cost-effective and evidence-based methods that work to save lives.”1 Overdose prevention centers (OPCs) are a successful harm-reduction strategy that has been saving lives in 16 developed countries—including the United States, where such facilities operate in defiance of the law. OPCs, also known as safe consumption sites or drug consumption rooms, began in Europe in the mid-1980s.2 Governments and harm-reduction organizations now operate OPCs in much of Europe, Canada, Mexico, and Australia. Unfortunately, a federal law that prosecutors and harm reduction opponents call the “crack house” statute (21 U.S.C. Section 856) makes them illegal in the United States.3 Some OPCs in the United States operate in the shadows. Underground OPCs have been providing services since at least 2014. More recently, state and local officials have been approving OPCs in defiance of federal law. This policy brief reviews how OPCs are an effective, mainstream harm-reduction strategy. Congress should stop standing in the way of local harm-reduction organizations that seek to reduce overdose deaths by establishing OPCs.

Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2023. 12p.

By R. Evan Ellis

In late June and early July, three separate events highlighted the growing risk that the political, health, economic, and security crisis in Venezuela could come to a head in the coming months, which would have grave consequences for its 6 neighbors in the region. First, two figures affiliated with the regime, Diosdado Cabello and Tarek El-Aissami, tested positive for Covid-19, with the prospect that Nicolás Maduro himself—with whom El-Aissami met—could be next. Second, the Maduro regime excluded three of the four political parties opposing him—Popular Will, Justice First, and Democratic Action—from National Assembly elections to be held in December; it also replaced their leaders with regime loyalists, decisively closing one of the few remaining possibilities for a democratic exit to the political crisis in the country. And finally, a report by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights on illegal mining in Venezuela highlighted the degree to which the national territory is controlled not by Nicolás Maduro or Juan Guaidó, but by criminal organizations. Beyond the greater Caracas area, Venezuela has devolved into a series of criminal fiefdoms bound not by an allegiance to Maduro or Guaidó but rather by a shared interest in the continued absence of effective governance; this enables those with guns to persist in their criminal enterprises, from narcotics and illegal mining to extorting desperate Venezuelans seeking to cross the border or to send remittances to their loved ones. It is difficult to imagine a country with a more intractable array of problems. Cut off from political solutions or other mechanisms to release the mounting pressures of its economic, political, health, and security crises, and amidst increasingly shrill warnings given more rhetoric than meaningful action by the international community, the country is poised to deteriorate into violence and chaos. This is bound to unleash millions of refugees beyond the estimated five million or more who have already left—much to the detriment of Venezuela’s neighbors, as well as the United States, which lies just across the Caribbean.

Washington, DC: Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 2020. 6p.

By Melissa Bull, Ross Coomber, Leah Moyle, Lisa Durnian and Wendy O’Brien

In Australia, threshold quantities of illicit drugs act as an indicator of supply offences in distinguishing traffickers from users. This is problematic because it can be difficult for the courts to discriminate between heavy users or ‘social suppliers’ and ‘dealers proper’. Currently, there is no systematic analysis of how the judiciary in Australia navigate the relationship between different types of supply and the consistency and proportionality of the sentence applied. This analysis maps out how current sentencing practices respond to offenders involved in ‘social supply’ and ‘minimally commercial supply’ who are charged with drug trafficking. It makes recommendations that could inform future drug law reform, including that review is needed of the system of thresholds; that sentencing objectives of general and specific deterrence be reconsidered in cases of social supply and minimally commercial supply; and that consideration be given to expanding the scope of current diversion programs to accommodate the needs of the types of offenders and offending behaviour addressed in this study.

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2021. 15p.

AND Sentencing for social supply of illicit drugs in Australia. Report to the Criminology Research Advisory Council. 2021. 97p.

By David Borden

Dangerous Delays is the first published study on the characteristics of cannabis store robberies. The report was motivated by recurring reports of assaults on workers that follow a pattern: Robbers force workers to the back of the store, demanding they open the safe to obtain secured cash. Workers don't always know the combination, and robbers don't always believe them. Dangerous Delays was also motivated by Congress's renewed attention on the SAFE Banking Act this year, and by disagreements among legislators and advocates which delayed SAFE in the Senate last year. Those debates, while focused principally on social equity concerns, saw arguments made that had the effect of casting doubt on the role of cash in driving robberies of cannabis stores, or of the significance of cannabis store robberies as a whole. While SAFE was stalling in the Senate, Washington State's cannabis community was in the grip of an unprecedented surge in armed robberies of cannabis stores. This occurrence, which began in November 2021 and lasted 4 ½ months, saw nearly 100 reported robberies affect roughly 80 cannabis stores, and ended with three people dead. Uncle's Ike's, a Seattle-based cannabis store chain, since 2017 has compiled robbery reports, and some burglary reports, in the "Uncle Ike's i502 Robbery Tracker." This unique resource is what enabled us to carry out the research done for this report. Our analysis confirms that cash dominates as the target for cannabis store robberies. Product also plays an important role, but almost always in combination with cash; whereas cash on its own gets targeted close to 50% of the time, based on the incidents for which we could determine what was targeted. Most burglaries, by contrast, appear to only target product. In light of the pattern of assaults on workers described above, we classified robberies according to whether robbers targeted the back of the store, or limited their attention solely to the front. We also classified robberies according to four observed types of aggression that occur during armed robberies, which go beyond the minimum level of aggression inherent in robbery. Using statistical correlation measures, we found for the time period of the surge that robberies targeting the back of the store involved elevated aggression more often, and exhibited a larger average number of different aggression types, compared with robberies limited to the front of the store. Examination of individual incidents confirmed that in the great majority of cases, back of the store robberies only target the safe. We also found, however, that weapons fire during cannabis store robberies is complex. The two worst shootings during the Washington surge were driven in part by the 5 robbers' pursuit of cash, but also by physical altercations having ensued between robbers and the workers who were shot.

Washington, DC: StoptheDrugWar.org, 2022. 45p.

By Jonathan HL Rees The concept of fairness, often expressed as the requirement that athletes should be able to compete on a ‘level playing field’, is at the heart of elite professional sport. This requirement, in combination with athlete health, is cited as a rationale for the prohibition of doping, but what precisely constitutes doping is contested. The current World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA, the foundation directing global anti-doping efforts) prohibition-based system has been heavily criticised following many prominent regulatory failures, such as the Russian institutionalised doping scandal. This has left faith in antidoping at a particularly low ebb, with key stakeholders such as the athletes voicing concerns about WADA’s approach. Therefore, commentators have advanced suggestions for how the present system may be improved to make it better able to cope with the urgent demands placed upon it. This thesis builds upon such suggestions. In order to advance practical policy proposals, the thesis provides analysis of the concept of doping and how it should be defined and regulated in elite professional sport. It uses political-philosophical, bioethical, sports ethics and legal analysis to critically examine current regulatory structures and instruments. It argues that the existing policies are grounded in a contested ideological position – WADA’s ‘spirit of sport’ – which fails to account for the realities of elite professional sport, and furthermore that the regulations are inconsistent and incoherent on their own terms, leading to arbitrary policy determinations. Therefore, to advance a more appropriate ‘spirit of sport’ which can inform a system of morality and ethics for anti-doping regulation, this thesis draws upon the work of philosopher John Rawls to derive principles for sports governance. These principles are then used to inform practical policy proposals for more ethically and legally defensible anti-doping regulation which is appropriate for the demands of elite professional sport in the twenty-first century.

Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 2021. 357p.

By Steven Dudley; Parker Asmann; Victoria Dittmar, Cecilia Farfán-Méndez, Michael Lettieri and Marcos Vizcarra 3

Marijuana legalization has expanded greatly across the United States, the primary destination for illicit drugs produced in Mexico. Today, two-thirds of the US population now has legal access to medicinal or recreational marijuana and the DEA says the majority of the marijuana its anti-drug officials seize is produced domestically. This has major implications for Mexico’s organized crime groups, who just 10 years ago were the main suppliers of marijuana to the United States. In the mountains of Sinaloa, long one of the country’s epicenters for marijuana production, a transformation is taking place. As prices have plummeted, small farmers are looking to other crops or leaving farming behind altogether and migrating to major urban centers. But the powerful organized crime groups operating in this region, most notably the Sinaloa Cartel, have adapted and turned to the mass production of synthetic drugs like methamphetamine and fentanyl. Not only that, but they’ve turned inward in an attempt to capitalize on Mexico’s growing -- and almost legal -- domestic market for marijuana.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2022. 30p.

By Public Safety Canada

In the context of cannabis legalization, the Government of Canada introduced legislation to create new offences and provide additional tools to law enforcement to detect and deter drug-impaired driving (DID). Furthermore, to support the implementation of this new legislative framework, the Government invested $161M over five years initially to enhance training of frontline law enforcement officers in how to recognize the signs and symptoms of drug-impaired driving, build law enforcement capacity across the country, provide access to approved drug screening equipment (ADSE), develop policy, bolster research, and raise public awareness about the dangers of drug-impaired driving. An important part of this initiative is to inform Canadians on activities undertaken to address DID and their results. It is the purpose of this annual report. This is the third annual report on trends and patterns in DID. It is produced in cooperation with the provinces and territories, the RCMP, CBSA, and other partner agencies and stakeholders. Whenever possible, it updates data from the 2021 report. However, as in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a significant reduction in planned activities, in particular the training of law enforcement officers. Nevertheless, the report’s findings show that the federal initiative has continued to enhance law enforcement capacity to detect and deter DID. It has also continued to change Canadians’ attitudes towards driving after cannabis use. Furthermore, data from police and border-reported incidents as well as toxicological analyses among injured and fatally injured drivers indicates that the number of incidents involving drivers with drugs in their system, including cannabis, has been constantly increasing since 2008 as a proportion of all impaired driving incidents. Work to improve the completeness and comparability of data has continued in 2021. As a result, more data is now collected on the use and results of standardized field sobriety testing, more data on injured drivers is now available, and data from the use of approved drug screening equipment as well as coroners and medical examiners is also gradually improving.

Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2023. 59p.

By the Global Drug Policy Index

For decades, tracking how well - or badly - governments are doing in drug policy has been an elusive endeavour. In no small part, this is because data collection efforts by both governments and the UN have been driven by the outdated and harmful goal of achieving a ‘drug-free society’. The success of drug policies has not been measured against health, development and human rights outcomes, but instead has tended to prioritise indicators such as the numbers of people arrested or imprisoned for drug offences, the amount of drugs seized, or the number of hectares of drug crops eradicated. This wrong-headed focus of drug policy and, as a result, data collection has prevented a genuine analysis of whether drug policies have contributed to overarching policy goals such as achieving gender equality, reducing stigma and discrimination, protecting the rights of Indigenous peoples, or alleviating poverty. Marginalised communities who are disproportionately targeted by drug policies have remained largely invisible, while in many countries punitive drug control measures continue to operate unabated. The net result is that there is a severe dearth of accountability when it comes to the repressive approaches to drug control that most governments continue to employ. In this context, it is my absolute pleasure to welcome the first edition of the Global Drug Policy Index, a new tool which offers the first-ever data-driven global analysis of drug policies and their implementation in a systematic, comprehensive and transparent manner. The Index has been developed by civil society and community organisations, in partnership with academia. The 2 voice and experience of civil society and affected communities is critical for ensuring that policies respond to the needs and realities of people on the ground. In the worrying current context of shrinking civil society space, this civil societyled initiative is to be applauded. The power of the Global Drug Policy Index lies in its key objective: to score and rank how countries are faring in different areas of drug policy as identified in the UN report ‘What we have learned over the last ten years: A summary of knowledge acquired and produced by the UN system on drug-related matters’, 1 and derived from the landmark UN System Common Position on Drugs. 2 Using 75 indicators, the Index covers five dimensions ranging from criminal justice and extreme responses, to health and harm reduction, access to medicines, and development. Importantly, the Index seeks to capture drug policies in their implementation, rather than looking only at what is on paper. Throughout this report, you will hear stories from communities who have been directly affected by drug policies, often with serious and long-lasting effects on their lives and the lives of their loved ones. These powerful testimonies provide the Index with the nuance and real-life experiences that are generally lacking in exclusively data-driven research.

Global Drug Policy Index , 2022. 876p.