By Liam Michaud a a , b , * , Gillian Kolla c , d , Katherine Rudzinski Graduate Program in Socio-Legal Studies, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada b e , Adrian Guta

The ongoing overdose and drug toxicity crisis in North America has contributed momentum to the emergence of safer supply prescribing and programs in Canada as a means of providing an alternative to the highly volatile unregulated drug supply. The implementation and scale-up of safer supply have been met with a vocal reaction on the part of news media commentators, conservative politicians, recovery industry representatives, and some prominent addiction medicine physicians. This reaction has largely converged around several narratives, based on unsubstantiated claims and anecdotal evidence, alleging that safer supply programs are generating a "new opioid epidemic", reflecting an emerging alignment among key institutional and political actors. Employing situational analysis method, and drawing on the policy studies and social science scholarship on moral panics, this essay examines news media coverage from January to July 2023, bringing this into dialogue with other existing empirical sources on safer supply (e.g. Coroner's reports, program evaluations, debates among experts in medical journals). We employ eight previously established criteria delineating moral panics to critically appraise public dialogue regarding safer supply, diverted medication, and claims of increased youth initiation to drug use and youth overdose. In detailing the emergence of a moral panic regarding safer supply, we trace historic continuities with earlier drug scares in Canadian history mobilized as tools of racialized poverty governance, as well as previous backlashes towards healthcare interventions for people who use drugs (PWUD). The essay assesses the claims of moral entrepreneurs against the current landscape of opioid use, diversion, and overdose among youth, notes the key role played by medical expertise in this and previous moral panics, and identifies what the convergence of these narratives materialize for PWUD and healthcare access, as well as the broader policy responses such narratives activate.

International Journal of Drug Policy 127 (2024) 104423

By Josh Leung-Gagné

I use data linking counts of homicides by police to police department (PD) and jurisdiction characteristics to estimate benchmarked (i.e. risk-adjusted) police homicide rates in 2008–2017 among the 711 local PDs serving 50,000 or more residents, a sample with demographics resembling all mid-to-large Census places. The benchmarked rate estimates capture PD deadliness by comparing PDs to peers whose officers face similar risks while adjusting for access to trauma care centers to account for differential mortality from deadly force. Compared to existing estimates, differences in benchmarked estimates are more plausibly attributable to policing differences, speaking to whether the force currently used is necessary to maintain safety and public order. I find that the deadliest PDs kill at 6.91 times the benchmarked rate of the least deadly PDs. If the PDs with above-average deadliness instead killed at average rates for a PD facing similar risks, police homicides would decrease by 34.44%. Reducing deadliness to the lowest observed levels would decrease them by 70.04%. These estimates also indicate the percentage of excess police homicides—those unnecessary for maintaining safety —if the baseline agency is assumed to be optimally deadly. Moreover, PD deadliness has a strong, robust association with White/Black segregation and Western regions. Additionally, Black, Hispanic, foreign-born, lower-income, and less-educated people are disproportionately exposed to deadlier PDs due to the jurisdictions they reside in. Police violence is an important public health concern that is distributed unevenly across US places, contributing to social disparities that disproportionately harm already marginalized communities.

PNAS Nexus, 2024, 3, 1–10

By Justice Policy Institute

A nearly decade-long failure of the Bowser Administration to fund and implement evidence-based strategies to prevent violence and strengthen communities has contributed to the context for increased crime and violence. Missed Opportunities: Why Inaction on Preventative Measures Undermines Public Safety in Washington, DC uncovers recent trend of a lack of leadership on proactive public safety strategies, instability in key executive agencies, and little coordination of efforts by government officials that have left the District ill-prepared to respond to alarming increases in some crimes. The brief offers a series of recommendations for District leadership:

• Improve the coordination between agencies working to prevent and address violent crime;

• Focus comprehensive resources on the specific people at the center of violence;

• Implement a holistic public health approach to violence prevention and intervention and invest in supports and services in communities;

• Fund efforts to build community trust and efficacy in policing; and

• Evaluate and sustain effective programs and initiatives

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2023. 16p.

By Marke Geisy da Silva Dantas, Luciano Menezes Bezerra Sampaio, Thadeu Gasparetto

Background: The violent behavior of football fans is constantly associated with their drinking habits. Aiming to reduce its impact, policy makers often ban the sales and consumption of alcohol beverages during matches. Nonetheless, there are few papers that empirically analyzed such relationship, and our paper aims to shed light on this question. Methods: Out dataset comprises 4,560 matches from the first and second tiers of the Brazilian League, where 245 exhibited at least one antisocial behavior from fans. Ordered logistic regressions are used as method. Results: Our empirical findings evidence that the sales of alcoholic drinks do increase the likelihood of severe antisocial behavior. We also observed a higher likelihood of violent cases when the home club loses its match as well as during crowded matches. Conclusions: We conclude that the change in the alcohol police in Brazil did show a significant association with the likelihood of antisocial behavior among football fans. However, since the magnitude of such effect is small, further research is needed to examine the potential benefits of this policy changes

International Journal of Drug Policy, Volume 123, January 2024, 10427