By Kelsey S. Henderson, Christopher M. Campbell,  Brian Renauer

 This report provides the initial findings of Year 1 of a multi-year project to understand the effects of successive drug policy efforts in Oregon, with special focus given to Ballot Measure 110 (M110). In 2021, M110 decriminalized possession of controlled substance (PCS), and effectively downgraded certain quantities of PCS from a misdemeanor to a E-violation (i.e., a citation), resulting in a maximum $100 fine or a completed health assessment. In addition, M110 also earmarked roughly $300 million for local-level treatment and recovery systems. Prior to M110 other statewide changes in policy (e.g., Justice Reinvestment in 2014), law (de-felonization of PCS in 2017), and the COVID-19 lockdown also likely had important impacts on PCS enforcement, prosecution/sentencing, and public safety outcomes. Ultimately, this study will attempt to parse out the individual impacts of these unique events. In Year 1 we set out to gather officer perceptions regarding M110 and other recent policies that may impact law enforcement practices. We report on the general findings from 23 interviews/focus groups representing ten agencies (two state agencies; four Sheriff’s Departments; and four Police Departments), and six different counties (three categorized as “urban” and three categorized as “rural”). The interview data presented here represent officers’ perceptions and decision-making related to drug crimes, among other public safety issues in the state of Oregon. In addition, we include quantitative data trends to compare to officer perceptions of what’s occurring in Oregon. These data include an early examination of statewide trends in law enforcement arrests for PCS; law enforcement stops, searches, and search outcomes; and drug-related deaths. Analyzing the interviews revealed 25 codes of officer perceptions ranging from characteristics of M110 implementation and impacts to community safety and wellbeing.

Portland: Portland State University, 2023. 47p.

By The Global Commission on Drug Policy

The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed. Vast expenditures on criminalization and repressive measures directed at producers, traffickers and consumers of illegal drugs have clearly failed to effectively curtail supply or consumption. Apparent victories in eliminating one source or trafficking organization are negated almost instantly by the emergence of other sources and traffickers. Repressive efforts directed at consumers impede public health measures to reduce HIV/AIDS, overdose fatalities and other harmful consequences of drug use. Government expenditures on futile supply reduction strategies and incarceration displace more cost-effective and evidence-based investments in demand and harm reduction.

Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2011. 24p.

By Francesco Calderoni

Just a few months after the entry into force of the EU Framework Decision on the fight against organized crime, this book provides an unprecedented analysis of the national and European legislation on organized crime. The book provides a critical examination of the European policies and legal instruments to promote the harmonization and approximation of criminal law in this field (including the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime). The current level of harmonization among EU Member States and the approximation to the standards of the new Framework Decision are discussed in detail, with the help of tables, graphs and maps.The results highlight the problems surrounding the international legal instruments and the inconsistencies of the national approaches to combating organized crime.

Heidelberg; Dordrecht; London' New York: Springer, 2010. 201p.

Edited by R. Forte

The policy paper (ed. Forte, R., Sapucca, 2013) offers a description of the situation of organized crime in the Western Balkans in general and in individual countries - Croatia, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro - as well as a focus on the recent legislation on the recovery and management of criminal assets in Bulgaria, used as a term of confrontation with the consolidated approach applied in Italy to such issues. It offers as well a feasibility analysis on the extension of the model to the Western Balkans.

Sofia, Bulgaria: Center for the Study of Democracy, 2013. 88p.

By LaVerle Berry. et al.

This report assesses conditions that contribute to or are potentially hospitable to transnational criminal activity and terrorist activity in selected regions of the world during the period 1999-2002. Although the focus of the report is on transnational activity, domestic criminal activity is recognized as a key foundation for transnational crime, especially as the forces of globalization intensify. The report has been arranged geographically into the following major headings: Africa, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Western Europe, and the Western Hemisphere. Within the geographical headings, the report addresses individual countries with particularly salient conditions. Cases such as the Triborder Area (TBA) of South America and East and West Africa, where conditions largely overlap national borders, have been treated as regions rather than by imposing an artificial delineation by country. The bibliography has been divided into the same geographical headings as the text. The major sources for this report are recent periodical reports from Western and regional sources, Internet sites offering credible recent information, selected recent monographs, and personal communications with regional experts. Treatment of individual countries varies according to the extent and seriousness of conditions under study. Thus some countries in a region are not discussed, and others are discussed only from the perspective of one or two pertinent activities or conditions. Because they border the United States, Canada and Mexico have received especially extensive treatment.

Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 2003. 260p.

By Marina Foltea. This book assesses the consequences of Brexit for the control of illicit trade in tobacco products in the UK and EU. Based on the currently applicable legal framework, it examines the significance of a possible non-application of the acquis communautaire in the UK in matters relating to anti-illicit trade in tobacco legislation. It also analyses the modes of future cooperation between the UK and the EU in this area, as well as possible regulatory scenarios and their consequences. The book comprises six main sections. After the introduction (Section 1), Section 2 discusses the state of play of Brexit and possible outcomes of Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union procedure. Section 3 illustrates the data and trends of illicit tobacco trade in the UK. Section 4 describes the relevant legal (e.g. trade and fiscal measures) and enforcement frameworks in the UK and suggests possible post-Brexit scenarios in control of tobacco illicit trade. Section 5 focuses on the relevance of arrangements between governments and the tobacco industry in the control of illicit trade. Section 6 then analyses the relevance of key EU and global anti-illicit trade initiatives. Lastly, Section 7 the book offers some recommendations and conclusions on how the UK could control illicit trade in tobacco after Brexit Cham: Springer, 2020. 89p.

A Comparative Perspective. Edited by Celina Nowak. This chapter outlines the framework of the research presented in this volume. It starts with a notion that national criminal policies on illicit tobacco trade are a part of the national tobacco control policy, and at the same time a part of a general national criminal policy and points to the need for an in-depth research of national criminal laws in this regard. It presents the scope of the research, which consists in a comparative analysis about the illicit tobacco trade and about efforts to counteract that trade in six EU Member States—four post-communist states (Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Romania), on the Eastern border of the Union and two “old” EU Member States (Germany, Italy). Springer. (2021) 283p.