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Effective Interventions Unit: Reducing the impact of local drug markets: A research review
Chapter 1 Introduction
The need for research under the broad heading of 'Availability' - on measures intended to reduce the availability of illegal drugs in the community - was identified as part of the Scottish Executive's Drug Misuse Research Programme
1. The EIU worked with the SDEA to develop specific proposals and it was agreed that initial research would focus on low-level drug markets (sometimes also referred to as 'street level' or 'retail level' markets).
The first steps taken by EIU in developing this research have been to review relevant research studies, and to visit Scottish police forces in order to collect preliminary information about drug markets in Scotland and the ways in which they are policed. All forces in Scotland were contacted about the research and asked to nominate local areas in which there was significant low-level dealing. Six forces nominated areas which the EIU and the SDEA subsequently visited.
This report presents the findings from the review of literature and discussions with police. These findings have also helped to inform the design of further research by EIU into local drug markets in Scotland. Further information on this research, currently in progress, can be found in Annex A.
Background and context
Drug dealing, and police action against drug dealing can be described in very simple terms as occurring at three levels:
In Scotland responsibility for tackling these various levels is
broadly organised in the following way: the Scottish Drug Enforcement Agency (SDEA) tackles the highest level, police force drug squads deal with the middle level of the market and local police areas (divisions) police the lowest level of dealing.
This is of course an oversimplification of how drug policing and drug dealing is organised, but may help to clarify the focus of this report, namely
low level drug dealing, and action taken to reduce the impact of low level dealing.
It is drug dealing at the lowest level that impacts most directly on the communities in which it takes place. People living or working in communities where drug markets exist report to the police problems and dangers associated with drug-dealing; these include drug-related crime (particularly acquisitive crime) and anti-social behaviour, noise and disturbance, and discarded drug taking equipment.
The Scottish Executive's Drugs Strategy
2 emphasises that tackling the problem of drugs requires a multi-agency partnership approach. It is also increasingly recognised that an integrated approach to service provision is most likely to deliver positive outcomes for service users. The Joint Future agenda is taking this forward in the delivery of services to community care groups, which includes drug users. The EIU report 'Integrated Care for Drug Users: Principles and Practice' provides detailed discussion of the issues central to the delivery of integrated treatment, care and support services to drug users.
National targets for the Scottish Police Services (April 2001-April 2004) focus on the reduction of availability of drugs
3:
These have been reviewed for the reporting period April 2004 - April 2006. The new targets are as follows:
The ACPOS Drugs Strategy
5 highlights the primary role that the police continue to play in supply reduction. But the strategy also highlights the importance of demand and harm reduction approaches and how the police support and contribute to these.
This complements Scotland's Drugs Strategy which also identifies two further aims relevant to this context:
Clearly there are a number of aims under the general objective of tackling local drug markets. This is reflected in the wide range of ways in which success has been defined in evaluated interventions. This will be explored throughout the course of this review.
Aims of the review
Methods
The evidence presented in this report has been gathered in two ways:
A review of existing international research literature on interventions aimed at low level markets and their impact. This evidence comes from evaluation and research studies in the US, UK, Australia and the Netherlands, with the majority from the US. We have exercised caution in how these studies have been presented - there are of course limits on how transferable research findings from other countries are to the situation in Scotland.
There were few evaluation studies of high quality. This limits the possibility of identifying conclusive evidence on effective interventions. We therefore also draw on broader research work that cannot offer firm conclusions but provides useful indications of potentially effective approaches.
EIU 'fact-finding' visits to nine local areas in six Scottish forces between December 2002 and April 2003. This provided a 'snapshot' of the issues facing local areas trying to tackle problems at the lowest level of drug supply.
The initial visits involved meetings with a range of police officers, including:
What is in the report?
Chapter 2 describes and defines low-level drug markets and the aims of interventions against them.
Chapter 3 presents evidence from the review of international research literature on police interventions to reduce the supply of drugs through low-level markets.
Chapter 4 considers evidence from studies that have examined police approaches that focus on demand reduction.
Chapter 5 examines approaches that incorporate harm reduction principles into policing practice.
Chapter 6 describes common issues faced by local police in Scotland attempting to tackle local drug-markets.
Chapter 7 presents conclusions.
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