State control of heroin was identified as the preferred policy option although other policy regimes scored better on specific outcome criteria.
With any of these models, this approach, while attending to illegal market drivers, would result in a greatly reduced illegal opioid market and its attendant toxic products, reduced violence and corruption, and at the same time, provide a sharper focus for medical use with more appropriate prescribing and indications.
An alternative approach to prohibition is for government to retake control of the currently illegal drug market through legal regulatory mechanisms.
The prohibition of opium has wide ranging health and development impacts that bring up a moral imperative regarding the safe supply of diverse opium-based products –including opium gum and heroin– that urgently need to be explored and addressed.
Mothers’ stories were identified as a particularly powerful tool for conveying emotional knowledge and prompting action that complements other forms of knowledge or evidence.
This analysis suggests that, after controlling for known confounders, women who have a child removed experience higher odds of overdose, and these odds are highest among Indigenous women.
It is argued here that the safe supply obligations of governments with respect to psychotropic drugs are analogous to other state responsibilities in the area of consumer protection and extend to all people using any kind of psychotropic substance.
Those most affected by drug policies demand inclusion and representation, access to a legal heroin supply, and the establishment and maintenance of heroin buyer clubs, contesting the very foundations of drug control in the twenty-first century.
With just one exception, we find that both Black and Indigenous people are over-represented amongst those arrested for cannabis possession across the five cities examined.
There are multiple, unpredictable effects in engaging and resisting law, and thus difficulty in tackling criminalisation in any clear and simple way.
