Public discourse on illicit drug use is frequently characterized by hostility, blame and stigma. This article examines how that stigma is produced and sustained, particularly through dehumanizing portrayals and the positioning of people who use drugs as outsiders. It reviews research on how this creates harm, including hindering effective treatment and isolating families from support. The article also summarizes the impact of stigma on employment and community cohesion, potentially exacerbating crime and further drug use. Drawing on interdisciplinary theory and contemporary policy evidence, an argument is presented for a shift from punitive responses toward more empathic, evidence-based harm reduction. It identifies cross-sector partnership and lived-experience involvement as practical enablers of more effective approaches to reducing drug-related harm.
Street-involved people who use drugs navigate daily threats to their safety. While many of these threats are well understood, one common concern – “hot shotting” – has received little empirical attention. Hot shotting refers to the weaponization and deliberate injection of lethal drug concoctions (usually high-dose opioids) with the intent to kill. Drawing upon interviews with 331 street-involved persons, most of whom were unhoused and used illicit substances, we examine accounts of hot shot victimization, illuminating the techniques, motivations, and consequences of these largely undetected homicides. Hot shots carry multiple consequences for marginalized people’s safety and well-being, constituting a new type and layer of fentanyl-driven threat on the streets. Furthermore, participants believed that police investigations into these killings were limited, exacerbating fear and frustration. We argue that hot shot victimization necessitates greater police, paramedic, coroner, policy, and legal attention.
Calls for collaboration between public safety, policing and public health are now well established. Creating a shared understanding of what a public health approach is and how it applies to policing requires a common language. This has proved elusive, partly because it is often explained using technical terms that are familiar to experts and academics, but not to most people. This project sought to develop clearer communications on public health approaches in policing. Based on consultations with policing in the UK and centring prevention as the core theme, we propose a four-step approach that includes the following: (1) stating the problem (“too many people are being drawn into crime”), (2) explaining the problem (“this is because the building blocks of a safe and healthy society are not in place”), (3) illustrating solutions (“policing can help put these building blocks in place”) and (4) showing change is possible (using examples). We conclude with some challenges, limitations and next steps to mobilize the narrative.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) places high demands on police and is the most frequent type of violent offending reported to the police in Canada. Police responses are often guided by actuarial risk tools, such as the Ontario Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA), which provide estimates of recidivism rates associated with specific scores. The interpretation of these case-specific recidivism rates should be guided by the base rate of IPV perpetration in the general population. Accordingly, this study examined officially reported IPV base rates in three Canadian provinces from 2016 to 2018, the settings used for updating the ODARA norms. The overall incidence of perpetration of IPV was 200 per 100,000 (1 out of 500 per year), with substantially higher rates for men against women (304 per 100,000) than for women against men (75 per 100,000). Perpetration against same-gender victims was rare (11 per 100,000 for men to men; 6 per 100,000 for women to women), although these estimates did not control for the proportion of the population who were in same-sex relationships. Regional differences were observed, with lower overall rates in Atlantic Canada than in Alberta and Ontario and relatively high rates of women as perpetrators in Ontario. All population rates were lower than the lowest rates estimated by the 2021 ODARA norms. We recommend that local IPV rates be used to evaluate the effectiveness of public protection policies.
