The Baltic and Nordic responses to the first Taliban poppy ban: Implications for Europe & synthetic opioids today.

The 2000-2001 and the 2022-2023 Taliban opium bans were and could be two of the largest ever disruptions to a major illegal drug market. To help understand potential implications of the current ban for Europe, this paper analyzes how opioid markets in seven Baltic and Nordic countries responded to the earlier ban, using literature review, key informant interviews, and secondary data analysis. The seven nations' markets responded in diverse ways, including rebounding with the same drug (heroin in Norway), substitution to a more potent opioid (fentanyl replacing heroin in Estonia), and substitution to one with lower risk of overdose (buprenorphine replacing heroin in Finland).

Changing dynamics of drug overdoses in the United Kingdom: An attempt to replicate the Jalal et al. findings of steady exponential growth.

Background: Jalal et al. discovered that between 1979 and 2020 total rates and counts of fatal drug overdoses in the United States exhibited exponential growth at a very steady rate even though deaths from individual drugs did not. That is a startling result because it means that the different drugs are in effect "taking turns", with one growing faster just as another drug's death rate growth ebbs.

Rapid changes in illegally manufactured fentanyl products and prices in the United States.

Background And Aims: Synthetic opioids, mostly illegally manufactured fentanyl (IMF), were mentioned in 60% of United States (US) drug overdose deaths in 2020, with dramatic variation across states that mirrors variation in IMF supply. However, little is known about IMF markets in the United States and how they are changing. Researchers have previously used data from undercover cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine purchases and seizures to examine how their use and related harms respond to changes in price and availability.

The International Cannabis Toolkit (iCannToolkit): a multidisciplinary expert consensus on minimum standards for measuring cannabis use.

Background: The lack of an agreed international minimum approach to measuring cannabis use hinders the integration of multidisciplinary evidence on the psychosocial, neurocognitive, clinical and public health consequences of cannabis use.

Methods: A group of 25 international expert cannabis researchers convened to discuss a multidisciplinary framework for minimum standards to measure cannabis use globally in diverse settings.

Results: The expert-based consensus agreed upon a three-layered hierarchical framework.

Community perspectives on supervised consumption sites: Insights from four U.S. counties deeply affected by opioids.

Background: To address the overdose crisis in the United States, expert groups have been nearly unanimous in calls for increasing access to evidence-based treatment and overdose reversal drugs. In some places there have also been calls for implementing supervised consumption sites (SCSs). Some cities-primarily in coastal urban areas-have explored the feasibility and acceptability of introducing them.

Cannabis legalization, regulation, & control: a review of key challenges for local, state, and provincial officials.

: A number of countries are legalizing the supply of cannabis or are considering doing so. Beyond top-level design questions (e.g.

Prescribing diamorphine in the United States: Insights from a nationally representative survey.

Background: Some countries allow physicians to prescribe pharmaceutical-grade diamorphine to dependent users who have previously undergone treatment but are still using street-sourced heroin; this is not allowed in the US. This study provides the first nationally representative US data concerning public support for prescribing diamorphine to dependent users. We also test the hypothesis that calling it "diamorphine" instead of "heroin" increases support for this approach.

The unintended impact of ecosystem preservation on greenhouse gas emissions: Evidence from environmental constraints on hydropower development in the United States.

Many countries have passed environmental laws aiming at preserving natural ecosystems, such as the Endangered Species Act of 1973 in the United States. Although those regulations seem to have improved preservation, they may have had unintended consequences in energy production. Here we show that while environmental constraints on hydropower may have preserved the wilderness and wildlife by restricting the development of hydroelectric projects, they led to more greenhouse gas emissions.

Big data on a big new market: Insights from Washington State's legal cannabis market.

Introduction: Voters in eight U.S. states have passed initiatives to legalize large-scale commercial production of cannabis for non-medical use.

Modeling the structure and operation of drug supply chains: The case of cocaine and heroin in Italy and Slovenia.

Multiple layers of dealers connect international drug traffickers to users. The fundamental activity of these dealers is buying from higher-level dealers and re-selling in smaller quantities at the next lower market level. Each instance of this can be viewed as completing a drug dealing "cycle".

Are users' most recent drug purchases representative?

Background: Various surveys now ask respondents to describe their most recent purchase of illicit drugs, as one mechanism through which market size can be estimated. This raises the question of whether issues surrounding the timing of survey administration might make a sample of most recent purchases differ from a random sample of all purchases. We investigate these issues through a series of questions which ask about the three most recent purchases, and about drug use.

Commentary on Crowley et al.'s research priorities for economic analysis of prevention.

Economic theory provides a textbook ideal for how to conduct efficiency analysis that determines optimal resource allocation. The real world is not, however, an ideal place. This article suggests that common sense should be allowed to temper zealous commitment to textbook ideals.

Scheduling of newly emerging drugs: a critical review of decisions over 40 years.

Aims: Decisions on whether and how to 'schedule' drugs (i.e. to determine their legal status and penalties to be applied for sale or possession) are often heavily criticized.

Design considerations for legalizing cannabis: lessons inspired by analysis of California's Proposition 19.

Aims: No modern jurisdiction has ever legalized commercial production, distribution and possession of cannabis for recreational purposes. This paper presents insights about the effect of legalization on production costs and consumption and highlights important design choices.

Methods: Insights were uncovered through our analysis of recent legalization proposals in California.

Basing drug scheduling decisions on scientific ranking of harmfulness: false promise from false premises.

In recent years a number of studies have attempted to rank drugs by a single measure of harmfulness as the basis for decisions about scheduling and classification. These efforts are fundamentally flawed, both conceptually and methodologically. The effort to provide a single measure masks the variety of non-comparable dimensions that are relevant, the fact that benefits are ignored for most, but not all, drugs and that the harms of a drug are not invariant to the policy regime chosen.

The global recession's effect on drug demand--diluted by inertia.

Drug demand responds slowly to exogenous shocks because it is dominated by dependent users whose behaviours are slow to change. Hence, although the cumulative effect of the global recession may be large, it is not likely to produce an abrupt step-change in indicators driven by dependent use or total consumption.

What economics can contribute to the addiction sciences.

Aims: The addiction sciences are intrinsically multi-disciplinary, and economics is among the disciplines that offer useful perspectives on the complex behaviors surrounding substance abuse. This paper summarizes contributions economics has made in the past and could make in the future towards understanding how illegal markets operate, how prices affect use, how use generates various consequences, and how policy shapes all three.

Methods: Review of literature, concentrating on illegal drugs as insights concerning markets are particularly salient, although we also mention relevant studies from the alcohol and tobacco fields.