Do Drug Seizures Predict Drug-Related Emergency Department Presentations or Arrests for Drug Use & Possession?
BACKGROUND:
Direct
evidence of the effect of drug seizures on drug use and drug-related harm
is fairly sparse. The aim of this study was to see whether seizures of heroin, cocaine and ATS predict the number of people arrested for use and
possession of these drugs and the number overdosing on them.
METHOD:
We
examined the effect of seizure frequency and seizure weight on arrests for drug use
and possession and on the frequency of drug overdose with auto regressive distributed lag
(ARDL) models. Granger causality tests were used to test for simultaneity.
RESULTS:
Over the
short term (i.e. up to 4 months), increases in the intensity of high-level drug law enforcement (as measured by seizure weight
and frequency) directed at ATS, cocaine and heroin did not appear to have any
suppression effect on emergency department (ED) presentations relating to ATS, cocaine and heroin, or
on arrests for use and/or possession of these drugs. A
significant negative contemporaneous relationship was found between the heroin
seizure weight and arrests for
use and/or possession of heroin. However no evidence emerged of a
contemporaneous or lagged relationship between heroin seizures and heroin ED presentations.
CONCLUSION:
The
balance of evidence suggests that, in the Australian context, increases in the
monthly seizure frequency and quantity of ATS, cocaine and heroin are signals
of increased rather than reduced supply.
- 1NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Sydney, Australia.
- 2NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, Sydney, Australia. Electronic address: Don_J_Weatherburn@agd.nsw.gov.au.
- 3National Security College, Australian National University, Canberra, Australia.
- 4Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics, Monash University, Caulfield, Australia.
- 5NSW Ministry of Health, Sydney, Australia; Discipline of Psychiatry, Sydney Medical School University of Sydney, Australia.
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