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The Russian Federation has taken a harsh, punitive approach towards drug policy. There are limited health and social services available to people who use drugs and widespread, documented discrimination within the criminal justice system. Amongst those who use drugs, the proportion of women who use injection drugs is estimated to be approximately 30 per cent. While a minority, women who use drugs are often disproportionately impacted by drug policy enforcement and remain underrepresented within research. Moreover, women who use drugs experience specific gender-based forms of discrimination within social, health and criminal justice systems, which result in particular vulnerabilities. This chapter examines policing and sentencing practices within the Russian criminal justice system and their gendered impacts, especially concerning women who use drugs. Human rights reports and court cases as well as interviews from civil society organisation (CSO) workers are analysed in order to understand how gender roles, gender-based discrimination and gender-based violence shape these interactions and result in disproportionate negative impacts on the lives of women who use drugs. This analysis also highlights key areas that need greater involvement and attention from researchers, policymakers and advocates.

Every employer, unless he or she has no pool of applicants or potential applicants to choose from, engages in hiring choices. While the hiring process may vary, both from one employer to another and from one job to another, some form of screening occurs. In recent years, students of management have noted the proliferation of screening practices in the hiring process, especially in bringing new technologies such as medical and drug testing procedures. Testing and other screening practices, while wide‐ranging both with respect to their ends and means, have raised consistent patterns of concern among job‐seekers, public policy makers and managers themselves. In this monograph a variety of methods of screening and issues of public policy raised by screening procedures are discussed. An overview of United States law regulating the screening process is provided, together with future directions in the area of screening in the US.

In order to succeed in an action under the Equal Pay Act 1970, should the woman and the man be employed by the same employer on like work at the same time or would the woman still be covered by the Act if she were employed on like work in succession to the man? This is the question which had to be solved in Macarthys Ltd v. Smith. Unfortunately it was not. Their Lordships interpreted the relevant section in different ways and since Article 119 of the Treaty of Rome was also subject to different interpretations, the case has been referred to the European Court of Justice.

This paper aims to demonstrate the ways in which the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA) militates against the interests and situations of people who use drugs. The author reflects on the author’s journey as a drug user, drugs workers and drug user organiser to critique the MDA. The author describes the impact of the MDA on the author’s early experimentation with substances and highlights the limitations of simplistic drugs prevention. The author describes how the MDA maximises drug-related risks and undermines the creation of healthy cultural norms and community learning among people who use drugs. The author talks about the author’s work as a drugs practitioner and mourns the vandalism of the UK’s harm reduction and drug treatment system. This paper describes the opportunity to use drug policy reform as a progressive electoral agenda to begin the journey towards racial and social justice. This paper calls for the rejection of the Big Drugs Lie and the repeal of the failed MDA.

Personal reflection based on experience as drug user, drugs worker and drug user organiser.

Successive UK Governments have used the MDA as a tool of social control and racial discrimination. The Big Drugs Lie undermines science-based and rights-compliant drug policy and drug services and criminalises and puts young people at risk. There is the potential to build a progressive political alliance to remove the impediment of the MDA and use drug policy reform as tools for racial and social justice.

The MDA maximises the harms faced by people who use drugs, stokes stigma and discrimination and has undermined the quality of drug services. The MDA needs to be exposed and challenged as a tool for social control and racial discrimination. Delivering drug policy reform as a progressive electoral strategy could maximise its potential to improve social and racial justice.

This paper represents the view of people who use drugs by a drug user, a view which is seldom expressed in the length and level of argument shown here.

Stigma reduction is an important public health challenge because of the large morbidity and mortality associated with some forms of substance use. Extreme stigma can lead to dehumanisation of target groups, who are ascribed with lesser humanity. The authors examined whether there was blatant and subtle dehumanisation of people who use heroin, and if these were associated with levels of support for non-discriminatory drug policy.

A cross-sectional online study using a UK convenience sample (n = 307 [75.2% female, mean age 28.6 ± 12.2 years]) was conducted. Participants completed assessments of blatant (Ascent of Humans [AoH] scale) and subtle (an emotion attribution task) dehumanisation and a bespoke measure assessing support for non-discriminatory drug policies. Other measures controlled for stigma towards people who use drugs (PWUD) and moral disgust.

There was greater blatant dehumanisation of people who used heroin compared to the general population and other potentially stigmatised reference groups, including people who use cannabis. The authors also found evidence of subtle dehumanisation, and people who used heroin were rated as being less likely to feel uniquely human emotions, less likely to feel positive emotions and more likely to feel negative emotions. Blatant dehumanisation was associated with significantly lower probability of support for non-discriminatory drug policy.

Dehumanisation may present significant challenges for stigma reduction initiatives and in fostering public support for drug policy and treatment. Denial of the humanity of this group could be used to justify discriminatory policies or relative deprioritisation of support services in funding decisions. Activities that seek to “rehumanise” PWUD, including social inclusion, and encouraging compassionate media representations that portray the lived experiences of substance use may be useful areas of future work.

This is the first study to investigate blatant and subtle dehumanisation of people who use heroin, and how this relates to public support for drug policy.

This study aims to provide data on substance use amongst young people in Scotland to inform policy and practice for an age group who generally do not access specialist alcohol and drug services. The main objectives of the study were to assess the problem severity scores of items from a modified version of the DAST-10 brief screening instrument among respondents; examine correlations between a range of variables in relation to DAST-10 problem severity scores; and explore respondent knowledge of how and where to seek help.

A fixed quantitative design methodology recruited a non-probability sample of 4,501 respondents from an online survey made available by “We are With you” Scotland.

The survey was ethically approved by the School of Education and Social Sciences, University of the West of Scotland. It consisted of 32 questions exploring substances used within the past 12 months, and 12 weeks, and included the DAST-10. We further explored help seeking, and knowledge of support available to respondents.

Substance use patterns were markedly different from people currently known to specialist alcohol and drug services. Over half of respondents were under 25, and 62% report being employed. The most commonly used substances were cannabis and cocaine. One third of respondents recorded substantial or severe problem severity scores and reside in Scottish Local Authorities with high concentrations of socio-economic inequality.

Secure accommodation, stable relationships and being employed are protective factors in relation to reported negative health consequences associated with problem substance use.

Just under one third (27%) of respondents report knowing where to seek help for substance use problems; however, they are unwilling to attend existing specialist alcohol and drug services.

A non-probability sample of the Scottish population has a potential for response bias due to how and what way the survey was made available to respondents. It is acknowledged that while useful as a method of generating drug use data, there are limitations in how recently the substance use occurred, and in relation to the types of substances reported (cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy).

The study provides data to inform wider public health measures in relation to accessing support and addressing societal discrimination associated with the use of substances. The study provides data on service design for young people who do not access specialist alcohol and drug services.

The study informs substance use policy in the Scottish context in relation to a population of young people who use licit and illicit substances. Data contributes to evidence supporting correlations between problematic substance use and socio-economic inequality. Data indicates that existing specialist services require redesign.

The study is the first to be conducted within a Scottish context.

Possessing a strong ethnic identity and ethnic network are described in some epidemiological literature as moderating factors in the relation between perceived discrimination and varying types of substance use in people with a migration background (PMB). The purpose of this paper is to qualitatively explore problem use, discrimination, ethnic identity and social networks in a small purposive sample of users with a Turkish and Eastern European migration background in Ghent, Belgium.

The authors present data retrieved within the framework of a qualitative community-based participatory research study that primarily aims to understand the nature of substance use in PMB. In the secondary analysis, the authors focus on a sub-study examining substance use by people with a Turkish (n=55) and Eastern European (n=62) migration background and explore how individuals perceive discrimination, ethnic identity and (ethnic) social networks in 117 qualitative interviews.

Almost all the respondents in this study reported perceived (inter-)ethnic discrimination. The authors establish that problem users in this study have a complex but albeit weak sense of ethnic identity nor do they have a strong ethnic network. This, in combination with perceived discrimination, is a risk factor for continued problem substance use and may hamper recovery related to problem use.

This article intends to lay the groundwork for future research that should focus more on longitudinally studying the intertwined relation between problem use, discrimination, ethnic identity and especially social instead of solely ethnic networks, their complex nature as well as their relation to recovery processes among persons with a migration background.

The challenge for drug and health promotion services is to keep up‐to‐date with the dynamics of drug use patterns and trends both nationally and within certain groups (Kilpatrick, 2000). The traveller community present with lower but similar levels and patterns of drug use than the general population, but are particularly vulnerable to early onset of drug use and problematic substance use relating to their life circumstances. Drug use in the traveller community is facilitated and mediated by a combination of risk and resilience factors, which include lack of education, unemployment, comprised health and poor housing conditions.The research aimed to provide an explorative account of the issue of drug use in the traveller community and consisted of focus groups (N=12) of travellers (N=57) with a gender balance (47/53%) based on self‐selection and volunteerism. The focus groups (4‐5 individuals) were predominantly peer‐accompanied where a traveller guided the facilitation of the traveller focus groups and were also gender based. The focus groups incorporated the following key themes relating to the travellers and drug use; traveller culture and drug use, drug availability and dealing, gender differences in drug use, types of drugs used, reasons for drug use, levels of drug related knowledge, attitude to drug use, drug taking contexts and patterns, problematic drug use in the traveller community, drug awareness, perceptions of risk and experiences of drug treatment and community services.The travellers indicated increased drug availability in recent years. Some members of their community were dealing in and using drugs, as a result of unemployment, lack of education, depression, and increasing contact with the settled community. This has lead to a fragmentation of traveller culture. Traveller men are at heightened risk of substance dependency in terms of increased contact with drugs such as cocaine, speed, hash and ecstasy. In contrast, traveller women reported prescription medication abuse. The travellers described a fear of problematic drug use within their communities coupled with concern in terms of discriminatory experiences with health and drug services, lack of awareness of current service provision and the lack of culturally appropriate drug education material and addiction counseling.