From the frontlines: July 2024
This month our Westminster Addiction Policy Unit made the trip over the pond for a visit to the frontline against the addiction epidemic in the USA, to look at the lessons that can be drawn from the East Coast to inform addiction policy in the UK.
Almost 108,000 people in the US died from drug-involved overdoses in 2022, compared with under 5,000 in the UK. The recent rise in overdose deaths is fueled by a rise in the availability of fentanyl, which has not reached the UK in great quantities yet, although the Home Office has flagged its concerns over the future impact on these shores.
While in New York, our team attended a ride along with the NYPD in the South Bronx. They saw first-hand the challenges and complexities of policing in a city where cannabis legalisation has had a significant impact.
Our team also visited Overdose Prevention Centres, where people are allowed to inject drugs under the supervision of staff. Our team were concerned as the approach seen in the US risks trapping people in a drug induced state. This is significant as Glasgow is soon set to open the UK’s first ‘safe consumption room’, similar to Overdose Prevention Centres.
One of the hardest-hitting visits during the trip was to Kensington, Philadelphia, a place where a lack of effective support for both homelessness and addiction has created a place considered the largest open-air drug market in the US. Our researcher reflected; ‘Those who could leave the area had, and those who remained were carving a life out for themselves in an area most people had chosen to forget.’
All of the experiences from our Addiction Policy Unit’s recent US trip will help shape the CSJ’s ongoing work. Learnings from both sides of the Atlantic will inform the recommendations the CSJ puts forward to help address the cycle of addiction many are currently trapped in.
