Overview of international literature - supervised injecting facilities & drug consumption rooms - Issue 1.

This Overview of International Literature collates what we understand to be a full list of the relevant published papers and reports on drug consumption rooms (DCRs) and supervised injecting facilities (SIFs) internationally. We included papers and reports where SIFs/DCRs were the main topic or where SIF/DCR clients were the population studied. The aim of this document is to provide an exhaustive, easy to read overview of scientific literature pertaining to SIFs/DCRs internationally that would facilitate scholars in summarizing main research areas, as well as identifying the key scientific contributions and in preparation of advocacy materials

Online census of drug consumption rooms (DCRs) as a setting to address HCV: current practice and future capacity.

Drug consumption rooms (DCRs) and supervised injecting facilities (SIFs) target the most vulnerable people who use drugs (PWUD) – particularly people who use opioids, people who inject drugs (PWID), people who use drugs heavily or high-risk drug users (HRDI)2. While decreases in risky injecting behaviours are an outcome of DCR use, HCV prevention and treatment in these settings haven’t been adequately described. There are no international DCR standards for HCV practice and surveys are yet to address HCV prevention, treatment or sero-prevalence status of DCR clients. This online survey provides a ‘snapshot’ of DCR clients’ HCV status; approaches to HCV in DCRs, and what DCRs need to expand these services. Fifty-one responses were collected from representatives of the 92 operating DCRs in Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Switzerland participated in the survey; thus over half of the DCRs were directly represented (55 %) and several respondents had filled the survey on behalf of several DCR’s within their organisation. All countries where DCRs are operated were represented

"More than just counting the plants": Different home cannabis cultivation policies, cannabis supply contexts and approaches to their evaluation

Home cannabis cultivation is considered a low risk practice that yields many individual-level benefits, but evaluations of home cultivation policies have been limited. This chapter aims to provide an overview of home cultivation policies worldwide, explore the variations in the respective laws and regulations and discuss implications for evaluating policy outcomes.
 We reviewed relevant laws/regulations in states/countries which had non-prohibitive measures for recreational "home cannabis cultivation" in place. We assigned each into one of twelve policy categories (de facto and de jure policies of depenalization, decriminalization and legalization, pertaining to home cultivation only or alongside other supply options). We identified 27 jurisdictions with non-prohibitive measures to home cultivation and assigned them into ten of the twelve policy categories.
 Policy variations included threshold number of plants and their maturity, cultivation for personal use only, authorisation of cannabis crops and cannabis sharing. The diversity of laws and regulations pertaining to home cannabis cultivation make evaluation of the said policies challenging.
 When evaluating home cultivation policies, population-level outcomes might not be meaningful because home cultivation represents only a fraction of cannabis supply. Evaluations could rather focus on how these policies align with existing cultivation practices and as such, how they encourage policy adherence

Overview of "home" cultivation policies and the case for community-based cannabis supply

Background: Cannabis policies should be relevant to communities most impacted by them. Home cultivation policies can engage people who grow cannabis and build on their motivation to supply a safe product. This paper aims to examine the laws pertaining to "home" (i.e. personal, small-scale) cannabis cultivation internationally and their different aspects, and to discuss the potential of these policies to be expanded into community-level cannabis supply models. Methods: We reviewed relevant laws and regulations in states/countries that legalised, decriminalised or applied other non-prohibitive approaches to home cannabis cultivation. Findings: Non-prohibitive approaches to home cannabis cultivation have been adopted in at least 27 jurisdictions. Twelve jurisdictions "de jure" legalised home cultivation (three U.S. states and Antigua and Barbuda legalised only home cultivation; six U.S. states, Uruguay and Canada legalised commercial sales as well). Eight states/countries "de facto" (Belgium, the Netherlands) or "de jure" decriminalised it (Czech Republic, Spain, Jamaica, and three Australian states). "De jure" depenalisation was in place in Chile and Brazil and recent court rulings yielded "de facto" depenalisation or "de facto" legalisation in five other jurisdictions (South Africa, Mexico, Colombia, Costa Rica and Georgia). Varying number of plants (per person and per property) and the circumstances of cultivation were in place. The key limitations of the regulations included (i) possession thresholds for the produce from home cultivations, (ii) rules about sharing the produce, and (iii) potentially disproportionate sanctions for non-authorised behaviours. Despite currently being limited, home cultivation policies might have the capacity to engage cannabis networks that already exist in the community and like that, enhance their participation in legitimate policy schemes. Conclusions: Rules around pooled cultivation and sharing could be made fit for purpose to accommodate community supply of cannabis. Home cultivation policies could serve as a basis for community-level cannabis supply models and as such, for more inclusive cannabis policies

Annual report: the Czech Republic 2008 drug situation.

Commissioned each year by the EMCCDA and produced by the national focal points of the Reitox network, the National reports draw an overall picture of the drug phenomenon at national level in each EU Member State. These data are key information to the EMCCDA and are an important resource, among others, for the compilation of its Annual report

Country specific classification tree models.

<p>Note: Country specific classification tree models for the Czech Republic (top-left), Italy (top-right), Netherlands (bottom-left) and Sweden (bottom-right). The variables in the numbered boxes indicate the splitting variables identified in the recursive partitioning analysis. The cut-off value for each split, and the number of participants involved in each split is indicated next to the arrows diverting participants from the splitting variable. The six grey area's in the bottom of the lowest boxes (“terminal nodes”), and the “p” in these boxes indicates the proportion of participants in each partitioned area with scores of 7 or higher on the CAST. “n” in the lowest boxes indicates the number of participants in each of the terminal nodes.</p

Ten models with optimal fit.

<p>Note: Variables correspond to those described in the section ‘Bivariate analysis’. AIC is Akaike Information Criterion, Nagelkerke R² provides a goodness-of-fit index between 0–1.</p><p>Ten models with optimal fit.</p