Public health and public order: tackling hard drug use in Amsterdam (The Netherlands) and Porto Alegre (Brazil)

Abstract:

Collaboration between health, social and law enforcement sectors is considered fundamental for the success of policies directed to illicit drug use. Few studies, however, analyzed sectorial interaction from a street level point of view. Beyond policy documents, how do street level workers manage to negotiate different objectives such as public health or public order? And what are the practical challenges and potential benefits coming from a two-track approach where repression  and  care towards drug use walk side by side? This presentation focus on the collaboration between social, health and law enforcement workers from Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and Porto Alegre, Brazil, while approaching hard drug users in their daily activities. This is part of a qualitative PhD research analyzing how street level workers manage to put drug policies into practice. From February 2010 until  March 2011, 80 in-depth interviews with street level workers and 800 hours of participant observation were carried out, equally divided between the cities. While collaboration between care and law enforcement is well developed in Amsterdam, that does not hold true for Porto Alegre. Differences regarding material resources, the type of drug mostly used in each city, and the historical development of police force can partially explain the differences. Additionally, the existence of collaboration presented both potentials and challenges: it increases drug users’ access into care, but also the level of control towards them. Excessive control, eventually, can divert users from care and produce a power shift towards repression within a public health policy.

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Roy Huijsmans

Short CV: PhD Candidate at ISS-EUR and visiting researcher at Bonger Institute, UvA. She holds an MA in Social and Institutional Psychology and works with drug policies and drug addiction since 2003.