Release Date
Geography
Language of Resource
Full Text Available
Open Access / OK to Reproduce
Peer Reviewed
Objective
Ongoing law enforcement strategies to disrupt local unregulated drug markets can have an iatrogenic effect of increasing overdose by driving consumers towards new suppliers with unpredictable drug products of unknown potency.
Findings/Key points
Neighbourhoods with more structural racism, economic deprivation or urban blight were associated with higher rates of non-fatal overdose. An opioid seizure that occurred within 250 m and 3 days, 250 m and 7 days, and 250 m and 14 days of an overdose event increased the risk of a new non-fatal overdose by 2.62, 2.17 and 1.83, respectively. Results demonstrated that overdoses exhibit a community spread process, which is exacerbated following law enforcement strategies to disrupt the unregulated drug market.
Design/methods
Cross-sectional study using point-level information on law enforcement opioid-related drug seizures from property room data, opioid-related non-fatal overdose events from emergency medical services and block group-level social determinants of health data from multiple sources.
