The aim of the special issue of Drugs, Habits and Social Policy (Volume 23 Issue 3) is twofold. On the one hand, it capitalises on the momentum generated by the growing scientific and political interest in drug checking to present some of the latest insights and models of drug checking to a diverse audience of academics, policymakers and professionals. On the other hand, it explores some of the limitations of the scientific literature to date, which has tended to focus on micro-level variables (e.g. evaluations of technologies or individual behavioural change), to the neglect of variables located at the meso-level (including impact at community or event level), or macro-level analyses (such as the effects of drug checking on international drug markets or public health indicators such as national mortality and morbidity). Additionally, to date, the vast majority of studies on drug checking have been carried out in the Western European context and therefore additional efforts were made by the guest editorial team to directly support submissions to this special issue from other parts of the world such as Latin America, Eastern Europe and Oceania.
Table of contents – Special Issue: Drug Checking – From guerrilla to government agent: the full spectrum of drug checking services
Raoul Pieter Joost Koning, Nicolas Van der Linden, Daan van der Gouwe, Mireia Ventura, Fiona Measham
What is drug checking, anyway?
Monica J. Barratt, Fiona Measham
Who uses drug checking services? Assessing uptake and outcomes at English festivals in 2018
Fiona Measham, Henry Simmons
Drug checking in New Zealand: the 2020 and 2021 drug and substance checking legislation acts
Fiona Hutton
Ruben Quirinus Vrolijk, Fiona Measham, Adrià Quesada, Anton Luf, Dominique Schori, Sarah Radley, Dean Acreman, Josie Smith, Marko Verdenik, Daniel Martins, Mar Cunha, Carlos J. Paulos, Ilaria Fineschi Piccinin, Enrico Gerace, Alexandra Karden, Raoul Pieter Joost Koning, Laura Alexandra Smit-Rigter, Mireia Ventura
A distributed model to expand the reach of drug checking
Bruce Wallace, Lea Gozdzialski, Abdelhakim Qbaich, Azam Shafiul, Piotr Burek, Abby Hutchison, Taylor Teal, Rebecca Louw, Collin Kielty, Derek Robinson, Belaid Moa, Margaret-Anne Storey, Chris Gill, Dennis Hore
Helena Valente, Daniel Martins, Marta Pinto, José Luis Fernandes, Monica J. Barratt
Vyacheslav Kushakov, Vira Dvoriak, Olga Morozova, Lyu Azbel, Galyna Sergienko
Monica J. Barratt, Stephen J. Bright, Ash R. Blackwell
Échele Cabeza as a harm reduction project and activist movement in Colombia
Mauro Díaz Moreno, Nathalia Alarcón Ayala, Yarelix Estrada, Vannesa Morris, Julián Quintero
Teemu Kaskela, Ronja Järvelin, Janne Nahkuri, Teemu Gunnar, Aino Kankaanpää, Anna Pelander, Miina Kajos
Challenges, policy and politics in drug checking: reflections of the TEDItorial team
Nicolas Van der Linden, Raoul Pieter Joost Koning, Daan van der Gouwe, Mireia Ventura, Fiona Measham