ArticleHealth & justice2020
"Pick up anything that moves": a qualitative analysis of a police crackdown against people who use drugs in Tijuana, Mexico.
Article in Health & justice, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 18 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of drug legislation on crime reduction: a systematic literature review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Pooled it
- Municipal police support for harm reduction services in officer-led referrals of people who inject drugs in Tijuana, Mexico.Harm reduction journal · 2021Trial
- The war on drugs is a war on us: young people who use drugs and the fight for harm reduction in the Global South.Harm reduction journal · 2024Article
- Implementing a decentralized opioid overdose prevention strategy in Mexico, a pending public policy issue.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2023Review
- The "goldfish bowl": a qualitative study of the effects of heightened surveillance on people who use drugs in a rural and coastal Canadian setting.Harm reduction journal · 2022Article
- The Role of Context in Integrating Buprenorphine into a Drop-In Center in Kampala, Uganda, Using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Effect of police action on low-barrier substance use disorder service utilization.Harm reduction journal · 2022Article
- Deported, homeless, and into the canal: Environmental structural violence in the binational Tijuana River.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Article
- Typologies and Correlates of Police Violence Against Female Sex Workers Who Inject Drugs at the México-United States Border: Limits ofJournal of interpersonal violence · 2022Article
- The impact of recent homelessness on the provision of injection drug use initiation assistance among persons who inject drugs in Tijuana, Mexico and Vancouver, Canada.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2021Article
- Preferences and acceptability of law enforcement initiated referrals for people who inject drugs: a mixed methods analysis.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 5 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundHomeless people who use drugs (PWUD) are often displaced, detained, and/or forced into drug treatment during police crackdowns. Such operations follow a zero-tolerance approach to law enforcement and have a deleterious impact on the health of PWUD. In Mexico, municipal police officers (MPOs) conducted the largest crackdown documented at the Tijuana River Canal (Tijuana Mejora) to dismantle an open drug market. We analyzed active-duty MPOs' attitudes on the rationale, implementation, and outcomes of the crackdown. We also included the involvement of non-governmental allies in the disguised imprisonment as drug treatment referral and potential legal consequences of having illegally detained PWUD.
methodsBetween February-June 2016, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with MPOs in Tijuana. Interviews were transcribed, translated and coded using a consensus-based approach. Emergent themes, trends and frameworks were analyzed through a hermeneutic grounded theory protocol.
resultsParticipants recognized the limitations of Tijuana Mejora in effectively controlling crime and addressing drug treatment solutions. MPOs perceived that the intent of the operation was to displace and detain homeless PWUD, not to assist or rehabilitate them. The police operation was largely justified as a public safety measure to reduce the risk of injury due to flooding, decrease drug consumption among PWUD and protect local tourism from PWUD. Some participants perceived the crackdown as a successful public health and safety measure while others highlighted occupational risks to MPOs and potential human rights violations of PWUD.
conclusionsTijuana Mejora illustrated why public and private actors align in enforcing zero-tolerance drug policy. Perceptions of care are often based on captivity of the diseased, not in health and well-being of PWUD. Officer perceptions shed light on the many limitations of this punitive policing tool in this context. A shift towards evidence-based municipal strategies to address drug use, wherein police are perceived as partners in harm reduction rather than antagonists, is warranted.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.