DRUSEC

Use of alcohol and illicit drugs in public and nightlife – challenges and suggestions for solutions for municipalities

Projektbeschreibung: The project consortium DRUSEC (drug use and urban security) comprises several German and French partners from different scientific fields, with a focus on social geography in the French part of the project and a focus on sociology in the German project team.

The project aims at researching the objective and subjective security risks associated with drug use in public or semi-public settings. These settings include “open drug scenes” as well as night life settings with a focus on “party drugs”, open street markets for cannabis or other places that are (temporarily) a spatial focus of drug use, including alcohol use. Measures that are able to significantly reduce the risks of such “drug places” for users and the general public will be identified and evaluated, using a complementary methodological approach as well as comparative research conducted in both countries. A special focus is laid on harm reduction measures like “drug checking” and supervised drug consumption rooms (DCR), but also on cooperation between law enforcement and social work and other features that may reduce subjective or objective risk in such settings.

Relevant settings in several French and German cities will be identified and researched using different cartographical and social scientific methods such as participant observation, semi-structured interviews, expert interviews, Geographical Information Systems, cartography and lexicometry. These methods will be applied in several steps and indifferent urban settings, taking into account the perspective of users, the general public, law enforcement and social work.

Methoden: In order to form a base for the measures and products being tested, the project mainly works with a set of complementary methods from the social sciences. A common main scientific approach combines fieldwork, participant observation and interviews. The results are the basis for evaluation (WP 6) and comparisons (WP 7).
In addition to this, particular methods of inquiry based on the methodological competencies of the teams allows the preparation of fieldwork as well as a deepening of the results: several qualitative surveys (CDR, Bx-P, AdP, ISFF, IPH), lexicometry (EA LERASS), cartography (Bx-P). These methods are supported by technical and analytical considerations (particularly toxicology; UMS), in order to test and develop useful measures of risk prevention.

Kooperationspartner_innen: Centre for Drug Research (CDR), UMR PASSAGES, Institute of Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP), University of Applied Police Science, Institute for Addiction Research (ISFF), Universitätsklinikum Freiburg, UKF

Projektleitung: Dr. Bernd Werse (CDR)

Gesamtvolumen: €286.000

Laufzeit: 3 years

Abschlussberichte:
DRUSEC Handlungsempfehlungen Deutschland – Ausgehszenen
DRUSEC Handlungsempfehlungen Deutschland – Offene Szenen