Illegal geographies and spatial planning: developing a dialogue on drugs

ABSTRACT

Recent debates in this, and other, journals have focused ‘illegal geographies’, ‘geographies of the illicit’ and ‘planning and criminal powers’. This paper fuses these debates in geography and planning through an interrogation of the interface between illegal drugs and spatial planning. In unpacking and problematizing the drugs–planning nexus and developing a dialogue on drugs, it sets the context for a new research agenda concerning contemporary deliberations on the territoriality, governance and planning of the contemporary city. It is argued that such a paper is necessary as there is a noticeable absence of a debate on planning for drugs; in fact, academic and professional planners largely ignore this hugely important and challenging issue facing cities, regions and countries around the world. The paper fills this void by exposing and interrogating the links between drugs and planning, and it demonstrate that planners can, and indeed should, contribute positively towards understanding and dealing with the ‘drugs problem’. Ultimately, the aim is to stimulate a new debate on this fascinating but under-researched topic of drugs and planning. The insights from this study are relevant to an international academic audience; more professionally, the policy and practice implications are transferrable across geographical space to planners around the world.

KEYWORDS:

• economic geography
• governance
• labour markets
• local development
• spatial planning
• territorial

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Aidan Lavelle, Stuart Borthwick and the anonymous referees for comments on earlier versions of this paper.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Philip Boland http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1011-2447

Linda Fox-Rogers http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6131-4789

Stephen McKay http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1580-1287

Brendan Murtagh http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9417-6052

Notes

1 Exceptions in the UK include Professor David Nutt, Paul Flynn MP and former Chief Constable Richard Brunstrum.

2 The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) is the UK’s leading planning body for spatial, sustainable and inclusive planning, and is the largest planning institute in Europe with over 25,000 members (see www.rtpi.org.uk/about-the-rtpi/).

3 In 1921, Ireland was partitioned by the British. Six north-eastern counties (with an in-built Protestant majority) became Northern Ireland, while the remaining 26 counties formed the Free State, otherwise known as the Republic of Ireland, or Eire. From 1968 onwards, fierce ethno-sectarian violence erupted between Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries; the former seeking a united Irish Republic, the latter defending Northern Ireland’s British status.

4 The DfI retains responsibility for determining significant and ‘called-in’ planning applications; the Regional Development Strategy (the overarching planning framework for Northern Ireland); Regional Planning Policy; Planning Legislation; Performance Management; and Oversight and Guidance for councils.

5 In a UK context, DrugWise (2016) reveals during 2015–16 in England and Wales around one in 12, or 8.4%, of adults aged 16–59 years had taken a drug in the last year. This equates to 2.7 million people. In addition, one in five 16–24 year olds had taken an illicit substance in the last year.

6 The central government department responsible for British drugs policy.

7 In 2012, officials allowed ‘narcotics traffickers and others to launder hundreds of millions of dollars through HSBC subsidiaries and to facilitate hundreds of millions more in transactions with sanctioned countries’ (Breuer, cited in Treanor & Rushe, 2012).

8 Unlike other drugs traffickers, Warren did not leave an easily identifiable audit trail of his enterprise through using technology (e.g., bank accounts or computers); instead, he memorized all this information. This seriously hindered the law and drug authorities in their search for his fortune. A forensic investigation only managed to recover £20 million of his estimated £120 million. There are unsubstantiated but realistic claims he owns 300 properties in Liverpool and the North West of England, discotheques and nightclubs in Spain, and vineyards in Bulgaria (Barnes et al., 2000). Warren is currently serving a 13-year prison sentence for cannabis smuggling.

9 A national newspaper that presents an annual list of the most affluent people living in the UK.

10 A lorry driver from Mexico explained he could earn US$27,000 for one drug trip while his day job made him only US$100 per week; the financial enticement was too much and resulted in a long prison sentence (Dooley, 2018). In Liverpool, a local dealer informed he could make £17,000 profit on 1 kg of heroin; ultimately, he too ended up in jail (Johnson, 2012).

11 Drug lord Jesus Malverde is lauded as the Patron Saint of Narco amongst locals for his ‘good work’ for local people.

12 This originates back to 1971 when the Richard Nixon administration in America prohibited certain drugs and began to use military means to reduce drug production, distribution and consumption. In the intervening years the ‘war on drugs’ has extended around the world and is now a truly global policy network involving nation-states, drug enforcement agencies and international organizations.

13 For example, the reality is that it has become a ‘war on drug users’ (Boland, 2008) and in many cases a ‘war on people of colour’ (Taylor, 2015).

14 Taylor (2015) argues that variants of synthetic drugs are rising exponentially because of prohibitionist policies, e.g., during 2009–13 some 243 new drugs were discovered. The irony is that older illegal drugs are actually safer than new (not yet illegal) drugs due to their being knowledge about their risks – such important information is lacking for newly developed drugs.

15 For example, people suffering mental illness and physical disabilities as victims of paramilitary violence are now unable or unwilling to work in the formal economy and are placed on long-term sickness benefits. Of those economically inactive, 82% did not want a job, while 18% did (NISRA, 2017).

16 Over recent decades there have been various versions of the IRA, e.g., Official, Provisional, Real and Continuity. The latest incarnation is said to be simply ‘the IRA’.

17 These include attacks with baseball bats, iron bars, sledgehammers, electric drills and ‘kneecappings’.

18 Dooley’s (2018) documentary shows how local vigilantes in Michoacán Mexico arm themselves so as to take back control of the streets from drugs cartels as they feel the government has been unsuccessful.

19 The IPLO was a splinter group from the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA).

20 DAAD are active in Belfast, while RAAD are mostly active in Derry/Londonderry, which is Northern Ireland’s second largest city; Catholics/Nationalists use the Irish name Derry while Protestants/Unionists use Londonderry, reflecting their British identity.

21 Those who oppose the current peace process arrangements in Northern Ireland and the mainstream Republican politics of Sinn Féin – the largest Nationalist/Republican party.

22 A small secretive Loyalist paramilitary group closely linked to the UVF.

23 Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) was the cover name for a murder squad within the UDA.

24 The Shankill Road is a Loyalist heartland on the western edge of Belfast city centre.

25 Whilst accepting the UDA and UVF are involved in drug dealing, Gallaher and Shirlow argue the eruption of conflict on the Shankill was more to do with tensions over the future of Loyalism and the then emergent peace process.

26 There is an established literature on the ‘drugs–crime nexus’ (e.g., Bennett & Holloway, 2004, 2005; Hughes & Anthony, 2006; MacGregor, 2000; Yates, 2002). Despite obvious links between drugs and crime, there is no causality; the reality is that drugs do not inevitably cause acquisitive crime (Bean, 2004; Simpson, 2003), violent crime (Resignato, 2000) or gang crime (Bennett & Holloway, 2004; Pearson & Hobbs, 2001).

27 The latest incidents in Belfast concern a young woman who was subjected to an unsuccessful ‘carjacking’ from a man brandishing a hypodermic syringe; and a mother discovering drug needles in the toilet of a shopping centre (Leonard, 2017; UTV News, 2017).

28 This is part of ‘stigmatizing the so-called dangerous classes’ (De Leo, 2017, p. 218) who are guilty of ‘offending the senses, causing anxiety and feelings of insecurity’ (Kübler & Wälti, 2001, p. 38).

29 The most recent example is the aggressive social cleansing of drug addicts and homeless people by police officers and security forces (using bulldozers) from a public square in São Paulo (known as ‘Cracolandia’ or ‘Crackland’); the local mayor, Joao Doria, justified such revanchist actions by citing the need to remove an ‘open-air shopping mall for drugs’ (BBC News, 2017).

30 Strategic locations in city and town centres where substances can be tested without penalty to help stem a disturbing rise in drug-related deaths.

31 This is a concern replicated throughout urban areas of the UK, particularly the more deprived communities (Marmot Review, 2010).

32 However, evidence shows it is possible for users, including hardened addicts, to manage their drug consumption and function normally in their social relationships, family networks and employment responsibilities (Allen, 2005b; Shewan & Dalgarno, 2005). It is not necessarily the chemistry of the drug that causes death, but the fact that users/addicts secure their ‘gear/fix’ from an underground economy where drugs production is uncontrolled and drugs are ‘cut’ to maximize sales, meaning that drug purity becomes dangerously volatile and occasionally lethal (Boland, 2008; Cruts, 2000; Nutt, 2006; Nutt et al., 2007; Robson, 2001; Young, 1988).

33 The Belfast Strategic Partnership was established by the Public Health Agency, Belfast City Council and Belfast Health and Social Care Trust to provide a collaborative approach in addressing life inequalities (Belfast Strategic Partnership, 2015; www.makinglifebettertogether.com/bsp/).

34 Community Safety Partnerships work to make communities safer, ensuring that the voices of local people are heard (Belfast Community Safety Partnership, 2012; www.belfastcity.gov.uk/community/pcsp/pcsp-about.aspx).

35 Five Drug and Alcohol Coordination Teams across Northern Ireland, run by the Public Health Agency, provide a range of localized support networks for people with dependency issues (www.drugsandalcoholni.info/thenidacts/).

36 Along with alcoholics, prostitutes, street beggars, the homeless and others who lead non-conventional lifestyles.

37 Alcohol and tobacco account for 90% of ‘drug-related deaths’ in the UK (Boland, 2008; Nutt et al., 2007).

38 In Spain, the individual accused of consumption is subjected to the court system but is not sent to prison; in America, the courts send a person to drug treatment after conviction. It is the acquisition of a criminal record (‘stigmatisation’) that the Portuguese and Dutch seek to avoid (van het Loo et al., 2002).

39 The belief that it is wrong to deny the existence of illegality.

40 From fines to travel restrictions to loss of allowances; for a full list, see van het Loo et al. (2002, p. 59).