The Communal Impacts of Drug Criminalization in Maryland

From the Bottom Up. A New Approach to
Researching Drug Criminalization
This project also set out to set a new framework for
research methodologies around drug policy. A
standard participatory action research (PAR) model
leaves the researchers to design much of the core
theory, metric, and concepts guiding the research,
leading community partners to do much of the leg
work, e.g., doing interviews and collecting data that
serves in the model the researcher largely formed.
This can be criticized by some, including me, as too
often replicating the hierarchies PAR often claims to
be studying, with community partner’s input largely
relegated to data collection, not the design of research
methodology and interpretation of that data (2).
Our process flipped this dynamic, with the
community researchers choosing to center the
analysis on how drug criminalization impacts social
capital and community capacity to build selfgoverned
institutions, with the goal of creating
recommendations for how drug policy can repair this
harm by investing in communities most impacted by
drug criminalization to exercise self-determination.
The traditional researchers then filled in much leg work, engaging in an extensive literature
review process to see what traditional academics had to say on this issue (synopsis: not much)
then engaging in qualitative research with a representative cross-section of community
experts.
Finally, expertise was defined beyond personal experience or academic/professional expertise
alone, but specifically with folks who have demonstrated a track record of not only working on
addiction, but also working on the issue in a way that reflects the culture of the impacted
communities and their work. Specifically, having an analysis of the collective impact of
criminalization on hurting community institutions’ capacity to practice self-determination
(though collective disinvestment from community organizations and through the nonprofit
industrial complex) has impacted their work.
This work was framed through the lens of engagement between community scholars guiding
the process through the use of African-Centered Research paradigm and traditional academics
incorporating elements of these approaches into their work (3).
By presenting the voices of community experts traditionally marginalized in drug policy
spaces, our research offers an opportunity to start the process of bringing tools of analysis
from the black radical tradition into drug decriminalization/harm reduction work.
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