Economic and Social Impact of Drug Policies · 8.3 Impacts on Employment and Social Cohesion

The criterion is not established.

Direct evidence documents disproportionate harms affecting several vulnerable groups in the context of drug policy and illicit drug markets. Sources identify violence, stigma, institutional exclusion, and barriers to access to justice among women imprisoned for drug offences and women who inject drugs. Harms and partial responses affecting Indigenous communities, people without financial resources, and populations exposed to violence and synthetic drugs are also documented.

However, this evidence establishes differentiated vulnerability and broader social harms but does not demonstrate the specific object of the indicator: verifiable and attributable effects of drug policy on the economic conditions, employment, livelihoods, or social cohesion of vulnerable communities.

No nationally or territorially comparable measurements were identified establishing attributable changes in employment, income, livelihoods, economic displacement, community participation, social cohesion, or recovery among vulnerable communities resulting from reforms, crop-substitution programmes, harm reduction, decriminalization, or other drug-policy interventions.

The identified health, assistance, and capacity-building responses are relevant to other components of the matrix but do not by themselves establish economic or social-cohesion improvements. Likewise, evidence of harms associated with punitive drug policies or drug-trafficking-related violence characterizes vulnerability but does not substitute for measurement of the economic or social effect required by this indicator.

Accordingly, a verifiable and attributable economic or social-cohesion effect of drug policy on vulnerable communities is not established. The red classification reflects insufficient evidence directly linked to the object of the indicator and does not imply the absence of vulnerability or broader social harms. Factor X does not apply.