LOCAL PASS

A LOCAL APPROACH TOWARDS THE REDUCTION OF

PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCE USE

The Elusiveness of New Drug Trends (And What We Can Do About Them, Nevertheless)

Christian Schneider, Swiss Federal Office of Police

Why Cooperation Is Key

• Widely dispersed knowledge/data

• Lack of objective standard for what constitutes a “problem”

• No “solution” can address all aspects of a problem

„In our view, however, the major factor in the failed

estimates was (…) single-outcome forecasting.

This (…) reinforced some of the worst analytical

hazards -- status quo bias and a prejudice towards

continuity of previous trends.“

NIC Senior Review Panel (1983). Report of Intelligence Judgements Preceding Significant Historical Failures: The Hazards of Single- Outcome Forecasting. Washington: National Intelligence Council: 4-5 (emphasis added)

„Give a small boy a hammer, and he will find that

everything he encounters needs pounding. “

Abraham Kaplan (1964). The Conduct of Inquiry: Methodology for Behavioral Science. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing: 28

„ All [inhabitants, C.S.] have a profound understanding of

a particular set of hyperlocal issues and conditions, but

that doesn’t mean they grasp the overall pattern in their

city, or understand how to fix the problems they inhabit

(…). Each of them is looking at a gigantic (and

constantly morphing) complex system through a soda

straw.“

David Kilcullen (2013). Out of the Mountains: The Coming Age of the Urban Guerrilla. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 244 (emphasis added).