(Dealing with) Illegal Drugs and “Unwanted Land-Use”: A Socially Inclusive Future Planning Imagination for Drug Consumption Rooms

Abstract

This article discusses shifts in planning education. In particular, it highlights the future role of planners in the location of Drug Consumption Rooms (DCRs). The United Kingdom’s experiment with DCRs raises an important question for planning education and professional practice: are future planners adequately equipped to deal with the “frontier politics,” stakeholder reactions, and community views toward DCRs? This article reveals this is not the case and suggests practical, structural changes to U.K. planning education to create a more socially inclusive planning imagination that engages effectively with illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions, and how the “illegal” should be planned for.

Keywords

drugs planning education inclusion imagination drug consumption rooms safe consumption sites overdose prevention centres

Introduction

Recent articles in this journal raise important issues regarding planning education and research (on America see Hirt and Campbell 2024; Laurian and Göçmen 2025; on Canada see Ross et al. 2024; on Cuba see Cociña, Peña-Díaz, and Cazanave-Macías 2025; on South Africa see Wagner and du Toit 2024). We draw upon this work to provide a conceptual lens to understand the lack of engagement with illegal drugs¹ and harm reduction interventions in U.K. planning education and research.² By illegal drug use, we mean the consumption of drugs like cocaine, opioids, and methamphetamines that are controlled by legislation such as the UK Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. As a starting point, Cociña, Peña-Díaz, and Cazanave-Macías (2025) discuss the role of universities as providers of planning education and mediators of planning knowledge. Developing this point, Wagner and du Toit (2024, 2306) note, “[u]rban planning graduates are expected to have a range of competencies.” On this, Laurian and Göçmen (2025) question the degree of knowledge and competencies planning education delivers for combatting environmental degradation. Then there is Ross et al.’s (2024) reference to the “systematic inattention” to and “unquestioned disregard” for disability theory in the planning field. Using the same logic, in this article, we address the inattention to and disregard for people who use illegal drugs³ and harm reduction interventions in U.K. planning education and research. We also suggest that this should change as the United Kingdom moves toward its first sanctioned experiment with Drug Consumption Rooms (DCRs) in Belfast and Glasgow, a significant shift in approach toward illegal drugs that will have important implications for the planning profession and, in our view, they need to be adequately prepared.

A Socially Inclusive Future Planning Imagination

Hirt and Campbell (2024, 2) replace the planner’s triangle with a five-pronged pentangle⁴ and one of the main reasons is the “need to consider how planning has changed.” Post-COVID-19, a renewed focus on the symbiotic relationship between city planning, public health, and societal well-being is a priority. Indeed, developing healthy cities has an extensive appeal in planning theory and practice. Our point of departure from Hirt and Campbell (2024) is not how planning has changed; rather the focus is how planning should change. It is claimed that U.K. planners—academic and professional—have minimal, in most cases non-existent, explicit engagement with people who use drugs and harm reduction interventions (Boland et al. 2020). Why is this an issue? It is inevitable that more cities will follow civic leaders in Belfast and Glasgow who have recently approved the introduction of DCRs. As a key harm reduction intervention, DCRs enable the consumption of drugs in supervised environments to reduce public drug use, harms from injecting, and overdose deaths (Shorter et al. 2023). They are also viewed as health care facilities which promote social inclusion, by this we mean DCRs provide safety and trusting relationships which serve people who are often excluded from health care provision (Scher et al. 2024; Stevens et al. 2024).

However, the siting of DCRs is subject to “frontier politics” (Longhurst and McCann 2016). Here, various policy actors (e.g., politicians, policy-makers, the police, harm reduction activists, health service providers, local communities, private businesses) advocate and mobilize their oftentimes differing views on DCRs. This leads to “policy struggles” over the implementation of harm reduction policies leading to “spaces of contest” and “politicised barriers” regarding the location of DCRs. In the literature, this is conceptualized as “unwanted land-use” (Németh and Ross 2014; Silverman, Patterson, and Williams 2023). Interestingly, Rydin (2013) uses this phrase in her book on The Future of Planning; however, in this case, “unwanted land-use” is understood in relation to waste sites, air quality, flooding, and urban green space. Urban planners constitute a seriously under-researched player in the contested local governance arena of harm reduction (Boland, Fox-Rogers, and McKay 2020; Boland et al. 2020; McCann and Duffin 2023). This is curious since they are already making highly consequential decisions on services for communities (who include people who use drugs) such as pharmacies that may provide needle and equipment exchange services, or other health supports (Zibbell 2009). In this article, we unpack the role of urban planners in the location and implementation of DCRs and, equally importantly, discuss how planning education should prepare future graduates to effectively fulfill this role. This connects to established academic thought that “planning [has] a key role in mediating . . . conflicts between . . . often-diverging priorities” (Hirt and Campbell 2024, 4, our insert).

The illegal drugs debate is vast, complex, and interdisciplinary so it cannot be covered in its entirety in a planning curriculum. Moreover, given the eclectic nature of contemporary planning education, it is unrealistic to expect planners to become experts on illegal drugs. Drawing upon the lead author’s thirty years’ experience of teaching planning students, a more sensible strategy is to educate future planners on key issues that have most relevance to the core of urban planning: that is, land-use and the management of the built environment. These include drug use and public health, how drugs markets operate, the violence associated with drugs economies, the impact of drug activity upon mostly poor working-class areas and, most importantly, how harm reduction interventions save lives, build social inclusion, and improve communities. Planners should also be made aware that the illegal drug market shifts meaning each case should be considered on its own merit, for example, changes in drug adulterants have led to increased and unexpected fentanyl availability in the United States and/or nitazenes in Europe which increases the risk of overdose and death (Holland et al. 2024; Samuels, Bailer, and Yolken 2022) or the violence against people who use drugs in Northern Ireland (Miller, Campbell, and Shorter 2023). This will enable planners to more effectively manage the planning processes related to drugs-related land- and building-use. To facilitate this “dialogue on drugs” (Boland et al. 2020), U.K. planning education needs to change to include academic attention directed to the key issues surrounding illegal drugs to provide planning graduates with greater knowledge, skills, and competencies to deal with planning proposals for harm reduction interventions. Part of the controversy comes from a lack of understanding by those charged with the location and implementation of harm reduction interventions. As noted, in a U.K. context, future planners, as key custodians of land-use in and management of the built environment, should be cognizant of global best practice concerning the politics, location, zoning, and impacts of DCRs (Boland et al. 2020; Shorter et al. 2023).

Currently, planning students are trained to understand and respond to major societal challenges such as climate change, sustainable living, energy transition, car dependency, active travel, and health and well-being. For example, there is a pledge to regulate the location of fast-food outlets limiting their proximity to primary and secondary schools to improve children’s diet and reduce obesity. Given this, it seems counterintuitive that the range of socio-spatial consequences connected to another major local and global challenge concerning illegal drugs (e.g., street injecting, drug litter, intravenous infections, overdose deaths, street living, selling of drugs, community violence) should be treated differently and effectively ignored in planning curriculums at U.K. universities. Drug use intersects with many of those major societal challenges, for example, precarious, familial and social networks, homelessness, trauma, psychological distress, and public health (Proudfoot 2019). In our view, planners can, and indeed should, make a positive contribution—working alongside other informed interest holders—to dealing with illegal drugs.

Here, we extend what Sandercock (2004) calls the planning imagination: those new ideas and actions that enable planners to respond to significant socio-spatial challenges. Put differently, “[p]lanning accompanies thought linking action in a temporal setting” (Hoch 2024, 1467). For Phelps (2021, 12), the planning imagination has a long history dating back to the formation of cities; crucially, he asks, “what might that imagination look like in the future.” In this journal, Hoch (2024) uses concepts from cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy to deepen our understanding of how humans “imagine the future” to inform their future planning imagination. Developing this argument, we suggest this should contain ideas and actions dedicated to planning cities for people who use illegal drugs. On Vancouver’s progressive planning department in the early 2000s, Sandercock (2004, 135) speaks of “approaching the drug issue as a health problem rather than one of crime.” We support this position and believe that academic and professional planners can make a positive contribution to this attitudinal shift in the United Kingdom. Sandercock (2004, 140) ends her essay with, “I have suggested . . . a new planning imagination, a new planning culture. Are planning schools preparing their students for these challenges?” Two decades on, this article offers a substantive contribution and, in so doing, we focus on this research question: Are Planning Schools in the United Kingdom preparing their students for the challenge of illegal drugs?

Illegal Drugs and Public Health: Planning’s “Wicked Problem”

The emergence of planning during the late nineteenth century aimed to improve living conditions and public health following a period of rapid uncontrolled urbanization, poor housing and sanitation, and significant disease and death (Davoudi and Pendlebury 2010; Wong et al. 2023). In this journal, Hirt and Campbell (2024, 5) explain how “[h]ealth and planning were once joined at the hip.” Reinforcing this point, Allmendinger (2017, 189) argues, “planners and planning can legitimately be concerned with health.” Recently, health and well-being has become a primary principle of urban planning in the Global North and South and is regarded as central to the functioning of cities, towns, and villages (Adlakha and John 2022; Buchanan and Tewdwr-Jones 2011; Kent and Thompson 2014; Koksal and Wong 2023). Indeed, Tewdwr-Jones (2017a, 31) argues there is a “critical relationship between health, cities and planning,” and that health and well-being is a globalized phenomenon. For example, United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 is dedicated to Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages; within this, target 3.5 aims to “[s]trengthen the prevention and treatment of drug abuse including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.”⁵ Additionally, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Healthy Cities Network⁶ is a global initiative, dating back to 1986, promoting health and well-being in local policy agendas delivered by a strategic partnership of local interest holders, including professional planners. Noticeably, one of the WHO’s health topics is psychoactive drugs,⁷ with a team focusing on alcohol, illegal drugs, and prison health.⁸ Since 1998, Belfast and Glasgow, along with several other U.K. cities, have been members of the WHO European Network of Healthy Cities.

The recent World Drug Report published by the United Nations reveals a significant increase, almost one-fifth, in premature deaths linked to drug use. “Deaths related to the use of drugs were estimated at about 500,000 in 2019, 17.5 per cent more than in 2009. Drug overdoses account for a quarter of drug-related deaths” (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime 2023, 22). In the United Kingdom, a major study in 2010 into health inequalities in England repeatedly referenced the health, social, and economic issues associated with illegal drugs and the required policy responses (Marmot 2010). Moreover, a former scientific advisor to the U.K. Government informed, “drug misuse is one of the major social, legal, and public health challenges in the modern world” (Nutt et al. 2007, 1047). A decade after the Marmot Review, another major report for the U.K. Government was published focusing on illegal drugs and treatment services. Connecting to Nutt et al. (2007), the Black Review for the U.K. Government’s Department of the Home Office notes, “[t]aking the health harms, costs of crime and wider impacts on society together, we estimate the total costs of drugs to society are over £19 billion, which is more than twice the value of the market itself” (Black 2020, 5). The report reveals,

Treatment services have been curtailed by local government funding cuts. The total cost to society of illegal drugs is around £20 billion per year, but only £600 million is spent on treatment and prevention. So the amount of un-met need is growing, some treatment services are disappearing, and the treatment workforce is declining in number and quality. Ultimately, we need to transform our approach to treatment, investing in it but also innovating so that treatment services are able to respond to today’s drugs market and future developments. (Black 2020, 3)

Thus, a key policy recommendation from the Marmot and Black Reviews is to “increase and improve the scale and quality of medical drug treatment programmes” and, importantly, that this would require the involvement of various organizations (Black 2020; Marmot 2010, 32; also Crawford et al. 2015). We suggest that planners will, almost certainly, become one of these key interest holders. Another point is that the United Kingdom’s appetite for treatment programs will, as in other countries, draw upon and reflect the geographic “policy mobility” of harm reduction interventions (Longhurst and McCann 2016; Samuels, Bailer, and Yolken 2022). First introduced in Bern, Switzerland in 1986, DCRs can now be found in eighteen countries around the world (Bertrand 2024). The United Kingdom’s historical reluctance to follow the successful DCR model adopted across Europe and elsewhere is explained by its very conservative—that is, “tough on drugs”—stance over several decades, and institutional skepticism toward harm reduction interventions despite extensive evidence illustrating significant health and societal benefits (Shorter et al. 2023).

Importantly, the drugs support landscape in the United Kingdom and Ireland is entering a period of transformation. In December 2022, An Bord Pleanála⁹—Ireland’s national independent planning body—granted planning permission for the country’s first DCR which is to be located at Merchants Quay, Dublin¹⁰ (Blaney 2023). Then, in March 2023, Belfast City Council supported the creation of Northern Ireland’s¹¹ first DCR—an appropriate site is yet to be determined (Bonner 2023). Six months later, the Scottish Government backed plans to create the United Kingdom’s first legally operational DCR which will be located at Hunter Street, Glasgow¹² (Cook 2023). These progressive decisions by civic leaders to support the introduction of DCRs are significant, not just for providing effective harm reduction for people who use drugs but, of interest to us, DCRs will have important implications for the planning profession. This runs contrary to the claim that professional planners view illegal drugs as the sole responsibility of the police, customs, judiciary, health service and various, often voluntary, support organizations (Boland et al. 2020).

It can be argued that drugs are a modern manifestation of planning’s “wicked problems”¹³ (Rittel and Webber 1973) and “super wicked problems”¹⁴ (Levin et al. 2012) that defy straightforward solutions and instead are difficult to secure a consensual approach. Relatedly, there is Allison’s (1986, 241) discussion of planning for “dirty public things”; these are “projects which are good for the people as a whole, but bad for those who have to live next to them.”¹⁵ Clearly, reference to “dirty public things” stigmatizes people who use drugs; however, the Not in My Back Yard (NIMBY) refrain does apply to DCRs in some cases from local residents and the private sector particularly before a DCR opens (Roth et al. 2019). The evidence shows that while DCRs generate significant benefits to individuals and society more generally (Shorter et al. 2022, 2023), they also draw critical attention—a manifestation of the “frontier politics” mentioned earlier (Longhurst and McCann 2016)—from people, businesses, and organizations located near them (Bernstein and Bennett 2013; McCann and Ward 2014). This view from communities and companies, like with urban planners, is often changed when individuals (1) know what DCRs are, their purpose, how they operate, and (2) after their opening they can see the benefit through reduced public drug use and drug-related litter (Sherman et al. 2022). Indeed, in the eighteen months after the DCR opened in Sydney, one third of businesses and half of residents in the area could not identify its location on the map, suggesting it can quietly co-exist with its neighbors as other health services do (Thein et al. 2005).

Interestingly, and reflecting most of the wider planning literature, Townshend (2017) makes one passing nod to “drug abuse”; however, he dedicates much more attention in the article to the personal, societal, and planning consequences of poor diets, alcohol use, and gambling. The inclusion, albeit limited, of alcohol use in the planning literature gives evidence of the ways the dualism between legal and illegal drugs limits research and practice consideration of drugs. Planning considers licensed premises like clubs/pubs but ignores how the boundary between legal/illegal is contingent on how and where drugs are consumed. For example, alcohol consumed in public, at least in Canada, violates provincial acts and nightclubs often have patrons who consume illegal drugs. As a meta critique of the purview of planning toward consideration of illegal drugs, the illegal should be planned for. Moreover, given the extensive pathologizing and stereotyping of people who use drugs (Parkin 2022; Scher et al. 2023), certain sections of society see drugs use to be undesirable and not worthy of planning focus or other action. Notwithstanding our stance on stigmatization, we acknowledge that the deeply embedded moral perception around drugs requires sensitive decision-making. These discussions dovetail with related research on an equally sensitive planning and land-use issue, or “moral geography/ landscape,” involving similarly stereotyped citizens; in this case, “noxious neighbours” engaged in “sexual commerce”¹⁶ (Hubbard et al. 2013; Maginn and Ellison 2017; Prior and Crofts 2012).

City Planning and Drug Consumption Rooms

In light of the discussion above, a key question is how society thinks about, and how interest holders respond to, people who use drugs and those who are susceptible to premature deaths. Different approaches exist around the world (Shorter et al. 2023). One approach involves agents of the State (e.g., police, customs, courts) seeking to reduce drug cultivation, distribution, and consumption; here, punishment through the legal system criminalizes those involved in the drugs trade and drug use. As noted, for decades, the United Kingdom adopted this “tough on drugs” approach, linked to the associated international “war on drugs” initiated back in 1971 by the Nixon Administration in America. An alternative strategy is less punitive and prioritizes harm reduction through providing various treatment services; Portugal and the Netherlands are exemplars of this health-based approach. Eschewing criminalization and stigma, harm reduction provides support mechanisms for people who use drugs (Baker and McCann 2018; Kolla et al. 2017; Miller et al. 2022; Roux et al. 2021). Of note, DCRs, also known as Overdose Prevention Sites or Supervised Injecting Facilities, are part of a global strategy that allows consumption of drugs in supervised environments that deliver significant health and societal benefits including lowering public drug use, hazardous injecting, drug litter, intravenous infections, overdose deaths, and criminal behavior (Shorter et al. 2023). Another facet is local authority approaches toward street injecting through re-designing public toilets that enable the safe disposal of drug paraphernalia; see, for example, the successful experiment in Cambridge, UK (Parkin 2016). As planners, academic and professional, we need to ask ourselves what these impending harm reduction interventions will mean for future land- and building-use and the broader management of the built environment in our cities. This connects to the point raised above concerning how the illegal should be planned for in contemporary cityspaces, taking us into recent rumination on the drugs-planning nexus.

Drugs-Planning Nexus

Very soon, Glasgow will become the first U.K. city to provide a sanctioned DCR following a letter of comfort from the Lord Advocate. Therefore, as we approach the implementation of DCRs in the United Kingdom, professional planners will become an important policy actor drawn into the “frontier politics,” “contested spaces,” and “politicised barriers” associated with their location and implementation (Longhurst and McCann 2016). Although the planning context and planning implications of illegal drugs is under-researched, there are some important interventions from planning and, more widely, non-planning academics. Providing an entry point into local planning issues surrounding illegal drugs use and DCRs, Samuels, Bailer, and Yolken (2022, 2) state, “[t]here are . . . important logistic considerations . . . including location, zoning.” Developing the research record, McCann (2008) analyzes local opposition and the planning processes associated with injection facilities in Vancouver; C. Smith (2010) focuses on “recourse to planning policy” linked to land zoning for treatment clinics in Toronto; Németh and Ross (2014) discuss “planning for marijuana” in relation to the location of medical dispensaries in Denver; Polson (2015) addresses land-use planning and outdoor marijuana cultivation in California and, most recently, Silverman, Patterson, and Williams (2023) analyze how planning and land-use decisions shape the variable socio-spatial location of legalized “cannabis businesses” in New York. These references reinforce an earlier study of Rio de Janeiro by de Souza (2005, 333), who argued that illegal drugs represent “an important challenge . . . for urban planning.” Collectively, these studies provide insights into how legal and illegal drug use is planned for.

We noted earlier that an important competency of professional planners is to “mediate conflicts” between competing priorities for the built environment (Hirt and Campbell 2024). In this case, it concerns the location of “unwanted land-uses” relating to illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions (Németh and Ross 2014; Silverman, Patterson, and Williams 2023). In essence, how the illegal should be planned for. Evidence shows that certain interest holders, such as the private sector and local residents, can engage in hostile reactions toward planning proposals for DCRs (in Canada see McCann and Ward 2014; in Dublin see McCann and Duffin 2023). As noted, these “local barriers” and “political opposition” may be driven by NIMBYism and “moral panic” as apprehensive policy actors voice their concerns to politicians, planners, and law-makers (Chalfin, del Pozo, and Miter-Becerril 2023; Longhurst and McCann 2016; Scher et al. 2023). Stevens (2024) notes that policy decisions, including those about who is entitled to space in communities are often not based in the scientific evidence but are ideologically based in constellations of values. Stigma against people who use drugs undoubtedly plays a key role (Miller, Campbell, and Shorter 2023), and indeed Larsen and Delica (2019) refer to this as territorial stigmatization. Importantly, we should be cautious about how we proceed with “wicked problems”; particularly that we do not advance marginalization through exclusionary urban governance. Concerns often arise from misperceptions of what DCRs are, what they do, and how they do it, as communities, in a similar way to urban planners, have a limited understanding of drug use and DCR facilities. For a detailed examination of community concerns and how these are addressed in existing facilities with the associated evidence, see the largest review to date in the field with 570 sources (Shorter et al. 2023) and the mechanism of how DCRs work using the evidence using 370 sources (see Stevens et al. 2024).

However, as we have explained, once these concerns have been allayed, support for DCRs tends to increase. For example, studies of British Columbia (Bernstein and Bennett 2013; Tzemis et al. 2013) reveal strong evidence of a Yes in My Back Yard (YIMBY) attitude toward harm reduction interventions, especially among young people, females, and those with higher levels of education. It is also true that “urban control strategies” (Olding et al. 2023) featuring “security planning” (Raco 2007) and “safety and cleanliness” (Swyngedouw 2011) agendas result in targeting (i.e., moving on) public drug use. For example, Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) in the United Kingdom employ private security guards “who patrol designated areas for issues that can adversely impact residents’ and visitors’ quality of life” (D’Souza 2020, 71). BIDs aim to create a safe environment for shoppers and tourists to spend time and money without fear of crime and antisocial behavior (Berg and Shearing 2024; Kudla 2022). Illegal drug consumption is regarded as a high-profile disruption to that enjoyment (Eick 2012). This connects to broader questions over the “implications for the everyday dynamics of social coexistence between mainstream society and the socially marginalized” (Kübler and Wälti 2001, 38).

Given what we have discussed thus far, it is our contention that people who use drugs and harm reduction interventions should be added to the “complex challenges” facing the next generation of professional planners (Husar et al. 2023). On this, Boland et al. (2020, 178, our insert) believe “planning scholars and practitioners [should] be just as familiar with the drugs debate as they are with child obesity or global warming.” Moreover, following an analysis of Northern Ireland’s key planning documents, they argue:

The section on health and well-being in the SPPS,¹⁷ like the NPPF,¹⁸ refers to a range of cityspaces compatible with creating healthy individuals and communities. More specifically, reference is made to prioritizing people’s lifestyle (e.g., exercise, diet, air quality, safety) and effective planning on building design, transportation, fast food outlets and leisure spaces. However, drugs [can pose a risk] to health and well-being . . . and a strong and shared society. As with the NPPF, this important connection is absent. In a striking comparison, the SPPS rightly highlights the locational implications of McDonald’s, Burger King and KFC on child obesity, yet there is not a single mention in the entire 120 pages of an arguably more debilitating danger to children—illegal drugs. (Boland et al. 2020a, 189, our insert)

This professional disinclination among practicing planners is attributed to an understandable wariness of the controversy associated with illegal drugs. Moreover, connecting to debates in this journal, “they . . . do not see drugs as falling within their professional competence . . . Instead . . . drugs are, in the planners’ mindset, a matter for the police, legal and health professionals” (Boland et al. 2020, 190). Notwithstanding this concern, if planners were equipped with new knowledge on the drugs question, in tandem with their extant skills in delivering effective place management and health and well-being, and competencies in mediation and negotiation, communication and engagement, and conflict resolution they could make a positive contribution to dealing with drugs in the contemporary city and reducing harm for communities. However, this necessitates embedding planning for drugs into future teaching agendas within U.K. academic institutions which would, we contend, represent a significant innovation for the planning profession.

Research Methods

The methodology for this article has two components: a desk-based review and online survey. For the desk-based review, we first studied course outlines that were accessible via U.K. university websites, following the same approach adopted by Acolin and Kim (2024) in this journal. Using the Royal Town Planning Institute’s (RTPI) website, we identified twenty schools that offer accredited planning courses in England,¹⁹ Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.²⁰ This enabled us to decipher if illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions featured in the respective curriculums. For the second element, we reviewed a selection of mainstream textbooks on U.K. planning and land-use,²¹ to ascertain if and how illegal drugs featured in these works. This involved drawing upon our knowledge of previously reading these books, plus word searches in PDF formats and indices of hard copies that we had not read in detail. The third component involved studying the websites of academic and research staff at these schools, supplemented by an examination of Google Scholar and ResearchGate. This identified research interests and those who publish on drugs and planning. Finally, we conducted a desk study of the website and key documents of the RTPI and Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA). The aim was to analyze how an important institute and charity guiding the U.K. planning profession view debates on drugs and harm reduction interventions and, more importantly, whether drugs form a key component of their future planning education and research priorities.

The collection of primary data consisted of an online survey of the twenty schools that offer planning or planning-related courses. This methodological component used a Google Forms survey directed to undergraduate (UG) and postgraduate (PGT) leads and focused on whether illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions feature in current curriculums, and whether these issues should feature more prominently in future curriculum development at each academic institution. We received faculty ethics approval to conduct this survey within which we offered anonymity to respondents to limit reproach. It is not our intention to criticize schools for limited engagement with planning for illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions, but rather to enquire as to the reasoning to include or exclude these issues within the curriculum. Moreover, program leads/teams may not necessarily represent the position of their host schools and as such we would caution that this survey is generalizable to all U.K. universities offering planning courses, but may represent the interests, concerns, and thoughts of the program leads/teams at this particular point in time.

The Google Forms survey was sent to the twenty schools in U.K. universities offering planning and planning-related courses at UG and PGT level. An explanatory email was sent to UG and PGT course leads on October 11 and 12, 2023, containing a link to the survey. Contact names and email addresses were obtained from the school websites or, if not available online, they were secured from the Head of School. Five responses were received from the course leads that we contacted. Adopting the same position as Guzzetta and Bollens (2003, 99, our insert), our response rate of 20 percent (23% in their case) for a survey of planners (academics in our case) is “modest [but] not unexpected . . . because . . . we were attempting to gain the attention of busy professionals.” We must accept the reality that completing an online survey on illegal drugs, arguably an alien topic for many/most/all program leads, is understandably low down the list of priorities for academics having to manage the demands of ever-increasing workloads (A. Smith 2024). An equally plausible explanation is that the relatively low number of responses can also be read as representing a lack of interest—that is, systemic inattention (Ross et al. 2024)—among academic planners in drugs issues, reinforcing the central argument of the article. This connects to previous research suggesting a disinclination toward drug issues among academic planners in the United Kingdom (Boland, Fox-Rogers, and McKay 2020; Boland et al. 2020). Pulling together the findings from these complementary research methods—desk-based studies and schools survey—enabled us to offer an informed assessment of the coverage of illegal drugs within the U.K. planning academe.

U.K. Planning Schools: Knowledge, Skills and Competencies, and Illegal Drugs

As noted above, planners have a range of knowledge, skills, and competencies relating to land-use and management of the built environment (see Alexander 2005, 99; Guzzetta and Bollens 2003, 100; LeGates 2009, 69). Most notably, of relevance to this study, this would include skills and competencies relating to engagement, communication, negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution over contentious planning applications that invite hostile reactions from residents, businesses, and other interest holders (Hirt and Campbell 2024). On the future planning curriculum, Alexander (2005, 92) asks, “[w]hat should we teach, and what kinds of knowledge will future planners need?” Similarly, LeGates (2009, 59) notes, “[g]iven the variety of roles planners perform and the large amount of knowledge that is relevant to their education, U.K. planning programmes must prioritise what they teach.” On this, Guzzetta and Bollens (2003, 97) reveal that the skills planners require change with time and, what can happen, is “a measurable and harmful gap between professional education and professional practice.” Planning for DCRs is a case in point. Indeed, Alexander (2005, 95)—twenty years ago—refers to potential limitations in planners’ knowledge of the implications of “locating a neighborhood drug treatment center.” Here, he highlights the planner’s “facilitator role” in managing the contestation between local interest holders over formal zoning and land-use regulations and, ultimately, “produc[ing] consensus on an agreed location” (Alexander 2005, 96). The previous sections of this article established that knowledge of illegal drugs and skills and competencies involved in planning for harm reduction interventions is something that future planners will need. Given this, the next section analyzes whether illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions are currently taught in U.K. universities offering planning courses and, if not, it suggests this subject area is something that should be prioritized in future planning education.

Course Documentation, Textbooks, and Staff Research Interests

Our first line of investigation involved analyzing online planning course documentation. We found little evidence of engagement with illegal drugs and harm reduction. Indeed, only one school—Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University Belfast—offers UG and PGT students formal training on illegal drugs, in this case dedicated lectures and seminars. Additionally, there are essay and exam questions on illegal drugs, harm reduction, and city planning. However, even in that institution, the training is not developed into a formal module, let alone a specialist degree pathway linked to healthy urban planning, development management, city resilience, or economic development. Additionally, our analysis of mainstream planning and land-use textbooks that are used for teaching at U.K. universities found no evidence of any systematic engagement with debates surrounding illegal drugs. However, in relation to public health matters, we did find singular nods to drug abuse, drug addiction (these are not phrases we would use) and drug dealing (Couch 2016; Greed and Watson 2014; Hall and Tewdwr-Jones 2020), drug counseling (Sandercock, in Fainstein and DeFillipis 2016), drug centers (Friedmann, in Fainstein and DeFillipis 2016), and drugs and arms syndicates (Watson, in Fainstein and DeFillipis 2016). So, while there is not complete ignorance of drugs issues in mainstream planning and land-use textbooks, the references that do exist are minimalist and the potential broader relevance to planning is not developed. We must note, however, that this is not a criticism; rather, it is an observation of the lack of systematic engagement with drugs issues in U.K. planning education. Finally, a review of academic and research staff web profiles, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate found just three planning academics at U.K. universities, as co-authors from the same institution—again Queen’s University Belfast—had published articles in international peer-reviewed journals teasing out the relationship between illegal drugs and city planning. This has been conceptualized as the “drugs-planning nexus” (Boland, Fox-Rogers, and McKay 2020; Boland et al. 2020). However, we did find a small number of human geographers with research interests in, and published material on, illegal drugs. Naturally, given their disciplinary background, these publications do not explicitly engage with the important planning issues that have been raised here.

School Survey

The school survey is intended to complement the desk study of university schools identified above. We found that four out of five respondents stated that illegal drugs do not feature in their UG or PGT pathways. The single respondent who reported that illegal drugs do feature in their PGT curriculum stated, “Reference to substance misuse in some lectures on health and wellbeing or crime and how they intersect with planning’s role in shaping socio-economic conditions and spaces of cities.” A follow-up question asked if illegal drugs featured in a dedicated lecture or were linked to a broader planning topic. A sole respondent stated, “Linked to a broader topic.” It is interesting that while there is “reference to” illegal drugs in “some lectures,” focusing on land-use, place management, and NIMBYism, there are no dedicated standalone lectures or seminars on illegal drugs and planning. So, reflecting the academic literature, the engagement with illegal drugs constitutes a passing nod, rather than an engagement with the range of planning issues relevant to illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions, especially with respect to modules that focus on healthy urban planning debates.

More positively, four out of five respondents stated illegal drugs should feature in future planning education in their respective schools. In the follow-up question, respondents explained how illegal drugs should be covered in their curriculums. “It should be incorporated into discussions of the relationship between public health and planning—a topic we currently don’t teach, but is arguably critical to planning as a discipline” (R#1); “Within relevant modules” (R#2); “We could add it to a module such as place making and spatial mediation” (R#3); “Perhaps as an issue within health inequalities, use of public [sic] or ‘managing’ urban populations. More radically, perhaps something on the shadow economy” (R#4). The respondent who stated that illegal drugs should not feature in future planning education in their school explained their position:

It is a one-year Master’s degree and already we struggle to address the breadth of content required for planners to gain core competency. This is a rather specialised aspect of planning education which might be integrated into an option module, perhaps on healthy cities or community planning but perhaps more as a seminar topic so there is an awareness rather than a dedicated talk or learning outcome. Unfortunately, there is only so much we can teach in the limited time we have. (R#5)

In contrast, the next survey question asked respondents if illegal drug economies, drugs use, and harm reduction interventions should become a new professional competency for future planners, driven by the RTPI. We found four out of five respondents stated No, and one responded Yes. This is surprising given the wealth of evidence cited earlier regarding a future socially inclusive planning imagination, and the important links between future planners’ competencies, illegal drugs, and harm reduction interventions and how they intersect with other planning priorities. The final question asked planning leads if illegal drugs, drugs use, and harm reduction featured in school research groups/cells/clusters. Three of the responses stated No, and one respondent was Unsure while the final respondent stated, “Yes. We have a number of academic staff on the human geography side of our school that engage in this research and publish on it.” Unsurprisingly, in this Geography and Planning School, it is not planning academics who research and write about illegal drugs.

RTPI and TCPA: Planning Education and Research

The RTPI is an international professional body that maintains professional standards and accredits planning courses; it has 30,000 members in eighty-eight countries around the world.²² The RTPI regards itself as the “voice of the profession,” engaging with a range of governmental and non-governmental experts, bodies, and advocates to promote good planning, the public interest, policy development, and research.²³ Although the RTPI does not determine the curriculum for university schools offering planning and planning-related courses, “it takes the position that spatial planning requires knowledge of how relationships in place and space develop over time” (LeGates 2009, 56). Of relevance to this article, the RTPI supports its members to “create inclusive, healthy, prosperous, sustainable and happy communities,”²⁴ and one of its ten Policy and Research topics is Healthy and Inclusive Planning.²⁵ The sections on “healthy and happy” communities/planning are not explicit in their inclusiveness of people who use drugs. Additionally, drug economies, drugs use, and harm reduction do not feature anywhere in the RTPI website, such as the sections on education, policy and research,²⁶ or the Corporate Strategy 2020–2030 (RTPI 2019).

Another important organization for academic and professional planners is the TCPA, a charity whose mission is “to challenge, inspire and support people to create healthy, sustainable and resilient places that are fair for everyone.”²⁷ Similar to the RTPI, recent documents produced by the TCPA indicate an important link between planning and healthy lives/living, health and well-being, health inequalities, mental and physical health, healthy communities, and health facilities (TCPA 2021, 2024). The heightened health challenges associated with illegal drugs are not mentioned or, regarding health facilities, the planning challenges relating to how the built environment can accommodate the implementation of DCRs. Notwithstanding these omissions, the RTPI and TCPA engage with very important challenges facing the planning profession; however, drugs use and harm reduction are not key educational, policy, or research priorities so it is natural that some components are likely to be missing.

Conclusions

Returning to the research question, Planning Schools in the United Kingdom do not prepare their graduates for the challenge of illegal drugs. Therefore, this article makes the case for broadening the planning curriculum in U.K. universities and sets out a pedagogical agenda we call the socially inclusive future planning imagination. First, the planning profession and academic discipline has a long history firmly rooted in tackling health issues. However, drugs do not feature prominently in this debate. Negating the views and needs of people who use drugs, people who are also members of their communities, represents a key systematic exclusion of a future planning imagination. Second, as we have shown, DCRs create a range of local planning challenges concerning community consultation, NIMBYism, land- and building-use, and development management. Third, and crucially, professional planners do not have sufficient knowledge of drug use (legal and illegal), drugs economies/markets, and harm reduction, so they are ill equipped to help make informed decisions on drugs-related planning applications. For example, university training in healthy urban planning modules is limited to car use, noise/air pollution, active travel, diet and exercise, green spaces, safety and security, inclusive places, mental health, even smoking, and alcohol. Fourth, and encompassing all the above points, planners need to learn about planning’s history and contribution to marginalization, exclusion, and stigmatization of drug use via political influence but also equally presuppositions about people who use drugs and their role as community members (Miller, Campbell, and Shorter 2023). Raco’s (2007) discussions of the dangers of “security planning” is a case in point. Given the alarming situation in many societies, illegal drugs should be given the same attention as other major societal challenges. The proposed extension to planning education advocated here would provide future planners with greater knowledge and understanding of the drugs debate, and relevant competencies and skills to deal with drugs-related planning proposals.

Illegal drug use via DCRs should, like the consumption of sexual services, become “regulated as [a] legitimate land use” issue (Prior and Crofts 2012, 130). This would allow planners, alongside other interest holders, to effectively deal with contentious drugs-related planning proposals in cityspace. Earlier, we mentioned the need for a “dialogue on drugs” (Boland et al. 2020). This dialogue must consider community views acknowledging that people who use drugs also are part of the community but similarly anchor action on evidence and effective partnerships. This article has gone one step further. Drawing upon live debates in this journal on the need for changes to planning education and research, we argue U.K. university planning education should provide dedicated teaching and research on illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions to improve the knowledge of future planning graduates and practicing professionals. One additional priority is considering how this can be effectively and practically incorporated into the socially inclusive future planning imagination. Returning to Sandercock (2004, 140),

if the planning profession is to confront the challenges posed by . . . the 21^st century, then important aspects of planning culture itself need to change . . . New modes of thought and new practices are needed to shift what was once considered as natural, some of the outmoded assumptions embedded in the culture of Western planning.

Contributing to, and developing, the international body of knowledge—and with lessons for cities around the world—a major step forward in a new planning imagination and planning culture is for planning education and research to change so that it includes more systemic attention to illegal drugs and harm reduction interventions.

We end this article by setting out an agenda for U.K. planning education. We accept that the subject matter surrounding illegal drugs is extensive and therefore cannot be readily accommodated in a university planning curriculum. Additionally, there is a whole host of important issues that will be prioritized in a planning degree pathway, notably those relating to the climate emergency. So, it is inevitable that important issues cannot be covered. However, the escalating situation with drug-related deaths and the future experimentation with DCRs in the United Kingdom connect to another huge societal concern: that is public health and well-being. In our view, planning cities for people who use illegal drugs ought to be a key component of the healthy cities discourse, and central to this is the significant social and health impacts of DCRs. However, as we have noted, the location of harm reduction interventions can become heavily contested—that is, “frontier politics” and “unwanted land-uses”—creating challenges for planning professionals. It is for this reason that we argue for the inclusion of drug-related issues in U.K. planning education so that future planners are properly prepared for the challenges they will face. We advocate a shift in the U.K. planning curriculum to include an understanding of (1) the relationship between drug use and public health; (2) how drug markets operate; (3) conflict in the built environment; (4) the health, societal, and inclusionary benefits of DCRs; and (5) the politics of planning for harm reduction interventions. Knowledge of these issues, coupled with their existing skills and competencies for engagement, communication, negotiation, mediation, and conflict resolution, will enable future planners to play a proactive and positive role in planning for the illegal in the contemporary city. In so doing, this will create a more socially inclusive planning imagination.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Philip Boland

Gillian W. Shorter

Notes

Author Biographies

Philip Boland is a Reader in Urban Planning in the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests include illegal drugs, urban planning, and economic development.

Tristan Sturm is a Reader in Geography in the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University Belfast. His research interests include illegal drugs, political geographies, and health geopolitics.

Gillian W. Shorter is a Reader in the School of Psychology at Queen’s University Belfast. Her research interests include illegal drugs, health and well-being, and harm reduction interventions.

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