(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.