DS Daily - 21st November 2011

Ecstasy is back in clubs as newly potent drug is taken with 'legal highs'

The drug of choice in the Nineties rave scene is coming back as a powder that can be shared socially like cocaine and distinguishes its more fashion-conscious users from 'pill heads' | Guardian, UK

Average price of ecstasy rises 51% to £4 a pill as popularity surges

The use of ecstasy is rising again despite higher strength doses of the illegal drug pushing up prices by 50%, experts warned yesterday | The Mirror, UK

Ecstasy makes a comeback

The rave drug of the 1990s is back but this time it's stronger, pricier and in powder form | Daily Mail, UK

It’s time to make drugs legal, Nobel winners tell Cameron

David Cameron has been urged to consider legalising drug use by a group of 60 major thinkers and celebrities including Sting, Yoko Ono and the former American president Jimmy Carter | Telegraph, UK

Drug legalisation? We need it like a hole in the head

Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former head of MI5, is rapidly becoming a priceless guide to what to think. That is to say, whatever position she adopts is an excellent indication that the opposite view must be correct - Melanie Phillips | Daily Mail, UK

Western leaders must back Colombia's courageous stand on drugs

President Santos's call for a new approach to drugs must be supported wholeheartedly | Observer, UK

Sober London

Why young people in the capital shun drink and drugs | The Economist

Great Britain drugs ban 'violates' Wada code

The British Olympic Association has been told its life ban for drugs cheats violates the global anti-doping code | BBC, UK

Oxfordshire drink-related patient numbers increase

The number of hospital admissions in Oxfordshire in which drink was a factor reached 9,000 in 2011 - video | BBC, UK

Alcoholics eat super-strength hand gel to satisfy craving for a drink

Hospital trusts across Kent say patients and visitors have swallowed the gel – which has an alcohol content of 78 per cent – at least 15 times | Daily Mail, UK

Former Cornish hotelier to lead alcohol campaign

A former Cornish hotelier is representing the leading drinks manufacturers to promote alcohol awareness. Henry Ashworth, from Newquay, is the new chief executive of the Portman Group | BBC, UK

The Ron McKechnie Prize

This prize competition is to submit a paper for publication in the New Directions in the Study of Alcohol Group 2012 Journal | New Directions in the Study of Alcohol Group, UK

GPs should 'not sign off long-term sick'

People should be signed off for long-term sickness by an independent assessment service and not GPs, a government-backed review says | BBC, UK

Ministers deny claims of cutting clinical jobs in NHS

Royal College of Nursing attacked by ministers for saying 56,000 staff face the axe under coalition programme | Observer, UK

Shock figures reveal how cigarette ban has not slowed toll on Scotland's most deprived estates

Doctors have been stunned by the increase in male Scots smokers – up by one per cent to 26 per cent last year | Daily Record, UK

Occupy London: eviction bid cites desecration, defecation and drugs

Joy Hollister, a social worker, told the corporation that at the camp there were growing numbers of people who were "exhibiting behaviour indicative of poor mental health, people who were exhibiting signs of drug use | Guardian, UK

Risk of HIV outbreaks among drug injectors in the EU

The latest data show that the average rate of newly reported HIV cases continues to fall in Europe, reaching a low of 2.85 new cases per million population in 2009 (in total, about 1 300 cases). Here, the overall EU situation compares positively, both in a global and a wider European context. Nevertheless, this year’s EMCDDA Annual report notes some worrying developments in respect of HIV among injecting drug users | IHRA