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Daily news - 16th August 2022 |
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UK news
Offenders targeted as part of drink and drug drive campaign
This year’s Summer Drink and Drug Drive campaign ran from Monday 4 July to Sunday 17 July. During the two week long intelligence led campaign, 585 roadside breath screening tests were carried out plus 152 roadside drug screening tests. As a result, officers detected 295 drink/drug driving offences during the campaign | Police Scotland, UK
What I’ve learnt from a year without booze
[Registration may be required] The Very British Problems author almost died due to alcohol abuse. Twelve months later, he shares the unexpected perks of sober life | Telegraph, UK
Inside Research: Reducing the harm caused by smoking and alcohol
Wed, 28 September 2022, 18:00 – 19:30 BST. Inside Research seminar on how applied research is tackling health and social care challenges and inequalities in south London | NIHR Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) South London, UK
UK Recovery Walk 2022
17th September. Newcastle. Starting point is 12.00 at Ceremonial Way (next to the Civic Centre). We will walk down Ceremonial Way, to the City and then back to the park for the rest of the day | FAVOR, UK
Come and join our fantastic team at Scottish Families!
We are seeking a Board member with legal experience, skills and expertise, in anticipation of our current legal portfolio holder stepping down as a trustee. Note that this role does not involve providing formal legal advice to the charity | SFAD, UK
Immingham: Lorry driver smuggled £3m heroin with strawberry shipment
A lorry driver who smuggled heroin worth an estimated £3m with a shipment of strawberries has been jailed | BBC, UK
International news
E-scooter riders ARE more reckless than cyclists: Users are FIVE TIMES more likely to drink-drive and 30 TIMES more likely to drive helmetless, study suggests
Norwegian researchers examined 3,000 emergency department attendances due to e-scooters and bicycles in Oslo since 2019 | Mail Online, UK
Ecuador city declares state of emergency amid dramatic rise in gang bombings
Gangs in Guayaquil use increasingly violent tactics in battle for dominance of cocaine trafficking routes to Europe and the US | Guardian, UK
They call it 'tranq,' and it's making street drugs even more dangerous
Approaching a van that distributes supplies for safer drug use in Greenfield, Massachusetts, a man named Kyle noticed an alert about xylazine | Medical Xpress, USA
E-cigarette use to reduce cigarette smoking may not increase nicotine dependence
Electronic cigarettes have attracted media and consumer attention for claims of their addictive nature, variety of flavors, and increased use among teens, sparking regulatory oversight and policies | PSU, USA
Meth use drives overdose epidemic in rural US communities
Methamphetamine remains a stubbornly prevalent illicit substance in large swaths of rural America, according to a new study by Oregon Health & Science University researchers | Medical Xpress, USA
A call to prioritize substance use treatment in children
While nearly 6 million adolescents and young adults in the United States have a substance use disorder, only 8% receive treatment, according to data collected in 2019. This treatment gap is a critical problem, says Deepa Camenga, associate professor of emergency medicine at Yale School of Medicine and associate director of pediatric programs for the Yale Program in Addiction Medicine | Medical Xpress, USA
Survey finds uneven training in cannabis therapy among cannabis dispensary staff
With research suggesting that many patients with cancer are using cannabis for medical purposes – and oncology teams tending to offer little guidance about its use – patients are often turning for advice to staff at cannabis dispensaries. A new study by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute suggests that despite a commitment by many dispensary workers to educate themselves about medical cannabis, dispensaries often prioritize sales skills over cannabis knowledge, and the level of on-the-job training at dispensaries is notably uneven | EurekAlert, USA
Cannabis Coalition Unveils Equity Proposals for SAFE Banking Act
With the end of the current Congress approaching, efforts to find areas of compromise on marijuana reform are increasing—with lawmakers, advocates and stakeholders increasingly willing to set aside policy differences in the interest of getting something enacted before January 2023 | Filter Magazine, USA
The stigma of long-term methadone treatment - audio
People in treatment programs for opiates face considerable stigma | abc.net.au, Australia
Queensland quietly doing pill-testing groundwork
Queensland is quietly looking into the use of pill-testing services as part of a harm reduction approach to drug safety in the state. Police say the work, being led by Queensland Health but including other state government agencies, is focused on the “suitability” of the approach as part of a broader suite of measures | Brisbane Times, Australia
The history of Australia's drinking culture from rum as a currency to non-alcoholic wine
Australia's first prime minister, Edmund 'Toby' Barton, was many things: A leader, a visionary and as one of his obituaries summed up, "a great Australian". And, according to author Matt Murphy, he was also "an outright drunk" | abc.net.au, Australia
Blogs, comment and opinion
Westminster is addicted to drugs prohibition – and it is costing countless lives
While British politicians continue their absurd war on drugs, other countries are taking a radical new approach | I news opinion, UK
Dani Garavelli: Where is the urgency around Scotland’s alcohol harm?
[Free registration may be required] Before the pandemic, *Gary and his younger sister visited their mother, *Mary, regularly. They knew she drank too much; she had been moved to sheltered accommodation after a fire in her house. So they would check on her, cook for her, coax her to eat. In March 2020, all that stopped | Scotsman, UK
‘Recovery’ will be different for every patient fighting addiction, but it is always worth pursuing
The idealised result for people with mental illnesses is to rapidly return to their ‘normal’ level of functioning. This isn’t always possible | Guardian opinion, UK
How do We Keep Patients at the Heart of Psychedelic Research?
As the hype around psychedelics picks up pace and every week more clinical trials are announced looking at their therapeutic potential for everything from depression to anorexia, it’s easy to forget that at the centre of this research lies the trial participants putting their mental health on the line in the name of medical advancement | Volteface, UK
Sean Fogler and William Stauffer: How to help people who use drugs stop
Today drug overdose deaths will claim almost three hundred American lives — thanks to stigma. The labels and stereotypes so many of us use are stigma in action, and separate us from those we mark as inferior, people to avoid. We judge and discriminate, sometimes unknowingly, without intent to do harm, and too often by design | Recovery Review blog, USA
The DARE Program Is Back in Some School Districts — Here’s What to Know
This op-ed takes a critical look at the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program | Teen Vogue, USA