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Daily news - 5th December 2022 |
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UK news
Correspondence: ACMD advice on the classification and schedule of Remimazolam
The ACMD is grateful to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) for providing a written dossier and oral presentation on the ultra-short-acting Benzodiazepine Remimazolam (Byfavo). Further to these representations, the ACMD is able to provide advice regarding the appropriate classification and schedule for this medicine | ACMD, UK
Alcohol use during pregnancy and motherhood: Attitudes and experiences of pregnant women, mothers, and healthcare professionals
Alcohol exposed pregnancies can have serious consequences to the fetus, and the UK has one of the highest rates of drinking during pregnancy. Alcohol use during motherhood is also a public health concern, linked with potential harms to the woman and child. This qualitative study investigated the attitudes and experiences of pregnant/parenting women and healthcare professionals regarding maternal drinking | PLOS One, UK
Designated drivers to get free (non alcoholic) drinks as part of new Christmas scheme
Designated drivers are to get free non-alcoholic drinks as part of a scheme rolled out by South Wales Police. Thirteen licensed premises will offer free draught soft drinks to those who abstain from drinking alcohol to act as the responsible driver for others | Nation Cymru, UK
Alcohol Sport Sponsorship
The First Minister: It is the case that alcohol advertising and promotion can encourage young people to drink alcohol and can, indeed, act as a barrier for people in recovery. Restricting alcohol advertising and promotion is one of the World Health Organization’s top three “best buys” to prevent and reduce alcohol-related harms | They work for you, UK
Drugs: Misuse
To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether she has had recent discussions with representatives of the Scottish Government on drug consumption rooms | They work for you, UK
Humankind publishes Impact Report for 2021/22
We are a national charity with over 1,500 staff and 264 volunteers, who provide specialist services to young people, families and adults across health and wellbeing, drug and alcohol recovery, criminal justice services, housing and independent living and education and employment. This report recognises the impact we had in supporting the 90,264 people who accessed our services | Humankind, UK
Adrian Chiles reveals how he cut down his drinking from 100 units a week
Mindful drinking is the way to go, says the TV and radio presenter | Independent, UK
Reducing your alcohol intake – advice from an addictions doctor - video
David McCartney, an addictions doctor, gives his advice to help you cut down how much alcohol you are drinking | Wellbeing Hub, UK
Deliveroo Wants Illegal Weed Business Dispenseroo to Hand Over Its Domain Name
The online food delivery giant wants the London-based guerrilla cannabis seller to hand over its domain name and change its branding | VICE, UK
Welcome to The Life in Recovery (LiR) survey
The Study entitled Stigma around addiction recovery - a social justice issuewill explore the experience of stigmatisation and exclusion from social and community capital of women in recovery in the UK, Sweden and the Balkans and to assess if they act as barriers to recovery. By sharing your experiences you contribute to our knowledge of recovery and stigma attached to it. In sharing your experiences, you will help us to inspire and advise policy makers in the field of addiction and recovery to better meet the needs of people seeking recovery | Department of Criminology University of Derby, UK
HMP Lindholme inmates placed orders for drugs, court hears
A prison healthcare worker helped smuggle drugs, weapons and mobile phones into a jail, a court has heard | BBC, UK
Liverpool man jailed for Cornwall and Cumbria county lines gang
A drug dealer who ran operations at both ends of England's west coast has been jailed for four and a half years | BBC, UK
International news
A little-known case study involves a man, Mr A, who took an unprecedented amount of E’s over nine years. Here’s what happened
The most ecstasy pills ever taken by a single person is 40,000. Mr A (as researchers referred to him as) necked them all between the ages of 21 and 30 and, as you can imagine, when someone is shoving pills down their throat like multivitamins, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. The story of Mr A was told in a little-known 2006 case report which was published in the psychiatry journal Psychosomatics. We had a chat with the author of the study, Dr Christos Kouimtsidis | The Face, UK
‘Lives are at stake’: Australia returns to the nicotine frontline with vaping reform
A decade since world-first plain packaging reforms, there is a new threat: the alarming rate of children using e-cigarettes | Guardian, UK
Artist Nan Goldin on addiction and taking on the Sackler dynasty: ‘I wanted to tell my truth’
The American photographer’s battle against the billionaires who fuelled the opioid epidemic upended the art establishment. As a film about her life is released, she talks about family tragedy and her journey from drug abuse to activism | Guardian opinion, UK
Harm Reduction International Awards
31 December 2022: Awards nominations close. Harm Reduction International presents a number of awards at our international conference to acknowledge the contributions of outstanding groups or individuals in the fields of drug use, health and human rights | HRI, UK
Laughing gas abuse leading to neurological damage
A neurology specialist at the Mater Hospital has warned of an increase in the number of patients suffering severe nerve damage after inhaling nitrous oxide gas | RTe, Ireland
Why some politicians want decriminalisation of drugs
Figures from the Health Research Board show more than 10,000 people were treated for drug use in Ireland last year - 57% of them were previously treated cases. The sheer scale of the problem and the prevalence of drugs in every community in the country has prompted calls from the Opposition for a rethink of current policy and the decriminalisation of drug users | RTe, Ireland
EMCDDA webinar: How wastewater monitoring can boost preparedness for new health threats - video
For more than a decade the EMCDDA has explored the analysis of municipal wastewater for drugs and their metabolic products to estimate community consumption. Recent investigations have shown the potential of WBE for drugs signal alert, such as the identification of NPS and increased consumption of crack in some EU cities | EMCDDA, Portugal
Ayahuasca Must be Shared with Respect and Responsibility – Interview with Karolina Kordys
Jaroslaw and Karolina Kordys were sentenced to 8 years in prison for leading ayahuasca ceremonies in the Czech Republic – but the president of the republic has announced that he will pardon them. We interviewed Karolina to mark this occasion | Drug Reporter, Hungary
Many hospital policies create barriers to good management of opioid withdrawal
People who are dependent on opioids (such as heroin) should be prescribed substitutes (methadone or buprenorphine) when they are in hospital. This treatment helps prevent withdrawal symptoms (including sweating, muscle spasms and agitation). A review found that many hospital policies delay access to substitute opioids | NIHR, USA
Opioid-involved car crashes decrease following efforts to curb use
People taking prescription opioids are more than twice as likely to be involved in a car accident than those who aren't, research has shown. In fact, between the early 1990s and early 2010s, as opioid use rose sharply in the United States, the number of fatalities among drivers using prescription opioids increased seven-fold | Medical Xpress, USA
Few Americans are aware of links between alcohol and cancer risk
Despite conclusive research that shows that all alcoholic beverages, including wine, increase the risk of many types of cancer, Americans demonstrated low awareness of this risk, and some perceived alcohol as having health benefits, according to results published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Awareness varied significantly for various types of alcohol, the study showed | Medical Xpress, USA
America’s syringe exchanges kill drug users
[Registration required to read] “These guys keep the costs down for me,” Flaco says. On a Friday evening the 52-year-old comes to collect needles and tourniquets from the syringe-exchange van parked beneath the west Bronx’s elevated train line. Flaco started using drugs at the age of six. The free needles keep him safe, he says, and make things just a little bit easier | Economist, USA
I Spent 25 Years in Prison for Marijuana Charges. Biden’s Pardon Is Not Enough
Today, I am thinking about Kevin Allen who is currently serving life in prison for selling $20 worth of marijuana in Louisiana. Marijuana is now legal for medical use in Louisiana. So, why is Kevin Allen still in jail? | TIME, USA
Moves to tighten tobacco and vaping laws welcomed
The AMA welcomes federal government plans to tighten tobacco and e-cigarettes laws but says failure to address lax laws by previous governments is a lost public health opportunity | AMA, Australia
Support for going sober in the bush as new program helps break the stigma of giving up alcohol
It took a long time for Shanna Whan to realise there was a problem. For years, she repeated a mantra to tell herself her relationship with alcohol was OK | abc.net.au, Australia
Blogs, comment and opinion
Response to Bertha Madras editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine
We read with concern the editorial by Bertha Madras that accompanied the new COMPASS Pathways trial of psilocybin in treatment-resistant depression (TRD) due to several inaccuracies and negative bias | Drug Science, UK
The Two Faces of Christmas
We are all looking forward to Christmas, right? It’s the season of goodwill after all. A time when we all get together with friends and family to have a good time. What’s not to like? | IAS blog, UK
Hiding alcohol in shops will do nothing to stop problem drinking
If you laid all the bottles of whisky exported from Scotland each year end-to-end, they would stretch around 342,000km – which is 90 per cent of the distance to the moon | Herald opinion, UK
Gout: the myths and the medicine
The risk of getting gout has a lot to do with our genes and little to do with diet, says GP Ayo Ajanaku | Guardian, UK
Supervised drug consumption sites: A health-based approach or enabling drug use?
Addiction is a treatable chronic disease; however, it can be stigmatised as moral failing. This stigma causes discrimination by both healthcare providers and society at large leading to reduced individual health-seeking behaviour | Journal of Clinical Nursing Editorial, USA
Safety, order, recovery AND harm reduction
There’s been a lot of talk about crime and disorder in many urban areas since the beginning of the pandemic. I haven’t known what to make of it because much of the discussion is very politicized. However, it’s become clearer that, while people may disagree about the scale of the problem, there are real problems. It’s also clear that substance use, mental illness, and the pandemic’s disruptions of community life all play important roles | Recovery Review blog, USA
As young people in rich countries drink less alcohol, elsewhere youth drinking is on the rise – podcast
The amount of alcohol young people drink in many high-income countries has seen a marked decline since the early 2000s. But in many developing countries, the opposite is happening. In this episode of The Conversation Weeklypodcast, we talk to three experts studying trends in young people’s drinking habits to find out why and we explore the questions this raises about the way young people see themselves and their place in the world | Conversation, Australia