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Daily news - 7th December 2022 |
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UK news
Adult smoking habits in the UK: 2021
Cigarette smoking habits among adults in the UK, including the proportion of people who smoke, demographic breakdowns, changes over time and use of e-cigarettes | ONS, UK
Official Statistics: Local tobacco control profiles: December 2022 update
The extent of tobacco use, tobacco related harm and the measures being taken to reduce this harm at a local level in England | OHID, UK
Number of smokers drops as vaping rises, data shows
The number of people smoking in the UK dropped to its lowest level on record last year but more people were using e-cigarettes, new figures have revealed | BBC, UK
Pioneering Middlesbrough heroin addiction clinic closes
A ground-breaking clinic that provided a legal heroin substitute has closed after losing its funding | BBC, UK
Response to the ACMD report on the misuse of fentanyl and fentanyl analogues
Updated with the government’s response to the ACMD’s fentanyl report | ACMD, UK
Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists
Updated with the government and devolved nations response to the ACMD report on the harms assessment of synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists | ACMD, UK
National naloxone programme Scotland - Quarterly monitoring bulletin
During 2022/23 Quarter 1 (1 April 2022 to 30 June 2022): 6,549 Take-Home Naloxone (THN) kits were issued and 4,931 THN kits were issued by services based in the community... | Public Health Scotland, UK
The important role of counselling
Becoming a counsellor or therapist can open up opportunities to practise a range of specialised techniques. Counselling can offer an essential service for people overcoming addictions. In the latest part of our careers series in collaboration with DDN, we look at how to take this path | Addiction Professionals, UK
Net zero: Small steps with apprentices drive big changes
Working across different boroughs in London and Kent, the Forward Trust Employment Services team is supporting participants returning to the job market, and one of our core activities is to help individuals to really understand what green skills are, and how they too can be involved and not feel left behind in this growing sector | FE Week, UK
50 Years of Failed Drug Policy: Drug Science Book Launch
Mon, 12 December 2022, 18:30 – 22:00 GMT. We're inviting everyone to join us for a special evening of panel discussions from the authors of our new book, 'Drug Science and British Drug Policy', which takes a hard look at failure of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971. Our experts will be split into two panels through the evening, and these discussions will be hosted by Prof David Nutt and recorded as episodes of the Drug Science podcast | Drug Science, UK
Addiction Medicine Journal Club
In episode 11 we discuss an article about the impact of wine bottle and glass size on consumption. Mantzari, E, Ventsel, M, Ferrar, J, Pilling, MA, Hollands, GJ, Marteau, TM. Impact of wine bottle and glass sizes on wine consumption at home: a within- and between- households randomized controlled trial. Addiction2022 | Buzzsprout, UK
Wombwell: £1m cannabis factory found by police
Officers located the drugs in an industrial unit on Hemingfield Road, Wombwell, on Sunday afternoon. In August, South Yorkshire Police said it had seized £11m of cannabis plants in neighbouring Rotherham over the previous year | BBC, UK
Ebbw Vale: Drug-driver who wrote off police car jailed
A driver who wrote off a £40,000 police car in a drug-fuelled, high-speed chase has been jailed | BBC, UK
International news
How Bob the dog foiled £45m global drug deal
[Possible paywall] Drug dealer inadvertently identified himself by sending an image of his French Bulldog to fellow gangster on a network hacked by detectives | telegraph, UK
Make the change: community alcohol resource manual
The Alcohol Reduction Resource Manual has been designed to offer psychosocial, informational support, options, and practical materials to anyone who would like to consider making a change. The manual can be used by people seeking help to make changes to their own drinking behaviour or can be used by people providing support as well as family members and the wider community | Ballyfermot, Canal Communities, Dublin 12 and South Inner-City Drug and Alcohol Task Forces, Ireland
WHO/Europe launches EVID-ACTION to bring evidence to action to reduce alcohol consumption and harms
Eight out of the 10 countries with the highest alcohol consumption in the world are located in the European Union (EU), for which the EU is paying a very high price in the form of alcohol-attributable injuries, cancers, cardiovascular diseases and other noncommunicable diseases | WHO, Denmark
Congressional Cannabis Caucus Celebrates President Biden Signing Bipartisan Marijuana Research Reform
Congressional Cannabis Caucus Celebrates President Biden Signing Bipartisan Marijuana Research Reform. The Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act is the first standalone federal marijuana reform law enacted since the adoption of the Controlled Substances Act in 1971 | US Congressman Earl Blumenauer, USA
Banning Fruity Flavors Did Not Deter Vapers
On February 6, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the sale of many flavored e-cigarettes, with some important exceptions. According to a survey conducted by University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) researchers, the ban did not result in adults quitting e-cig use and may have driven some back to smoking regular cigarettes. The researchers point to policy loopholes as the main reasons the policy failed to push people to quit | URMC, USA
Juul Says It’s Settling More Than 5,000 Youth Vaping Suits
Juul Labs Inc. reached a settlement of more than 5,000 lawsuits blaming the company for a youth vaping epidemic across the US | BNN Bloomberg, USA
NHRC Advocates for Change to Narcan’s Drug Status
In late November, National Harm Reduction Coalition (NHRC) joined policy advocates from across the country in submitting joint comments in response to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) proposed rule which would create a new category of medication – between prescription and non-prescription – called “nonprescription drug product with an additional condition for nonprescription use (ACNU) | NHRC, USA
Nearly 1,000 overdoses reversed using naloxone distributed through vending machine
New research from the University of Cincinnati, in partnership with local nonprofit Caracole, shows a self-service vending machine filled with harm reduction supplies such as naloxone helped prevent overdoses and contributed to Hamilton County's overdose deaths decreasing in 2021 | Medical Xpress, USA
New England college town wastewater reveals high usage of stimulants and a rise in drug use during the pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic helped legitimize Wastewater-based Epidemiology (WBE) as a less invasive, cost-efficient way to monitor public health. WBE allows scientists to detect concentrations of drugs or biomarkers in sewage, providing an estimate of community drug use or disease infection rates | Medical Xpress, USA
The DRAM, Vol. 18(13) – Sports and games: College drinking in three contexts
Previous research suggests that drinking games and college football game days may be particularly risky drinking contexts for college students. This week, The DRAM reviews a study by Dennis Hoyer & Christopher J. Corriea that compared college students’ drinking motives and alcohol consumption across three contexts: drinking games, tailgate parties, and in the stadium during football games | BASIS, USA
DOJ Delays Safehouse Response to 2023, an Unexpected Blow
The Department of Justice was expected to filed its long-awaited response to the ongoing Safehouse Philly lawsuit on December 5—widely hoped to be the last of a series of extensions. Instead, the DOJ has filed a motion for yet another extension. The new deadline is February 6, 2023. Responses by Safehouse, and counterresponses by the government, are due in March | Filter Magazine, USA
Managed Alcohol Programs Offer Harm Reduction to Unhoused People
It’s a bitterly cold day in Montreal. The snow is falling in thick, cartoonish flakes, relentless winds have dropped the temperatures far below freezing, and the sidewalk is slick with ice. But inside PAQ3 it’s warm, and people are laughing. And it feels like a home | Filter Magazine, USA
Mapping Where Overdoses Are More Likely to Kill
New research shows the risk of a drug poisoning ending in death is high in rural areas | The Tyee, Canada
Blogs, comment and opinion
Government flip-flopping and alcohol industry lobbying risks an increase in harm
Freezing and unfreezing planned rises in alcohol duty highlights the Government’s lack of consistency and the whisky industry’s bizarre economic claims | IAS blog, UK
We need bold policy measures to ease our problems with alcohol
ALAN Simpson's article on alcohol marketing and promotion ("Hiding alcohol will do nothing to stop scourge of problem drinking", The Herald, December 2) could have been written by the Scotch Whisky Association itself | Herald letters, UK
The smearing of a tobacco scientist
Norwegian sociologist Karl Erik Lund was banned from a conference on e-cigarettes because…..er, for no good reason | Marc Gunther, UK
Reflections on how the Yaqui Intercultural Medicine Clinic – a unique model of community well-being and mental health treatment in Sonora – came to be
If you read my previous post, “The Toad Boom: the false narrative of ancestral 5-MeO-DMT use”, you may perhaps have wondered why I wrote that post with such vehemence and confidence. In this post, I would like share that the reason for that is that I witnessed first-hand how that story unfolded | Points blog, USA