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Daily news - 13th December 2022

UK news

Correspondence. Barriers to research with synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists

The government responds to a report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and commissions Part 2 of work on barriers to research | Home Office and ACMD, UK

Ketamine for alcoholics trial goes to next stage

A programme of therapy involving the drug ketamine will be made available to alcoholics in a research project. The University of Exeter-led trial, with funding of £2.4m, will go ahead at seven NHS sites across the UK | BBC, UK

SNP warned proposed alcohol marketing ban would harm Scotland’s whisky industry

Scotland’s economy would take a hit if the country’s national drink cannot be promoted in shop windows under new laws, whisky industry bosses have warned | Press and Journal, UK

Could ban on flavoured vapes curb use among young people?

A complete ban on flavoured vapes might be the answer to curbing disposable e-cigarette use - that's one proposal that's been looked at by a senior researcher at one leading UK university | ITV, UK

I did not and do not fit the stereotypical view of an alcoholic, but that is what I was and am

[Possible paywall] For this mother, even harder than giving up booze was the challenge of convincing others that she had a problem in the first place | Telegraph, UK

..and the winner is Scottish Drugs Forum

At the award ceremony, held in the Scottish Parliament, SDF received the 2022 Scottish Public Services Award for Communications | SDF, UK

HMP Humber: Spice death inmate had no difficulty getting drugs - ombudsman

A prisoner who died after taking spice had "no difficulty" in getting hold of drugs at an East Yorkshire jail without staff being aware, a report has found | BBC, UK

Skegness: Man ran over friend in cannabis-induced psychosis

A cannabis user who ran over his friend in a stolen van and nearly killed another man while experiencing a drug-induced psychosis has been jailed | BBC, UK

Internatonal news

New Zealand passes world-first tobacco law to ban smoking for next generation

The country is believed to be the first to implement an annually rising legal smoking age | Guardian, UK

Peer support and online cognitive behavioural therapy for substance use concerns: protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Online interventions have exhibited promise in the reduction of substance use, although studies to date highlight the key importance of patient engagement to optimise clinical outcomes. Peer support may provide a way to engage patients using online interventions. The goal of this study is to evaluate the efficacy and cost-effectiveness of Breaking Free Online (BFO), an online cognitive-behavioural intervention for substance use, delivered with and without peer support | BMJ Open, UK

A distributed model to expand the reach of drug checking

[Open access] While there is increasing interest in implementing drug checking within overdose prevention, we must also consider how to scale-up these responses so that they have significant reach and impact for people navigating the unpredictable and increasingly complex drug supplies linked to overdose. The purpose of this paper is to present a distributed model of community drug checking that addresses multiple barriers to increasing the reach of drug checking as a response to the illicit drug overdose crisis | Emerald Insight, UK

Drug use patterns, harm reduction strategies and use of drug checking services in boom festival patrons

[Open access] Recent studies have shown that people who attend electronic dance music events and use drug checking services (DCS) are a predominantly white male, highly educated middle-class population. However, there is still a lack of data beyond sociodemographic characteristics that must be addressed. This paper aims to describe the drug use patterns and protective behavior strategies (PBS) used by testers and nontesters at Boom Festival 2018 and analyze the relationship between these behaviors and the decision to use the DCS | Emerald Insight, UK

Substance residue analysis as an alternative to drug checking? Traces from drug paraphernalia as a source for laboratory analysis

[Open access] Drug checking is a popular method to reduce risks of drug use. In many countries, including Finland, legislation restricts implementing drug checking. The aim of this study was to explore whether some benefits of drug checking could be achieved by substance residue analysis | Emerald Insight, UK

Budweiser's World Cup nightmare continues as the beer giant is forced to make 'alternative, culturally appropriate' player of the match award to accommodate Kylian Mbappe and others who DON'T want to promote alcohol

Budweiser is in the process of making 'alternative, culturally appropriate' arrangements for player of the match awards to accommodate stars such as Kylian Mbappe who do not want to promote alcohol | Mail Online, UK

Europe’s biggest port Rotterdam ‘drowning in cocaine’

A record of nearly 70 tonnes of the drug was intercepted in 2021, up 74% from a year before, said Ger Scheringa, who leads a team of armed customs officers at the port | Euractiv, Belgium

How vaping impacts alveolar macrophage lipid content

A new Archives of Clinical and Medical Case Reports study provides new evidence demonstrating that the use of e-cigs increases the risk of acute respiratory syndrome | News Medical, USA

Uptick in prevalence of simultaneous cannabis and alcohol use in the US after states legalize recreational cannabis use

Simultaneous cannabis and alcohol use, defined as using both substances at the same time so their effects overlap, increased in adults from 2008 to 2019, according to new research conducted at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health | Medical Xpress, USA

More than 180,000 people overdosed on opioids and survived in the past year, new White House dashboard shows

There were about 181,806 nonfatal opioid overdoses recorded in the United States in the past year, and it’s taken about 9.8 minutes on average for emergency medical services to reach someone who’s overdosing, according to a data dashboard that the White House debuted Thursday | CNN, USA

Advocates Fear Chilling Effect of Lawsuits on Cannabis Equity Programs

ALos Angeles federal judge has chosen not to allow a lawsuit to stop the city issuing further cannabis equity licenses. It had been filed by a Michigan resident, who claimed that LA’s cannabis social equity program discriminated against him for his out-of-state conviction and residency | Filter Magazine, USA

Is safe supply for opioid use effective? Here’s what the experts, data say

Front-line workers of Canada’s opioid crisis say harm reduction approaches like safe supplies for those navigating substance use are clear even amid renewed political debate around the issue | Global News, Canada

Most Canadians believe supervised drug-use sites save lives, poll says

The Nanos Research study, conducted for The Globe and Mail, found that 74 per cent of Canadians believe or somewhat believe such sites are doing what they are intended to do, with 36 per cent supporting an expansion of the harm-reduction measures | Globe and Mail, Canada

Western Australian Drug Trends 2022: Key Findings from the Ecstasy and Related Drugs Reporting System (EDRS) Interviews

This year, we have provided a suite of products with the most up-to-date findings from interviews conducted annually from 2003-2022 with a cross-sectional sentinel group of people who regularly use ecstasy and other illicit stimulants recruited from Perth, WA | NDARC, Australia

Queensland Drug Trends 2022: Key Findings from the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) Interviews

This year, we have provided a suite of products with the most up-to-date findings from interviews conducted annually from 2000-2022 with a cross-sectional sentinel group of people who regularly inject drugs recruited from Brisbane/Gold Coast, QLD | NDARC, Australia

Tasmanian Drug Trends 2022: Key Findings from the Illicit Drug Reporting System (IDRS) Interviews

Blogs, comment and opinion

Guerrilla Care: an interview with Peter Krykant

While America’s overdose epidemic dominates the news, we can look to other nations to develop a fuller understanding of what leads to crises like these, and perhaps how they can be addressed. One such example is Scotland, which has sadly reclaimed its long-held title of the overdose capital of Europe with a meteoric rise in drug deaths in recent years | Trip Report, UK

Iceland the model for harm reduction

Substance use among Icelandic teens was amongst the highest in Europe 20 years ago, then everything changed... | Volteface, UK

How Helpful is the 2022 Definition of Recovery from the NIAAA?

The NIAAA (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism) recently published a definition of recovery | Recovery Review blog, USA

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