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Daily news - 3rd November 2022

UK news

MPs call for funding for axed Middlesbrough heroin addiction clinic

A ground-breaking clinic for people with heroin addiction should be funded for the rest of the financial year, a prominent committee of MPs has said | BBC, UK

Magic-mushroom drug can treat severe depression, trial suggests

A 25mg tablet of psilocybin puts patients in a dreamlike state, making psychological therapy more likely to succeed | BBC, UK

[See also: Single-Dose Psilocybin for a Treatment-Resistant Episode of Major Depression [Free registration required for full article] In this phase 2 trial involving participants with treatment-resistant depression, psilocybin at a single dose of 25 mg, but not 10 mg, reduced depression scores significantly more than a 1-mg dose over a period of 3 weeks but was associated with adverse effects | NEJM, USA

MPs, Lords and over 50 organisations and experts write to the Prime Minister calling for an independent review on alcohol harm

Coordinated by the Alcohol Health Alliance and Chair of Drugs Alcohol & Justice APPG Dan Carden MP, Liverpool Walton, Parliamentarians and experts write to the Prime Minister calling for an independent review of alcohol harm | AHA, UK

Alcohol use and its association with suicide attempt, suicidal thoughts and non-suicidal self-harm in two successive, nationally representative English household samples

Alcohol use is a risk factor for suicidal behaviour, yet the nature of the relationship is unclear. Most research on the topic is conducted in clinical populations, with few studies exploring this association across the general population | BJPsych Open, UK

Nitrous Oxide: A briefing for professionals

Prevalence, pharmacology and effects of Nitrous Oxide | DrugWatch, UK

Forward Trust's YouGov Addiction Poll 2022 Results

A national YouGov poll commissioned by The Forward Trust to coincide with Addiction Awareness Week 2022 has revealed a sharp increase in addiction in the past eight months, since the start of the deepening cost of living crisis | Forward Trust, UK

Men’s Health Awareness Month: 3 men share the moments that shaped their approach to self-care

Tom Gozney, 37, lives in Hampshire with wife Laura, son Ty, four, and daughter Eden, two. His pizza oven business, Gozney (gozney.com), recently released a Signature Edition Roccbox, with £40 from each sale being donated to charities supporting people with drug and alcohol dependencies, including With You in the UK | Independent, UK

Edinburgh drug consumption room study underway after deaths hit record high

Whilst Glasgow's council continues to make the legal case for consumption rooms, Edinburgh is looking at the cost and possible location of such a facility in the capital | Edinburgh Live, UK

Bryony Gordon launches new Mad World podcast special with Gabor Maté

For the second year in a row, we are delighted that Forward Trust Ambassador Bryony Gordon has dedicated a very special episode of her award-winning Mad World Podcast to the topic of addiction, in honour of Addiction Awareness Week 2022 | Forward Trust, UK

Let's talk e-cigarettes: October - podcast

Associate Professor Jamie Hartmann-Boyce and Dr Nicola Lindson discuss the emerging evidence in e-cigarette research and interview Dr Leonie Brose, King's College London | University of Oxford, UK

Drug Reclassification: Monkey Dust

My aim is to see monkey dust, a new psychoactive substance that is currently a class B drug, reclassified as class A | They work for you, UK

Crime: Drugs

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what steps his Department is taking through the criminal justice system to tackle alcohol and drug related crime | They work for you, UK

International news

The #BackVapingBeatSmoking Campaign Reaches Prague

First launched in the Summer of 2021 when the WVA unveiled a new graffiti mural outside the European Parliament at the European with a clear message: “19 million lives could be saved in Europe by endorsing vaping.” | Vaping Post, UK

The 'superheroes' catching drug dealers in Peru

Four Peruvian police officers disguised themselves as Marvel characters to carry out a drug raid in Peru | BBC, UK

Ex-heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic charged with cocaine trafficking

A former heavyweight boxer has been charged in the US with trafficking 22 tonnes of cocaine, worth more than $1bn (£870m), into Europe | BBC, UK

HRB drug and alcohol evidence reviews

An integrative evidence review on service user participation in the design and delivery of drug treatment, recovery and harm reduction services | HRB, Ireland

Drug overdose rates reach 10-year high, with painkillers and sedatives used in thousands of cases

Drug overdoses treated at hospitals reached a 10-year high in 2020, with almost 5,500 cases recorded | Irish Examiner, Ireland

Is Ketamine the Drug of the Moment?

“Good coke is hard to find, whereas Ket is easy and cheap. It makes sense why students with less money are choosing that over a $300 bag.” | VICE, USA

Reduced-nicotine cigarettes result in less smoking in anxious, depressed smokers

Lowering the amount of nicotine in cigarettes to non-addictive levels may reduce smoking without worsening mental health in smokers with mood or anxiety disorders, according to Penn State College of Medicine and Harvard Medical School researchers | EurekAlert, USA

Researchers delve deep into the genetics of addiction

Danielle Dick, a professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School who leads the Rutgers Addiction Research Center, has spent decades hunting genes that contribute to drug and alcohol addiction | Medical Xpress, USA

Screening and brief intervention delivered in the workplace can reduce alcohol consumption

Screening individuals for hazardous alcohol use and providing a brief intervention is shown to help reduce consumption, but the length and type of intervention, and the best settings for their delivery remain unclear. This study evaluated the effectiveness of two different intensities of an intervention for excessive alcohol consumption in a workplace setting | Recovery Research Institute, USA

Can a web-based intervention help family members get their loved one into substance use disorder treatment sooner?

Community Reinforcement Approach and Family Training (CRAFT) is an intervention for concerned significant others of individuals with substance use problems designed to get loved ones into treatment while improving their own well-being. Yet this type of help for concerned and affected family members can be hard to find with few clinicians trained in this approach. This study developed and tested an web-based version of CRAFT that does not require a clinician to deliver it, which, if shown to be helpful, has the potential to reach many more people | Recovery Research Institute, USA

New report finds 171 drug-related hospitalisations per day in Australia in 2020-21

There were 62,486 drug-related hospitalisations (excluding alcohol and tobacco) among Australians in 2020-21, according to a new report released today by the Drug Trends program at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC), UNSW Sydney | NDARC, Australia

Blogs, comment and opinion

What long-term opioid use does to your body and brain

In his new autobiography, Matthew Perry reveals that his colon burst as a result of his addiction to opioid painkillers. The 53-year-old actor, who played Chandler Bing in Friends, was in a coma for two weeks following the incident and had to wear a colostomy bag for nine months | Conversation, UK

Behind the scenes: drugs and social media

3 years on from Volteface's landmark 'DM for Details' investigation, Megan Townsend writes on drugs, young people and social media in 2022 | Volteface, UK

Do the size of servings, glasses and bottles influence how much people drink?

People consume more food and non-alcoholic drinks when presented with larger portions or packages, and when using larger items of tableware, such as plates or glasses. But what about when presented with larger servings and containers of alcohol? We conducted a review to summarise the evidence for the influence of the size of servings glasses and bottles on how much people drink, to investigate whether making sizes smaller could reduce alcohol consumption across populations, thereby improving health | IAS blog, UK

“People prefer to speak to someone that has lived experience, someone that knows what it’s like to be where they are” - #PeerSupportMeans

In the latest of our #PeerSupportMeans interview series, our Peer Support Officer in Scotland, Jim Clark, talks about his experiences of hepatitis C, the value of peer support and the work of The Hepatitis C Trust | Hepatitis C Trust blog, UK