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Daily news - 4th December 2023

UK news

Smokefree generation policy: modelling report

A technical report about the methodology and data used to model the effects of the smokefree generation policy | DHSC, UK

Nitazenes: The new synthetic opioids stronger than heroin that are being cut into drugs

Nitazenes are being discovered in drugs in the UK and are said to be up to 300 times stronger than heroin | Sky News, UK

What’s behind the rise in ‘fake heroin’?

Last week, law enforcement in the UK made their largest-ever seizure of synthetic opioids in the UK. During a series of raids in Waltham Forest and Enfield, north London, police found about 150,000 nitazene pills which they believed were going to be sold on the dark web | Dazed Digital, UK

Ozempic Could Also Help You Drink Less Alcohol

Mounting evidence bolsters the idea that drugs like semaglutide—better known as Ozempic or Wegovy—can hamper a thirst for booze | WIRED, UK

Drugs: Music Festivals

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he has issued recent guidance to the organisers of festivals on the use of back-of-house drug testing licences | They work for you, UK

Alcoholic Drinks and Drugs: Misuse

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to paragraph 4.5 of the Government response to the Fifty-fourth report of Session 2022-23 from the Committee of Public Accounts on Alcohol treatment services, HC 1001, published on 21 July 2023, what her planned timetable is for publishing the joint action plan with NHS England to address co-occurring mental health and drug/alcohol-related conditions | They work for you, UK

Back to Work scheme extension: Learning from our DWP Restart delivery experience

Emma Woodward, operational manager, DWP Restart shares how The Forward Trust’s Back to Work scheme has been a success | DDN, UK

NHS APA Annual Conference - Living the Stigma: Understanding Addiction & Overcoming Prejudice

Watch presenations from last week's conference | NHS APA, UK

Press release: ‘Professor Owen Bowden-Jones elected President of the SSA’

The Society for the Study of Addiction is delighted to announce Professor Owen Bowden-Jones as its new President. Owen was elected to the post by fellow trustees on 9 November, and succeeds Dr Ed Day, who served a four-year term | SSA, UK

Alcoholism: Woman ‘shocked’ she could buy alcohol at 6am calls for it to be 'less accessible'

A woman who used to wake up and "watch the clock" until she could buy her next drink says alcohol is "too accessible" and is calling for change | ITV, UK

Booze is getting stronger – just one alcoholic drink could now take you over the drink-drive limit

[Possible paywall] The alcohol content of our beers and wines has steadily increased to the point that we no longer know what constitutes a unit of alcohol | Telegraph, UK

Gloucestershire women embracing alcohol-free lifestyle

As the festive season fast approaches, some people are considering swapping cocktails and bubbly for an alcohol-free alternative, as an increasing number of people begin to question their relationship with alcohol | BBC, UK

Denise Welch: ‘Who would I like to say sorry to? The people I hurt when I was addicted to alcohol and cocaine’

The actor and Loose Women panellist on getting sober, being a helicopter parent, and an unfortunate event in New York | Guardian, UK

Benefits of family support to people using drugs or alcohol - survey

This survey is designed for people who have themselves experienced problems with their drinking and/or drug use use, and are now in recovery or are recovered. We would like to hear about the role that your family played in your recovery | Adfam, UK

How medical cannabis is made: Inside the first UK medical cannabis group to win the right to sell in Britain

Celadon - the first UK medical cannabis group to win the right to sell in Britain - are currently running a large-scale trial of its cannabinoid therapy for chronic pain | Sky News, UK

Police cannot 'arrest their way' out of drug gangs

A police force has warned it cannot "arrest its way" out of the problem of county lines drug dealing | BBC, UK

Mansfield: Hallucinogens found in market chocolate, police say

Quantities of hallucinogenic drugs have been found in "a small number" of chocolate bars sold on a market stall | BBC, UK

More than 100 canisters of nitrous oxide dumped

More than 100 catering-sized cannisters of nitrous oxide have been cleared from a Stoke-on-Trent street among tonnes of illegally dumped waste | BBC, UK

Police Scotland seize £4.5m worth of drugs in three months

Police Scotland officers seized more than £4.5m of drugs across the country in just three months | BBC, UK

International news

Roads to recovery: Exploring UK prison rehabilitation and its alternatives (PDF)

One of the primary purposes of the UK prison system is to facilitate offender rehabilitation. However, inadequate support and high reoffending rates mean it is failing to live up to that ideal. Drawing upon lessons from the Netherlands and Norway, this briefing highlights the potential benefits of alternative approaches to rehabilitation | SMF, UK

Aeroplane and €8m worth of heroin seized at Weston Airport in Dublin

Heroin with an estimated street value of more than €8m (£6.8m) and a plane have been seized at an airport in Dublin, gardaí (Irish police) have said | BBC, UK

‘Drug use is a health problem’: inside one of the world’s oldest legal consumption rooms

At Quai 9 in Geneva, safe equipment and healthcare have cut overdoses and illnesses among addicts. But around the world, opinion is divided on whether such projects really work | Guardian, UK

Nine men to be tried for murder of Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries

The 64-year-old died nine days after he was shot in a crime that prosecutors said was linked to his role in the trial of a Dutch drug mafia kingpin | Guardian, UK

How gang violence took hold of Sweden – in five charts

Scandinavian country has second highest gun crime death rate in Europe, with poverty and inequality among driving factors | Guardian, UK

‘No sympathy’: why are vape stores still opening across Australia six months before ban comes into force?

Shops are flourishing thanks to huge profits despite significant reforms flagged a year ago, observers say | Guardian, UK

One in eight older adults use cannabis products, suggesting need to screen for risks

More older Americans use cannabis now than before the pandemic, with 12% saying they've consumed a THC-containing substance in the past year and 4% saying they do so multiple times a week, according to a new study of people aged 50 to 80. Those who drink alcohol at risky levels have a much higher rate of cannabis use | Medical Xpress, USA

Study identifies peptide as key mediator in heavy alcohol drinking

Alcohol use disorder, a highly prevalent, chronic, relapsing disorder, affects more than 14 million people in the U.S. alone, in addition to being severely under-treated, with only three modestly effective pharmacological therapies available | Medical Xpress, USA

Cancer patients with opioid use disorder face obstacles to treatment

A cancer diagnosis can greatly disrupt treatment with methadone, a medication used to treat patients with opioid use disorder, according to a perspective piece published in the New England Journal of Medicine by University of Pittsburgh researchers | Medical Xpress, USA

Explainer: How will the Supreme Court reshape US opioid epidemic relief?

he U.S. Supreme Court is set on Monday to hear arguments over the legality of a roughly $6 billion bankruptcy settlement involving Purdue Pharma, maker of the powerful and highly addictive pain medication OxyContin that played a key role in the country's opioid epidemic | Reuters, USA