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Daily news - 8th August 2024

UK news

Fresh concerns about drug and alcohol issues in resort

Drug and alcohol abuse and poor mental health continue to have an effect on many residents in Blackpool, the town’s director of public health has warned. A presentation by Dr Arif Rajpura showed drug deaths in the Lancashire resort were almost four times higher than the rest of England, and up 50% in the past decade with 120 drug deaths between 2020 and 2022 | BBC, UK

Plan to serve alcohol at water park from 08:00

Alcohol could be served from 08:00 until 22:00 each day at a multimillion-pound water park attraction in North Yorkshire, if proposals are given the go-ahead | BBC, UK

Team GB's Charley Hull fears smoking ban may be a drag on her Olympic performance

Charley Hull has been told she can't bring her cigarettes to her pursuit of Olympic gold, with the English golfer fearing the ban could see her performance go up in smoke | ITV, UK

Medbud’s july 2024 data: uk medical cannabis clinics, pharmacies, flower & oil

Welcome to our monthly breakdown taking a look at UK medical cannabis data for July 2024. This month saw an impressive 10.3% increase in overall traffic, marking a 9% jump from June. This significant rise suggests the market is continuing to grow with more of the public seeking to learn more about the medical cannabis market here in the UK | Volteface, UK

Woman accused of £10K Alcoholics Anonymous theft

A woman has appeared in court charged with stealing more than £10,000 from an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) group in Londonderry | BBC, UK

'Cuckooing' criminals took woman's house and turned it into drug den

A woman has told how she was forced at knifepoint to smoke crack by criminals who turned her home in Dundee into a drug den | BBC, UK

Six in court accused of smuggling cocaine in bananas

Six men have gone on trial accused of being part of an international drug smuggling ring which involved hiding cocaine in bananas sent to an address in Glasgow | BBC, UK

International news

Allaying the fears: MDMA with therapy is a medicine

MDMA [now called midomafetamine by the FDA] is a substituted amphetamine first synthesized in 1912 by Merck that has been developed over the past 30 years by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) as a novel treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) | Drug Science, UK

Australia hockey player in Paris cocaine arrest

The Paris prosecutor's office said the individual was arrested on Tuesday night for buying cocaine in the ninth arrondissement | BBC, UK

Can Canada overcome its drug overdose crisis? - audio

Vancouver in British Columbia, whilst being one of those places always at the forefront of drug policy change, has seen an explosion in overdose deaths due to toxic drugs. So the city readily adopted a decriminalisation programme as a measure to try and help reduce the death rates. But now, just over a year since its implementation, that pilot programme has been scaled back, and it now means that people found with drugs on their person in public places can be arrested again | BBC, UK

[Open access] This randomized experiment tested the cue reactivity effects of exposure to images depicting variations in the number of people consuming alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverages on alcohol-related cravings and outcomes | Addictive Behaviors, USA

Some e-cigarette chemicals mimic nicotine, possibly bypassing regulation

In what appears to be an effort to bypass public health regulations covering vaping products, some tobacco companies have begun replacing nicotine in e-cigarettes with related chemicals that have similar properties but unknown health effects, Duke Health researchers report | Medical Xpress, USA

Controversial FDA Decision Authorizes Menthol-Flavored E-Cigarettes Despite Risks to Youth

Tobacco giant Altria has managed to do what rival RJ Reynolds has not: convince the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that authorizing the marketing of menthol-flavored e-cigarettes would protect the public’s health | JAMA Network, USA

A Vaping Cessation Text Message Program for Adolescent E-Cigarette Users

A tailored, interactive text message program increased self-reported vaping cessation rates among adolescents recruited via social media channels | JAMA Network Open, USA

Cocaine discovery could pave way for treatment for substance abuse

Drugs such as cocaine cause a surge of dopamine in the brain. Normally, a protein in the brain called the dopamine transporter helps regulate dopamine levels and prevent the brain from thinking that every experience is pleasurable. However, when affected by cocaine, the brain is unable to regulate dopamine levels. Previously, researchers did not know how cocaine affects the different transporters in the brain, but a new study has changed that | Medical Xpress, USA

Buprenorphine Prescribing Characteristics Following Relaxation of X-Waiver Training Requirements

In this serial cross-sectional study of 33 communities from 4 states with high burdens of opioid overdose from May 2020 to May 2022, relaxing buprenorphine training requirements was associated with an increase in the number of clinicians eligible to prescribe buprenorphine. However, no change in the number of clinicians prescribing buprenorphine or patients receiving buprenorphine was found | JAMA Network Open, USA

Client preferences for the design and delivery of injectable opioid agonist treatment services: Results from a best–worst scaling task

[Open access] Clinical trials support injectable opioid agonist treatment (iOAT) for individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) for whom other pharmacological management approaches are not well-suited. However, despite substantial research indicating that person-centered care improves engagement, retention and health outcomes, structural requirements (e.g. drug policies) often dictate how iOAT must be delivered, regardless of client preferences | Addiction, USA

The associations of supervised consumption services with the rates of opioid-related mortality and morbidity outcomes at the public health unit level in Ontario (Canada): A controlled interrupted time-series analysis

[Open access] Across the province of Ontario, the opening from 2017 of 23 sites where drugs can be consumed more safely had no statistically significant impact on deaths, emergency department visits or hospitalisations related to use of opioids. While within the services each episode of use may be safer, they could cater for only a tiny minority of episodes | DAR, USA

What happens inside Metro Vancouver's overdose prevention sites — and how they're dealing with neighbours' concerns

Many Metro Vancouver cities have supervised consumption sites, where lives are saved. But neighbours complain about disorder and some politicians are fed up. What's the solution? | Vancouver Sun, Canada

Blogs, comment and opinion

Social media, smoking and young people: is there any link?

Perhaps one of the greatest achievements of public health policy in recent years has been the significant decline in smoking among the population of the United Kingdom. However, this decline has begun to stall. In this context, it is important to examine how young people are introduced to smoking and e-cigarettes and what are the factors that influence them | Mental Elf blog, UK

Is cocaine driving the British riots?

[May require a subscription] As the weekend’s rioters make their way through Keir Starmer’s 24/7, one-stop convenience courts, and the charges of affray, assault and racially aggravated public order offences trickle through the press, you may also notice the smattering of Class A drug possession charges | New Statesman, UK

What about the kids? regulating adult-only cannabis access

While cannabis prohibition has often been justified as a way of protecting youth, it has spectacularly failed in this goal. Instead, illegal cannabis use and availability amongst young people has increased, while the unregulated cannabis products they are accessing have become more potent and risky | Transform blog, UK

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