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Daily news - 11th January 2024

UK news

Overdose Prevention Centres, Safe Consumption Sites, and Drug Consumption Rooms: A Rapid Evidence Review

Drug Science is pleased to announce the release of a rapid evidence review collating and synthesizing the existing evidence on Overdose Prevention Centres (OPCs), outlining what we know about their impact on individuals, communities, and public health. The primary objective of this rapid review is to offer a comprehensive understanding of OPCs, for policymakers, politicians, service providers, health departments, current and potential service providers, researchers, and anyone else interested in the health and well-being of people who use drugs | Drug Science, UK

Drug consumption rooms could save thousands of UK lives, study finds

Facilities could also slash transmission of diseases and cut pressure on ambulance callouts and hospitals, study says | Guardian, UK

Statistics on Women's Smoking Status at Time of Delivery: England, Quarter 2, 2023-24

7.5% of mothers were known to be smokers at the time of delivery. 0.5 percentage point decrease from quarter 1 of 2023-2024 (8.0%), but above the national ambition of 6% or less | NHS Digital, UK

Labour will ban ‘child’ vape flavours as Starmer embraces ‘nanny state’

The Labour leader insisted it was necessary for the state to intervene to improve children's health | i news, UK

Best practice in working with people with mental health problems on probation

There are many benefits to making sure that we understand the mental health needs of people on probation and address them. Criminal justice and health agencies need to work together to make sure that people get the support that they need with their mental health. However, currently, the services that are provided are not always suitable to meet this population’s needs, and people on probation can face numerous barriers to accessing care | Clinks, UK

Publishing Addiction Science - an introduction - podcast

Welcome to Publishing Addiction Science - a podcast for the perplexed. This series is for anyone working in addiction research who is trying to navigate the choppy waters of academic publishing. We will feature interviews with Editors-in-Chief of some of the leading academic addictions journals. They will tell you how to improve your chances of being published and how to avoid common errors | SSA, UK

Essex Police get first conviction over supplying laughing gas since new law introduced

A 30-year-old man has become one of the first people in the UK to be convicted of supplying nitrous oxide - more commonly known as laughing gas | ITV, UK

International news

[Open access] The 2000–2001 and the 2022–2023 Taliban opium bans were and could be two of the largest ever disruptions to a major illegal drug market. To help understand potential implications of the current ban for Europe, this paper analyzes how opioid markets in seven Baltic and Nordic countries responded to the earlier ban, using literature review, key informant interviews, and secondary data analysis | IJDP, UK

Restricting alcohol marketing to reduce alcohol consumption: A systematic review of the empirical evidence for one of the ‘best buys’

Even though a ban of alcohol marketing has been declared a ‘best buy’ of alcohol control policy, comprehensive systematic reviews on its effectiveness to reduce consumption are lacking. The aim of this paper was to systematically review the evidence for effects of total and partial bans of alcohol marketing on alcohol consumption | Addiction, UK

Elon Musk fired back at a Wall Street Journal story about his drug use. Experts say the reported combination of substances would be hugely risky if true

After The Wall Street Journal published a story Saturday saying that Elon Musk had taken illegal drugs, the billionaire responded in a post on X that he'd had great success leading Tesla and SpaceX and "Whatever I'm doing, I should obviously keep doing it!" | Business Insider, UK

Further overdoses linked to synthetic opiates reported in Dublin

A dangerous synthetic opiate that led to numerous overdoses last month is still in circulation in Ireland, it has been warned | Irish Examiner, Ireland

Trends in Cigarette Smoking Among United States Adolescents

Cigarette smoking remains the leading avoidable cause of premature death in the United States, accounting for approximately 500,000, or 1 in 5, deaths annually. We explored trends in cigarette smoking among US adolescents | OCHSNER Journal, USA

Taking medical cannabis for chronic pain linked to increased risk of arrhythmia

People taking medical cannabis for chronic pain have a slightly increased risk of arrhythmia, according to research published in the European Heart Journal today (Thursday). Arrhythmia is when the heart beats too slowly, too quickly or irregularly. It includes conditions like atrial fibrillation | News Medical, USA

Research finds dark web fentanyl-selling operations have grown rapidly, offer steep discounts

Overdose deaths in North America have skyrocketed, primarily because of the spread of illegally manufactured fentanyl. In a new study, researchers have analyzed an early and prominent fentanyl-selling operation on the dark web. The organization sustained a significant growth rate, which allowed it to offer consumers steep discounts | Medical Xpress, USA

Study draws lessons about drug policy by examining history of fireworks regulation, prohibitions

Policymakers worldwide wrestle with whether to prohibit products that can harm consumers. Prohibitions can reduce consumption and consumption-related harms, but also create other problems, including illegal markets. In a new study, researchers have reviewed the history of fireworks regulations, sales, and harms, then contrasted these with those for cannabis. They found a surprising number of similarities as well as some key differences between the two | Medical Xpress, USA

Symptoms of PTSD facilitate substance use as a coping method among children after a natural disaster, finds study

In a survey-based study of 3rd to 12th grade students in Puerto Rico after 2017's Hurricane Maria, certain symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were linked with a higher risk of using drugs or alcohol | Medical Xpress, USA

Justice Is Setting Them Free: Women, Drug Policies, and Incarceration in Latin America

The incarceration of women is growing at alarming rates worldwide and in Latin America it is driven by strict drug laws, with devastating consequences for the women impacted and their families. Their stories unveil contexts of poverty, lack of opportunity, and physical and sexual violence, and also reveal the discrimination of unjust legal systems and societies plagued by stigmatization | WOLA, USA

“Cannamoms” Find Community Can Overcome Stigma

Almost nobody in Ashley’s* life knows that she uses cannabis to help cope with her anxiety as a mother. She’s told her toddler’s other parent, and she’s shared her experiences with a couple of friends. But she hasn’t told her mother, with whom she lives, and she definitely doesn’t speak about it with other parents she knows | Filter Magazine, USA

Blogs, comment and opinion

Antidepressant withdrawal: recommendations for support from people with lived experience

Antidepressant prescriptions are on the increase, and this is partially driven by more people staying on them for longer (Kendrick, 2021; Kendrick et al., 2015; McCrea et al., 2016; Moore et al., 2009). While antidepressants can be useful at preventing relapse for many people (Sim et al., 2015), up to half of individuals taking antidepressants long-term are doing so without a guidance-based reason (Ambresin et al., 2015; Eveleigh et al., 2014). This is a problem because antidepressants can come with significant side effects (Kendrick, 2021) | Mental Elf blog, UK

4c labs announces launch of village farms’ top-selling cannabis brands in the uk

4C LABS Ltd. (the “Company” or “4C LABS”), a leading UK medical cannabis company focused on providing patients with world class medical cannabis products, is pleased to announce the launch of two of Village Farms International’s (NASDAQ: VFF) (“Village Farms”) leading cannabis brands, Pure Sunfarms and The Original Fraser Valley Co. (“Fraser Valley”) in the United Kingdom (UK) | Volteface, UK

“Safer supply” alternatives to toxic unregulated drug markets

Policy makers must take urgent action to reduce the toll of drug related deaths. In Canada, an average of 22 people died from opioid toxicity each day in the first six months of 2023, with 84% of these deaths involving unregulated fentanyl. In response to this crisis of drug related deaths, people who use drugs have advocated for models of “safer supply.” These interventions range from the testing and distribution of drugs by activists to the prescription of pharmaceuticals by clinicians and the legal regulation of drug manufacture and supply | BMJ, UK

The Guardian view on Ecuador’s gang violence: a domestic crisis with transnational roots

The Latin American nation, once relatively safe, is now in the grip of organised crime. There are no swift or easy solutions | Guardian editorial, UK

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