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Daily news - 2nd May 2024 |
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UK news
Criminal Justice Committee, Health, Social Care and Sport Committee, and Social Justice and Social Security Committee (Joint Meeting) - video
Tackling drug deaths and drug harm: The Committees took evidence from— Kirsten Horsburgh, Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Drugs Forum; Dr Emma Fletcher, Director of NHS Tayside Public Health and Chair of Dundee Alcohol and Drug Partnership; Justina Murray, Chief Executive Officer, Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs; Christina McKelvie, Minister for Drugs and Alcohol Policy, Scottish Government; Michael Crook, Drug Policy Team Leader, Harm Reduction Team, Scottish Government; Alison Crocket, Unit Head, Whole Systems Unit, Drugs Policy Division, Scottish Government; Dr Saket Priyadarshi, Associate Medical Director, Alcohol and Drug Recovery Services, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde | Scottish Parliament, UK
Public health leaders call for system-wide response to reverse declining health in Scotland
Scotland’s public health community has come together at a major new Conference to drive forward work to protect and improve health for the people of Scotland. Jointly hosted by the Faculty of Public Health, Public Health Scotland, and the Scottish Directors of Public Health Group, this new Conference is centred on inspiring change and tackling the big issues creating problems for Scotland’s health including poverty, obesity, drug-related deaths, and tobacco | PHS, UK
England’s Widening Health Gap: Local Places Falling Behind
The new report provides information from 17 local authorities with statistically significant increases in inequalities in life expectancy and overviews widening regional inequalities in life expectancy. The report shows, since 2010, central government spending cuts to local authorities were highest in areas with lower life expectancy and more health inequalities, further harming health in these places | Institute of Health Equity, UK
Opioids: Health Hazards
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department has taken to help prepare for potential increases in levels of synthetic opioid-related harms | They work for you, UK
Alcoholic Drinks: Misuse
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department has made a recent assessment of the potential merits of developing a cross-departmental strategy to tackle alcohol harm | They work for you, UK
Alcoholic Drinks: Misuse
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will meet charities representing people affected by alcohol harm to inform her Department’s work on health prevention | They work for you, UK
Electronic Cigarettes: Drugs
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to educate people about the use of synthetic drugs in vapes | They work for you, UK
NDTMS: consent and privacy notice
Information for people in drug and alcohol treatment about sharing their information with the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System. Updated on May 1st to include information about the NDTMS website | OHID, UK
Drugs Wheels
NPS version 1.1.0 and UK legal version 2.2.2 now available | Mark Adley, UK
Event review: The Forward Trust National Reunion celebrates recovery in style
Over 400 people attended the event at St John at Hackney (Hackney Church) at the beginning of the year to celebrate personal achievements in recovery | Forward Trust, UK
Carlisle drugs criminal caught after he stayed with pal who overdosed
Repeat offender Dean Kerr, 36, who has 128 offences on his criminal record, called for an ambulance and stayed with Stacey Sullivan after she collapsed | News & Star, UK
International news
America could reclassify marijuana. What next?
Marijuana is currently classified on par, legally, with heroin, LSD, quaaludes and ecstasy | Independent, UK
Alec Baldwin reflects on 40-year sobriety after taking ‘cocaine like coffee’
Alec Baldwin has opened up about the cocaine experience that led to 40 years of sobriety in a new interview. The 66-year-old actor had previously discussed his challenges with alcoholism and substance abuse in his memoir Nevertheless, in which he said the problem was linked to “a lot of pain” | Independent, UK
Researchers urge more Australian pharmacies to stock anti-opioid overdose drug naloxone
With unintentional opioid-related deaths nearly tripling nationally since 2006, experts are calling for greater awareness | Guardian, UK
Psychedelics Revolutionise Psychiatry
Watch this interview Drug Reporter made with world-famous psychedelic researcher David E. Nichols at the last Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research | Drug Reporter, Hungary
Alcohol is dangerous. So is ‘alcoholic.’
Researcher explains the human toll of language that makes addiction feel worse | Harvard Gazette, USA
How fentanyl and COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the racial profile of overdose deaths in US
For as long as statistics about opioid overdose deaths have been collected in the United States, white individuals have been much more likely to die than Black individuals of the same age. With the rapidly increasing rate of fentanyl overdoses in the late 2010s, that trend began to reverse—by the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, more Black Americans began to die of opioid overdoses and from drug overdoses of any kind, according to researchers at Penn State | Medical Xpress, USA
Understanding youth nicotine use to prevent initiation and escalation
Using multiple nicotine products can be associated with higher levels of nicotine dependence among youth and increased mortality in adults, compared with the use of one product alone. Yale researchers have now uncovered factors that contribute to adolescents using multiple nicotine products | Medical Xpress, USA
Episode #30: Bromazolam, Etonitazene, and Carfentanil Walk into a Bar – Trends in Novel Illicit Drugs with Dr. Alex Krotulski - podcast
In this episode Ryan interviews Dr. Alex Krotulski PhD from the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education. Together take a look at trends in novel opioids, benzodiazepines, stimulants, hallucinogens, synthetic cannabinoids, and "hemp products" that are showing up in your patients, drug products, and fatal overdoses. The conversation takes places around the Center for Forensic Science Research and Education quarterly report on Novel Psychoactive Substances found in patients and drug products | The Poison Lab, USA
No Drug Education: The Rise and Fall of DARE
Praised by politicians, parents and presidents, police officers taught DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) to fifth and sixth-grade students in around 75 percent of United States school districts at the peak of its popularity in the 1980s and ‘90s. Funded by the US government, the program was exported to dozens of other countries, too. Altogether, DARE reached an estimated 50 million children worldwide | Filter Magazine, USA
Stocking and supplying naloxone: Findings from a representative sample of community pharmacies in Victoria, Australia
[Open access] Naloxone is an opioid receptor antagonist, which can rapidly reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. Community pharmacists may experience several barriers to stocking and supplying naloxone including a lack of confidence or knowledge and time constraints. The current study aimed to examine the extent to which Victorian community pharmacies stock and supply naloxone and determine specific characteristics associated with stocking naloxone | Drug and Alcohol Review, Australia
Prescription vape manufacturers call for flavoured products as senate hears of heart risk levels
Fruit-flavoured prescription-only nicotine vapes for adults wanting to move away from cigarettes should be made available, manufacturers have told senators, as they throw their support behind new legislation aimed at stamping out the black market | Australian, Australia
Will Australia's tightened prescription system reduce nicotine vaping among young people?
Australia's tightened prescription policy for e-cigarettes may reduce adolescent vaping but at the risk of reducing smokers' access to e-cigarettes and increasing the size of the illicit market for combustible cigarettes and e-cigarettes. A more effective policy would allow vapes to be sold as consumer products by licensed tobacconists under regulations that require prior product approval, plain packaging, bans on their promotion and enforced age restrictions on purchases | Addiction, Australia
Expert Pharmac committee recommends funding for overdose reversal nasal spray
Public funding for a lifesaving opioid overdose reversal nasal spray is one step closer, with an expert committee saying that funding the medicine for use by non-paramedic first responders and people at high risk of an opioid overdose is a high priority | NZDF, New Zealand
Blogs, comment and opinion
Rethinking “Justice”: Racial Inequity in Justice-Involved Alcohol Treatment in the United States
The criminal legal system (previously referred to as criminal justice system) and alcohol treatment in the United States (US) have long been intertwined, with almost 1/3 of arrests in the US involving alcohol | IAS blog, UK