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Daily news - 5th August 2025

UK news

Nitazenes: Overdoses

To ask His Majesty's Government whether they plan to develop a new drugs strategy in the light of the increase in nitazene-related overdoses and deaths in the UK | They work for you, UK

Saving lives from synthetic opioids

As new, deadlier narcotics find their way into the hands of partygoers and addicts alike, police forces across the UK are asking an urgent question: how do we stop people dying? | Prospect Magazine, UK

Call to crack down on ‘hooch’ and medicine in prisons after Dorset death

Coroner asks ministers to reduce inmates’ access to illicitly brewed alcohol and medication after prisoner died | Guardian, UK

Inflatable 'mega lungs' promote cancer screening

A set of 12ft (3.65m) "mega lungs" are set to go on show in a city as part of a special screening programme and to raise awareness of cancer. Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has been working with the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, funding research and discovering new ways to diagnose and treat the disease. Current and former smokers living in and around Cambridge - aged between 55 and 74 - are being invited for a free NHS lung cancer screening | BBC, UK

The Trip 2. When the drugs take hold - audio

During the early weeks of the pandemic, Tim Hayward spent 14 days in a coma. He remembers this time vividly – his days and nights filled with strange, incandescent visions and hallucinations. That experience is something he would never choose to revisit but, around the world, large numbers of people are deliberately seeking out powerfully altered states | BBC Sounds, UK

Children's nurse admits supplying cocaine and ecstasy

Kiran Farooq, 34, was arrested after police followed her to a car park in the Finnieston area of Glasgow on 30 December 2023. Officers went on to seize hauls of cocaine, ecstasy and cash worth £200,000 from a nearby flat she had the keys for | BBC, UK

International news

Effectiveness of the WeChat-based mini-program (“Sober Time ACT”) on individuals with hazardous drinking in China: a randomized controlled trial

In China WeChat is as ubiquitous as WhatsApp in the West, so a bolt-on alcohol risk-reduction program has huge potential. Relative to brochures on quitting drinking, the first such program substantially reduced drinking among participants motivated to quit | BMC Medicine, UK

Portugal opposes EU proposals on tobacco taxes

According to data obtained by Euractiv, in Portugal, the price of a pack of cigarettes would increase by €1.22 | Euractiv, Belgium

[Open access] Non-fatal opioid overdoses that do not result in an emergency medical system (EMS), emergency department or hospital encounter are not tracked. We aimed to understand the proportion of non-fatal overdoses with and without a healthcare encounter | DADR, USA

[Open access] People who inject drugs (PWID) have many needs for health services, but frequently lack access to and/or do not utilize those services. Syringe services programs (SSPs) are low-stigma environments where health services can be provided, but are not well described | DADR, USA

FDA Addresses Opioid Medication Safety With Additional Label Changes

The FDA will now require additional safety label changes to all opioid medications, including the risks associated with long-term use. In May 2025, a public advisory committee reviewed data on opioids, which included misuse, addiction, and fatal and nonfatal overdoses, for patients using opioids over a long period | Drug Topics, USA

Gap in oncology training leaves doctors unprepared for cannabis questions

Evidence suggests as many as 40% of adults with cancer turn to marijuana—more properly known as cannabis—to manage symptoms like pain, nausea and anxiety, and many want guidance from their physicians. Yet a new national study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) finds that most oncologists-in-training, or fellows, feel underprepared to unprepared to manage this increasingly common aspect of their patients' care | Medical Xpress, USA

What’s So Bad About Nicotine?

It’s long been obvious why cigarettes are bad. The risks of alternatives like Zyn and Juul are much hazier | Atlantic, USA

Psychedelics and non-hallucinogenic analogs work through the same receptor—up to a point

Understanding exactly how psychedelics promote new connections in the brain is critical to developing targeted, non-hallucinogenic therapeutics that can treat neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases. To achieve this, researchers are mapping the biochemical pathways involved in both neuroplasticity and hallucinations | Medical Xpress, USA

New analgesic shows promise as opioid alternative

Opioids may soon have a rival. A team of researchers at Kyoto University has recently discovered a novel analgesic, or pain reliever, which exerts its effect through an entirely different mechanism. Clinical development of their drug ADRIANA is currently underway as part of an international collaborative effort | News Medical, USA

IOAD 2025 theme: One big family, driven by hope

August 31st 2025. This International Overdose Awareness Day, we come together as one big family to take action on overdose. Get the tools and templates to make an impact this August 31 – campaign ideas, social media graphics, poster designs and more, are avialble to download | Penington Institute, Australia

Blogs, comment and opinion

What we’ve learned in ten years about county lines drug dealing

A decade ago, the National Crime Agency identified a new drug supply method. Before then, drug supply was predominantly between user-dealers – people supplying their social circles to fund their drug use, rather than for commercial gain. In 2015, police outside of London identified a pattern of more frequent arrests of young people and vulnerable adults, implicated in drug supply outside of their local areas. They were also frequently suspected to be associated with members of criminal gangs. Thus, “county lines” was born | Conversation, UK

I found it agonising to quit smoking. So why are people ignoring the new treatments on offer?

Patches, gum, lozenges and hypnotism ... none of it worked for me in the long term. If an effective remedy had existed back then, I would have jumped at it | Guardian opinion, UK

Expanding the Culture of Recovery

I was first introduced to addiction and recovery being framed as cultures by the William White book Pathways: from the culture of addiction to the culture of recovery: a travel guide for addiction professions (1996). It put words to things I had difficulty articulating prior to reading it. Nothing I have read or been exposed to prior to that or since then illuminates the transformative journey of recovery in the way he did by describing it in the context of culture | Recovery Review blog, USA

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