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Daily news - 24th June 2025

UK news

25 years of stop smoking services: a milestone in public health

Local stop smoking services were established in England in 1999 and then rolled out nationally in 2000 as part of the Government’s commitment to help smokers to quit | LGA, USA

Estimating recent trends in alcohol sales in the United Kingdom from alcohol duty revenue

[Open access] The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led to significant changes in individual-level alcohol consumption and a sharp increase in heavy drinking in the United Kingdom (UK). More recently, high rates of inflation, the resulting ‘cost of living crisis’ and reforms to alcohol taxation have affected the affordability of alcohol, but little is understood about how these changes have impacted on alcohol sales and consumption. We aimed to measure recent trends in alcohol sales by assessing changes in alcohol duty revenue collected by the UK government since 2020 | Addiction, UK

[Open access] Pub crawls are a phenomenon which are part of the hospitality sector and contribute to consumer experiences within the Night Time Economy. We show the current state of knowledge in this immature field via a Systematic Literature Review methodology | International Journal of Hospitality Management, UK

Cascading Constraint and Subsidiary Discretion: Perspectives on Police Discretion From Police-Led Drug Diversion and Stop and Search in England

[Open access] This article explores how discretion is managed and exercised across senior, middle, and street levels of policing. It uses qualitative data from two studies in England. The first, a study across three police force areas, involved interviews and focus groups with 221 people who were designers, deliverers, and recipients of police-led drug diversion. The second study used 354 hours of ethnographic observation and 21 interviews to examine stop-and-search practices in one other police force | British J Criminology, UK

Anyone’s Child: Families for Safer Drug Control - 10th Anniversary Lobby Of Parliament

TODAY 11.00 – Church House, Westminster SW1P 3NZ. To mark our 10 year anniversary, we’re not only organizing a mass lobby of Parliament, calling for an urgent review of the Misuse of Drugs Act and to end the drug war, we are also hosting an event to showcase the best of drug policy reform | Anyone's Child, UK

Men caught in cocaine boat following 28-mile chase are convicted

Three men who tried to outrun pursuing officers for around 28 miles at sea after their cocaine-laden boat was spotted have been convicted of importing Class A drugs | NCA, UK

Street dealer boasted about making £800 a day

A drug dealer who boasted about making £800 a day by selling cocaine on the Isle of Man's streets has been jailed for seven years | BBC, UK

International news

Vapes threaten to undo gains in tackling dangers of tobacco, health leaders warn

WHO calls for higher cigarette taxes, plus graphic warnings on vapes, heated tobacco products and nicotine pouches | Guardian, UK

‘Fear-driven narratives’ undermining tobacco harm reduction

Fear-driven narratives in the media risk seriously undermining tobacco harm reduction efforts, heard delegates at this year’s Global Forum on Nicotine (GFN) in Warsaw. ‘The bad news is that having the facts on our side is clearly not enough,’ said Jacob Grier, a journalist covering tobacco policy for publications like Slate and the Atlantic | DDN, UK

Supreme court widens court options for vaping companies pushing back against FDA rules

The Supreme Court is siding with e-cigarette companies in a ruling that'll make it easier to sue over Food and Drug Administration decisions blocking their products from the multibillion-dollar vaping market | Independent, UK

Care Not Criminalization - Support. Don't Punish 2025

Thursday, June 26 at 1pm - special event marking Support. Don't Punish 2025. In collaboration with harm reduction groups and allied organizations from across the country, the Harm Reduction Action Collective (HRAC) and HIV Legal Network are co-hosting a national virtual event on June 26th, 2025 – marking the Global Day of Action as part of the international Support. Don’t Punish campaign | Support. Don't Punish, UK

Cork County Council likely to ban smoking and vaping at all its amenity areas

A ban looks likely to be introduced on smoking and vaping at all playgrounds, multi-use games area, and amenity spaces controlled by Cork County Council, primarily sparked by concerns about children’s health | Irish Examiner, Ireland

Young women experience less craving for cannabis following alcohol consumption

Alcohol and cannabis are commonly used together by young adults and rates of their co-use are increasing. Recent research has found that following any amount of alcohol use, young women experienced less craving for cannabis, whereas young men experienced more craving for cannabis following any alcohol use | Medical Xpress, USA

Participant information - In 2025, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) will manage the fieldwork for its National Drug Strategy Household Survey (NDSHS). The AIHW is an independent statutory Australian Government agency producing authoritative and accessible information and statistics to inform and support better policy and service delivery decisions, leading to better health and wellbeing for all Australians | AIHW, Australia

Blogs, comment and opinion

The Tragic & Predictable Known Unknown Challenges of Medetomidine and Xylazine – William Stauffer

Medetomidine and Xylazine have been in our drug supply for years, but their use is becoming increasingly prevalent on streets across America. They are typically being mixed with short acting opioids, primarily Fentanyl in order to enhance the synergistic effects. For readers, this is two plus two equals eight as anyone who ever had a martini on top of an older generation antihistamine may discover | Recovery Review blog, USA

More women are using medical cannabis – but new research shows barriers push some into illegal markets

The number of women using medicinal cannabis is growing in New Zealand and overseas. They use cannabis treatment for general conditions such as pain, anxiety, inflammation and nausea, as well as gynaecological conditions, including endometriosis, pelvic floor conditions, and menopause. However, their experiences with medicinal cannabis remain under-explored in research and overlooked in policy and regulation. As our work shows, they face several gender-specific barriers to accessing medicinal cannabis. Some of these hurdles lead women to seeking cannabis from illegal markets | Conversation, New Zealand

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