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Daily news - 7th January 2026

UK news

YouGov survey shows continuing demand for Low and No-Alcohol drinks as more UK adults choose moderate consumption

The Portman Group’s eighth annual survey on low and no alcohol in partnership with YouGov shows that 86% of UK adults either abstain from alcohol or drink within Chief Medical Officer low risk drinking guidelines (up to 14 units per week), with a significant portion of the population embracing low and no alcohol alternatives. The survey found that 53% of UK adults consume 14 units of alcohol or less per week which includes 35% of adults who are drinking 5 units or less per week. A third of adults (33%) do not drink alcohol at all. Only 11% of adults exceed the Chief Medical Officer’s low risk guidelines | Portman Group, UK

‘A Historic Shift in Public Health’ - ASH Chief Executive writes to retailers as the smokefree generation law moves closer

With just under a year to go until the smokefree generation age-of-sale law is due to take effect on 1st January 2027, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) Chief Executive Hazel Cheeseman has written an open letter to retailers across the UK setting out what the change will mean for businesses, communities and public health and urging the sector to treat the policy as a manageable transition with long-term benefits for business and public health | ASH, UK

Schools want help in 'lonely battle' against vapes

Teenagers in hospital, thousands of pounds spent on e-cigarette detectors and addicted students hiding in toilets – just some of the challenges schools are facing in what has been described as a "public health emergency" | BBC, UK

Drivers warned as drink-drive limit set to be slashed in England and Wales

The drink-drive limit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland is currently the highest in Europe | Independent, UK

“Not me, I’m in control!” a systematic meta-synthesis of othering amongst heavier drinkers

[Open access] Othering is a discursive practice of constructing or drawing on an extreme or stereotyped problem ‘other’. Othering amongst drinking groups has been proposed as an important barrier to the resolution of alcohol problems viaimpeding problem recognition and increasing stigma. The aim of this review was to examine how heavier drinkers characterize a ‘problematic other’ in order to justify, normalize or protect their own ‘non-problematic’ drinking identity | Addiction Research & Theory, UK

UK police officers given new guidance on medical cannabis

Police forces across the UK have been issued new guidance on how to handle interactions with medical cannabis patients, following concerns that outdated advice was leading to unnecessary confrontations between officers and lawfully prescribed patients | Leafie, UK

Woman detoxed alone in B&B after failing to access local treatment

A woman in addiction recovery has said she had to go through withdrawal alone in a B&B after being unable to access inpatient support within her local health trust | BBC, UK

Alcoholic Drinks and Drugs: Rehabilitation

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking with Cabinet colleagues to ensure that local authorities meet the ambition that 2% of the drug and alcohol treatment population are accessing residential treatment | They work for you, UK

Alcoholic Drinks: Young People

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help tackle alcohol misuse in people under 25 | They work for you, UK

Breast Cancer: Alcoholic Drinks

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase levels of public awareness on the potential impact of alcohol consumption on levels of breast cancer risk | They work for you, UK

Smoking

Currently there is no agreed definition of what constitutes a handmade cigar, therefore there is no Government data collected on their annual consumption. However, there is data on cigar usage from the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project which is produced every two years | They work for you, UK

Cannabis plants seized in city drug raid

Following reports of suspicious behaviour, West Midlands Police officers and National Grid searched a property in Nunts Park Avenue in Coventry | BBC, UK

Haulage firm worker used company vehicles to transport cocaine

A haulage firm worker who used the company's vehicles to help run a lucrative drug trafficking operation has been jailed for more than four years | BBC, UK

Teacher banned indefinitely for calling Islam satanic

A teacher who described Islam as "satanic" and told pupils that "cocaine was purer back in the day" has been banned from the profession | BBC, UK

Starmer urged to scrap ‘outdated’ law limiting power to stop new gambling premises

‘Aim to permit’ rule places legal duty on licensing authorities to err on the side of allowing new bookmakers or 24-hour slot machine shops | Guardian, UK

International news

Streamer dies after being paid to drink whisky and snort six grams of cocaine on private live broadcast

Sergio Jimenez's camera was still live when his body was discovered by his younger brother in the home they shared with their mother Vilanova i la Geltru, near Barcelona | LBC, UK

Hard drugs are being openly advertised on social media and delivered by Canada Post, report finds

One person compared the ease of purchasing drugs online to buying goods on Amazon, saying, ‘It's unbelievable to see this on social media’ | Independent, UK

Research debunks crime spike myth at safe injection sites in Toronto

Overdose prevention sites and supervised consumption sites in Toronto are not associated with long-term increases in local crime, McGill University researchers have found | Medical Express, USA

[Open access] British Columbia’s (BC) three-year drug decriminalization policy–introduced in January 2023 and amended just over a year later in 2024–had multiple goals, including reducing drug use stigma, shifting perceptions of drug use from a criminal to a health issue, and improving health outcomes for people who use drugs. As part of the policy, the BC government was required to implement public education tools to raise awareness and build understanding of the policy. However, little is known about the scope or impact of these public education efforts | IJDP, USA

[Open access] Illicit drug-related harms remain a significant public health issue globally and in Australia, particularly among people who inject drugs (PWIDs) in prison settings where access to harm reduction (HR) is severely limited. This study aimed to explore the experiences of PWIDs incarcerated in Queensland prisons, focusing on how the prison environment shaped their risk of blood-borne viruses (BBVs) and injection-related bacterial infections (IRBIs), and to identify ways current HR interventions could be improved | IJDP, USA

How cocaine smuggling through Latin America really works

Former Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, appeared in a New York court yesterday. He’s facing drug-trafficking and weapons charges after the U.S. abducted him and his wife in an explosive operation over the weekend. But is there any credibility to the drug-trafficking accusations? And what does the cocaine supply chain look like in 2026? | NPR, USA

ASHES, Vol. 22(1) – Do reasons for smoking impact young adults’ future smoking behavior?

Young adults use electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) like vapes at higher rates than any other group. This week, ASHES reviews a study by Max A. Halvorson and colleagues that examined the relationship between young adults’ reasoning for using ENDS and subsequent ENDS and cigarette use over time | CHA, USA

Blogs, comment and opinion

Fatal drug overdose in healthcare workers: occupational hazards and systemic factors

Worldwide, about 600,000 deaths were attributable to drug overdose in 2019 (WHO, 2025). Evidence suggests that the risk of overdose is elevated among some healthcare workers (HCWs). One population-based cohort study in the United States of America, for example, found that counsellors, social workers, psychologists, and other community and social service workers have more than twice the risk of fatal drug overdose as people working outside of healthcare (Olfson et al., 2023). Others estimate that 8-15% of physicians live with substance use disorder (SUD) (Samuelson & Bryson, 2017) | Mental Elf blog, UK

ADHD and behavioural addictions: exploring impulsivity, compulsivity and internet use

Globally, 2.58% of adults are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and 6.76% show symptoms of ADHD (Song et al., 2021). People with ADHD constantly struggle with impulsive tendencies (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), which is correlated with a higher risk of behaviour addictions, such as problematic internet use (Li et al., 2016; Yen et al., 2017), gambling (Dai et al., 2016; Romo et al., 2014) and exercise addiction (Colledge et al., 2022; Popat et al., 2023) | Mental Elf blog, UK

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