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In date order, Monday to Friday
Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales: 2024 registrations
Deaths related to drug poisoning in England and Wales from 1993 to 2024, by cause of death, sex, age and substances involved in the death. In England and Wales, 5,565 deaths related to drug poisoning were registered in 2024, the equivalent of 93.9 deaths per million people, and higher than the rate recorded in 2023 (93.0 deaths per million, 5,448 deaths); the age-standardised mortality rate for deaths related to drug poisoning has risen every year since 2012 | ONS, UK
Nitazene drug deaths rise fourfold in a year - video
The number of drug related deaths in England and Wales has soared to an all time high especially those involving synthetic opioids like nitazenes. The substances can be hundreds of times more potent than heroin – with a high risk of overdose and figures show deaths have risen fourfold compared the previous year. We have been hearing from some of those with painful, personal experience of a growing health crisis | Channel 4, UK
Matt Willis: The Recovery Project commissioned to challenge the stigma around addiction
Having battled his own addiction to drugs and alcohol, Matt Willis is on a personal journey to develop a new pilot scheme designed to help give those in recovery a second chance | BBC Media Centre, UK
Council invests £5m in drug and alcohol services
North Northamptonshire Council is going to work with two charities who will provide help for young people and adults for the next nine years. Change Grow Live (CGL) has been awarded the contract to deliver services to adults and Aquarius to young people | BBC, UK
Half of young adults now choosing ‘no and low’ alcohol drinks, study says
Figures from charity Drinkaware reveal the uptake of alcohol-free drinks among risky drinkers – those who drink above the Chief Medical Officers’ low-risk guidelines of 14 units per week – has more than tripled, rising from 7 per cent in 2018 to 23 per cent in 2025 | Independent, UK
Singer Matt Willis to front series on addiction recovery
The three-part documentary follows the Busted co-founder as he develops a new pilot scheme to help people in recovery rebuild their lives through work and help from the local community | BBC, UK
Drug-checking pilot
The University of Dundee has agreed to host Scotland’s first national testing and research laboratory for drug-checking, boosting efforts to cut drug-related harm and save lives | Scottish Government, UK
Alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks in the UK: Trends, barriers, and opportunities
Alcohol-free and low-alcohol drinks are becoming an increasingly visible part of the UK’s drinking landscape. With their growth now recognised in the NHS 10-Year Plan as a component of harm reduction, understanding who uses these products, and why, is vital. This report examines how alcohol-free (0.0–0.05%) and low-alcohol (up to 1.2%) drinks are used for moderation across different groups of drinkers, exploring trends in uptake, motivations and barriers, and what this reveals about shifting drinking cultures in the UK | Drinkaware, UK
ACMD review of the evidence on the use and harms of etomidate
The report presents a review of etomidate and structurally related compounds and subsequent recommendations regarding their classification and scheduling | ACMD, UK
Amendment to ACMD report – Use and harms of xylazine, medetomidine and detomidine: 21 October 2025
A summary of a further review by the ACMD's xylazine, medetomidine and detomidine working group on the potential for increased use and harms of medetomidine and detomidine, together with the ACMD’s recommendations in light of these findings | ACMD, UK
Sixth addendum to ACMD report on the use and harms of 2-benzyl benzimidazole (‘nitazene’) and piperidine benzimidazolone (‘brorphine-like’) opioids, 21 October 2025
The ACMD has continued to monitor and assess detections of newly identified nitazenes that fall outside the scope of current generic control. On 8 November 2024, the ACMD published its fifth addendum to the advice on 2-benzyl benzimidazole (nitazene) and piperidine benzimidazolone (‘brorphine-like’) opioids. Since then, the ACMD has been alerted to the detection of new 2-benzyl benzimidazole compounds: Ethylene etonitazene and Ethylene isotonitazepyne (N-pyrrolidino ethylene isotonitazene) | ACMD, UK
ESPAD Report 2024
This report presents the results of the eighth data-collection wave, which took place in 2024, and marks an impressive 30 years of data collection by this long-standing collaboration. More than 113 000 15- to 16-year-old students from 37 countries, including 25 EU Member States, took part. Since 1995, over 800 000 students have contributed, making ESPAD the most extensive harmonised data collection on substance use and risk behaviours in Europe, and the largest cross- national research project on adolescent substance use worldwide | ESPAD, Italy
Stalled smoking rates spark funding questions
The Scottish Health Survey 2024 has found 14% of Scots continue to smoke – the same proportion as the year before. Meanwhile, funding specifically allocated for health board-run cessation services has also dropped £9.11m to £7.852m between 2016/17 and 2021/22, according to Scottish government figures | Healthandcare.Scot, UK
Effects of antidepressants on physical health ranked for first time
Academics looked at the impact medications had on patients in the first eight weeks after starting treatment, with some causing patients to gain up to 2kg in weight or vary heart rate by as much as 21 beats every minute | BBC, UK
Harm reduction approaches for the use of benzodiazepines: a scoping review
Benzodiazepine misuse is harmful in itself and, in combination with opioids, heavily involved in generating fatal overdoses. This review helpfully rounds up research on how to reduce the harm among those not willing to taper their way to abstinence | Harm Reduction Journal, UK
Updated CPR guidelines provide expanded recommendations for managing choking and opioid overdose
For the first time, the guidelines provide public access instruction on when to use naloxone, a medication used to reverse or reduce the effects of opioids | News Medical, USA
New research partnerships to support drugs and alcohol charities
Two charities specialising in support for people affected by substance use will collaborate with University of Essex academics in a bid to improve outcomes and services for clients. Professor Susan McPherson and Dr Katie Peterson, of the Institute for Public Health and Wellbeing, are working with Essex Recovery Foundation and Open Road to support their capacity to collect and report on data | University of Essex, UK
Raising a Public Health Concern: Women Overlooked in UK Drug Policy and Disadvantaged in Mixed-Gender Community Services
[Open access] The British From Harm to Hope drugs strategy seems limited in gender responsiveness. Evidence is presented from a West Midlands case study where a qualitative participatory methodology with thematic analysis was employed. The project was co-designed by academics, women with lived-experience and third-sector research leaders | IJERPH, UK
Voice of the Voiceless
Rights and responsibilities for people who receive opioid substitution prescriptions (scripts) and the pharmacists and pharmacy staff who dispense them. In this co-produced booklet we highlight the good and bad experiences people who receive opioid substitution prescriptions have with pharmacists – however, we hope that in the future this work will make bad experiences much less likely | University of Bristol, UK
Killer Tactics 2 (PDF)
How the tobacco, alcohol and unhealthy food and drink industries have used their killer tactics to undermine important public health policies since Labour have been in power | ASH, AHA, OHA, UK
Drug deaths (No. 2) - EDM (Early Day Motion)2106: tabled on 21 October 2025
Motion text - That this House is dismayed at annual data released by the Office for National Statistics on 17 October 2025 revealing yet another record number of drug deaths; notes that 5,565 deaths related to drug poisoning were registered in England and Wales in 2024; further notes that opiates and opioids were involved in almost half of these; recognises that recent research from King's College London has shown that many opioid-related deaths are missed from official statistics, raising concerns that underestimation has led to underfunding; is alarmed that deaths related to the synthetic opioid Nitazenes are four times higher than in the previous year... | UK Parliament, UK