Weekly news - 3rd December 2021 |
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In date order, Monday to Friday:
‘Everyone’s gagging for it’ – how Britain got high on nitrous oxide
Laughing gas was the lockdown high of choice for many young people. Now empty canisters are everywhere, and dealers are hitting the streets with card readers. Will a government crackdown burst the balloon? | Guardian, UK
MPs debate alcohol harm
On 25 November, a debate about alcohol harm took place in Westminster. The debate highlighted: Alcohol causes significant harm to individuals, families and our society; Alcohol harm escalated during the pandemic; Effective policies to reduce alcohol harm and protect children and vulnerable people include decreasing alcohol’s affordability and restricting alcohol marketing | AHA, UK
The New Leaf: Beyond Brexit, Countering Covid
The New Leaf Opportunities campaign has highlighted the economic benefits, innovations and investment opportunities that medical cannabis and CBD can bring to the UK. It has also focused on how celebrating this will lead to a more vibrant cannabis sector. This report has honed in on the opportunities that medical cannabis and CBD bring through an economic, innovation and regulatory lens | Volteface, UK
Home Secretary u-turns on Stop and Search decision after legal action from Liberty and Stopwatch
The Home Secretary has rowed back on a decision to ditch safeguards designed to limit discrimination in police use of stop and search powers | Liberty, UK
Inclusion health monitoring system survey
The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) is seeking views on a planned Inclusion Health Monitoring System. The survey should take 5-10 minutes to complete and close at 23:59pm on 17th December 2021. OHID’s Inclusion Health analytical team is working to improve monitoring of the health outcomes of inclusion health groups and as part of this, are proposing a publicly-available, interactive monitoring system. Inclusion health is a ‘catch-all’ term used to describe people who are socially excluded. People belonging to inclusion health groups are not consistently accounted for in electronic records which makes them effectively invisible for policy and service planning purposes. OHID want to address this inequity in health intelligence and enable providers of services to better meet the needs of these individuals. Please pass on the survey to people in your networks so that OHID hear from as many relevant stakeholders as possible.
Tobacco: preventing uptake, promoting quitting and treating dependence
This guideline covers support to stop smoking for everyone aged 12 and over, and help to reduce people's harm from smoking if they are not ready to stop in one go. It also covers ways to prevent children, young people and young adults aged 24 and under from taking up smoking | NICE, UK
Residential rehabilitation: Interim monitoring report on statutory funded residential rehabilitation placements
This is the first report on Residential Rehabilitation within the Monitoring and Evaluation Programme led by Public Health Scotland. The report presents information on the number of Alcohol and Drug Partnership statutory funded placements, with estimated costs, that were approved between 1st April 2021 and 30th September 2021 | Public Health Scotland, UK
Expanding access to Residential Rehabilitation in Scotland
More than £11 million has been awarded to two drugs projects to enable them to expand their residential rehabilitation service as part of a commitment to increase the number of beds in Scotland by 50% to 650 by 2026 | Scottish Government, UK
Pathways into, through and out of Residential Rehabilitation in Scotland: Results from the Residential Rehabilitation Providers Survey (PDF)
In 2019/20 and 2020/21, there were an approximate total of 1,601 and 1,164 individual placements, respectively, across the 20 residential rehabilitation providers in Scotland identified by previous Scottish Government Mapping and Capacity Reports | Scottish Government, UK
Assessing the impact of funding cuts to local housing services on drug and alcohol related mortality: a longitudinal study using area-level data in England
Since 2010 there have been large reductions in funding for local government services in England. This has led to reduced income to fund services, such as housing services, that potentially promote health. Housing services expenditure includes spending on housing advice services, homelessness relief and provision of temporary accommodation | International Journal of Housing Policy, UK
Impact of poverty and family adversity on adolescent health: a multi-trajectory analysis using the UK Millennium Cohort Study
Children exposed to poverty and family adversities including domestic violence, parental mental ill health and parental alcohol misuse may experience poor outcomes across the life course. However, the complex interrelationships between these exposures in childhood are unclear. We therefore assessed the clustering of trajectories of household poverty and family adversities and their impacts on adolescent health outcomes | Lancet Regional Health, UK
No escape: How alcohol advertising preys on children and vulnerable people (PDF)
This report focuses on people’s experience of alcohol marketing. It explores what alcohol marketing is and where we come across it, what role it plays in contributing to alcohol harm and what can be done to reduce it | AHA, UK
The US Is Finally Getting a Safe Injection Site
The two sites will open in New York City and come as more than 100,000 Americans died in a one-year period due to fatal overdoses | VICE, USA
ASH at 50: Nearly 8 million lives in the UK lost due to tobacco since 1971
A new analysis to mark the 50th anniversary of ASH finds that smoking killed nearly 8 million people in the UK over the last 50 years with an estimated 2 million more expected to die in the next 20 years without radical changes to smoking rates | ASH, UK
Commemorating the 8 million people killed by smoking since 1971
ASH was set up in 1971 to end the harm from smoking. Smoking rates have fallen dramatically since then but smoking has still claimed nearly 8 million lives. This page is a tribute to those we have lost | ASH, UK
Research report: "A system designed for women?"
This report explores the type of support available to women who use drugs, their experiences of treatment and ultimately, how services can be improved to support these women | With You, UK
The drug consumption van providing a safe space for drug-users
A drugs consumption van designed to provide a safe space for drug users to inject substances visited Bristol as part of an awareness campaign | ITV, UK
Naloxone PSNI pilot scheme saves three lives in early months
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has issued some patrol officers with medicine that reverses certain types of drugs overdose | BBC, UK
If not now, when?
A new drugs strategy offers the chance for the Government to right the wrongs of disinvestment by funding Dame Carol Black’s rigorous, costed policy programme. The necessary resource must be provided to bring a new generation of people in need into recovery, save thousands of lives, reduce crime and make major savings for the public purse. The time to act is upon us. If not now, when? | Collective Voice blog, UK