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Weekly news - 7th October 2022

In date order, Monday to Friday

Ending the exclusion: Care, treatment and support for people with mental ill health and problem substance use in Scotland (PDF)

It is estimated that alcohol or drug misuse was a factor in something between 48% and 56% of all suicides between 2008 and 2018 in Scotland. Our report looks at the experience of people who are living with both mental ill health and problematic drug or/and alcohol use. Whether people use alcohol and or drugs to alleviate their mental ill health, or whether mental illness becomes a consequence of alcohol and or drug use, varies | Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland, UK

Everyone over 55 who has EVER smoked should get a lung scan to check for cancer, national screening body proposes

The UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) has called for the checks to be rolled out en-mass to tackle Britain's most common cause of cancer death. It has advised that anyone aged 55 to 74 who smokes or has done in the past should be offered an assessment | Mail Online, UK

DDN October 2022 out now

We talk about stigma a lot. We think about language and we want to be inclusive. But let’s take the vision wider and talk about empowerment – and initiatives that go hand in hand with service user involvement and co-production. Dave Higham strongly believes we have to look at the environments we create in places of support, if we’re to build recovery-orientated systems of care (p10). This is no more starkly illustrated than when tackling homelessness, and the co-founder of BillyChip (p6) shares a very clear vision – to spread kindness and compassion | DDN, UK

Independent prescribing by paramedics and administration rights for therapeutic radiographers

Government response to the ACMD's advice on the prescribing of controlled drugs by paramedics and on the administration rights of morphine by injection for therapeutic radiographers | ACMD, UK

Chemical characterisation of the vapour emitted by an e-cigarette using a ceramic wick-based technology

Fourth-generation ‘pod’ e-cigarette devices have been driven by technological advances in electronic atomization of the e-liquid. Use of microporous ceramic as a wicking material improves heating efficiency, but how it affects the chemical emissions of these devices is unclear | Nature, UK

Drug users should be allowed to take heroin legally, says Tory MP

A Conservative MP has said the government needs to rethink its approach on the criminalisation of drugs, and suggested substances like heroin should be legalised | Yahoo News, UK

Make cannabis Class A drug, say Conservative police commissioners

A group of Conservative police commissioners is calling for cannabis to be reclassified from a Class B to a Class A drug | BBC, UK

New consequences for drug possession

Letter to the chair of the ACMD inviting them to establish a working group to respond to the recent white paper on drug possession | Home Office, Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and Jeremy Quin MP, UK

Primary Care Alcohol Nurse Outreach Service (PCANOS) Full Evaluation (PDF)

The purpose of this report is to provide an evaluation of the Primary Care Alcohol Nurse Outreach Service, PCANOS in its first two years | Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, UK

Overdose prevention scheme 'pays' drug users in shopping vouchers

Drug users in Fife are being given shopping vouchers in exchange for training in the use of overdose prevention drug naloxone | BBC, UK

Mental Health and Substance Use (Report)

To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland’s report “Ending the exclusion: Care, treatment and support for people with mental ill health and problem substance use in Scotland” (PDF) | They work for you, UK

The Ley Community and Phoenix Futures announce partnership

The service will build on the two organisations’ common history of delivering the Therapeutic Community model. Phoenix and The Ley Community are pioneers in residential treatment in the UK and we are colleagues in the European Federation of Therapeutic Communities | Phoenix Futures, UK