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Weekly news - 27 October 2023

In date order, Monday to Friday

Reducing the harm from illegal drugs

It is almost two years since the government introduced its latest drugs strategy and less than 18 months remain in the current funding period to March 2025. This report examines whether the government is well positioned to achieve the strategy’s 10-year ambitions | National Audit Office, UK

From criminalisation to harm reduction? The forms and functions of police drug diversion in England and Wales

While drugs policing often involves enforcement interventions that seek to tackle drug offences and drug-related crime through criminal sanctions, it is becoming increasingly apparent that diversion now occupies a central position in police responses to people suspected of either simple possession or an offence related to their drug use. This article draws on findings from a qualitative study of police-led schemes in England and Wales to examine police perspectives on diversion, the rationales behind its various forms, and the problems it is designed to resolve | Policing and Society, UK

Drones to be banned from flying near prisons in England and Wales

Change means drone operators could face fines up to £2,500 for flying within 400 metres of prisons or young offender institutions | Guardian, UK

18 October 2023 response to the ACMD's report on barriers to research on synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists

The government responds to a report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and commissions Part 2 of work on barriers to research | Rt Hon Chris Philp MP Minister of State for Crime, Policing and Fire, UK

Draft bill published to allow gps to prescribe cannabis

The Cannabis Industry Council (CIC) have drafted a bill to enable general medical practitioners (GPs) to prescribe cannabis medicines in the UK. The CIC have been campaigning for this cause since the launch of the ‘Protect our Patients‘ campaign in July 2023. Their report explains why GPs should be allowed to prescribe medical cannabis and what impact this could have on patients in the UK | Volteface, UK

Citizens’ Assembly on drugs use publishes full 36 recommendations

Following the conclusion [Sunday] of the final meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly on Drugs Use, a summary of the recommendations has now been published. In total, the Assembly made 36 recommendations. Taken together, these provide a strong and unequivocal signal to the Government and the Oireachtas that the State needs to take a far more progressive, ambitious, comprehensive and coherent approach to drugs use in Ireland | Citizen's Assembly, Ireland

Estimates of opiate and crack use in England: main points and methods

These estimates of opiate and/or crack users were produced by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and the UK Health Security Agency, using a revised methodology from the one used to produce the previous Estimates of opiate and crack cocaine use prevalence: 2016 to 2017 published by Public Health England. Based on the revised method, the national trend figures between 2016 to 2017 and 2019 to 2020 indicate a continuous upward trend of 5% | OHID and UKHSA, UK

Rapid Action Drug Alerts and Response (RADAR) quarterly report

The Drugs Team at Public Health Scotland (PHS) has compiled this RADARquarterly report of drug-related indicators. The objective of this report is to monitor drug-related harms, service usage and toxicology data, in order to provide an early warning of emerging drug trends and identify actions to reduce and prevent drug harms and deaths | Public Health Scotland, UK

New synthetic drugs on the RADAR

The latest report from RADAR, Scotland’s drugs early warning system, highlights the emergence of new benzodiazepines and opioids, but how does this effect harms? In this blog post, Vicki Craik from the Drugs Team at Public Health Scotland, explains how the drugs market is changing and what impact that may have on public health in Scotland | Public Health Scotland blog, UK

Suspected drug deaths increase by 7% on last year, figures show

Drug deaths increased on the same period in 2022 with emergency department and ambulance incidents also rising | STV News, UK

Drug-related deaths (DRDs) in Scotland increased for seven years in a row between 2014 and 2020, consolidating Scotland's place at the top of the UK and European drug-related mortality charts. One of the defining features of this recent and rapid rise has been the role of benzodiazepines, which are now involved in the majority of all DRDs. These deaths are linked to use of non-prescribed, benzodiazepine-type novel psychoactive substances (NPS) which have been identified by the United Nations as a global threat to public health. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence and determinants of non-prescribed benzodiazepine use and its association with recent non-fatal overdose among a national sample of people who inject drugs (PWID) | IJDP, UK

Guidance - Substance misuse: providing remote and in-person interventions

This guidance has been updated to provide more detail on the appropriate use of remote and in-person interventions, especially for vulnerable people | OHID, UK

[Open access] In England, the proportion of 13–15 year-olds who have ever drunk alcohol fell from 71% in 1999 to 35% in 2019. Despite substantial research literature studying this decline, we know little about connections with concurrent shifts in wider aspects of health and wellbeing. This paper aims to identify how indicators of health and wellbeing cluster within 15-year-olds in England, identify changes in clustering over time, and explore associations with sex and family affluence | Preventive Medicine Reports, UK

Healthcare in Remote and Rural Areas: SHAAP consultation response

Alcohol harms are one of Scotland’s most pressing public health and social issues, evidenced by the latest alcohol death figures from the National Records for Scotland (NRS). The figures show an increase from 1,245 alcohol-specific deaths in 2021 to 1,276 in 2022. Additionally, in 2021/22, there were 35,187 alcohol-related hospital stays. This means that every day in Scotland, more than 3 people lose their lives and almost 100 more are hospitalised because of alcohol | SHAAP, UK

Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England - survey

We're inviting all mainstream secondary schools to take part in our upcoming Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use in Young People survey. The results will provide valuable information to better understand behaviours in young people and to help develop policies and plan new initiatives | NHS Digital, UK

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