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Weekly news - 3rd October 2025 |
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In date order, Monday to Friday
Stoptober 2025
Stoptober is back with a new suite of resources to encourage smokers to make a quit attempt this October! With a whole calendar of both 'ready to use' and localisable resources, you will have the means to tailor this campaign to your specific audiences, from mid-September through to 31st October | DHSC, UK
Health trends and variation in England 2025: a Chief Medical Officer report
This report provides a snapshot on health in England and, where relevant, the wider United Kingdom. Some of the trends are longstanding, such as the changing age structure of the population and the improvements in health following substantially reduced smoking prevalence. Some important trends are less predictable, including cohort effects such as alcohol use, with lower median consumption by young people now than 3 decades ago (but still significant harmful drinking) | DHSC, UK
Alcohol-related Deaths - First Minister’s Question Time – in the Scottish Parliament at 5:32 pm on 25 September 2025
The number of alcohol-related deaths remains significantly higher than it was decades ago, and those who live in our most deprived communities are four and a half times more likely to die from alcohol-specific causes than those in the least deprived areas. Will the First Minister provide an update on the targeted intervention that his Government is taking, or might take, to address that inequality? | They work for you, UK
Ketamine deaths increase twenty-fold since 2014 with mixing drugs on the rise
Deaths due to illicit ketamine use have increased twenty-fold since 2014 – but these deaths are increasingly occurring in complex polydrug settings, raising doubts over whether single-substance drug policies can reduce harms | KCL, UK Open access journal article: Deaths following illicit ketamine use in England, Wales and Northern Ireland 1999–2024: An update report to inform the reclassification debate | J Psychopharmacology
Speaking Without Stigma: Changing the Conversation Around Substance Use
Turning Point, has launched a campaign called Speaking Without Stigma to highlight the importance that language plays in supporting people. The Speaking Without Stigma, a guide to reducing stigma in substance use through the language we use, which has been produced in collaboration with people supported by Turning Point, challenges words and phrases that can stigmatise people and suggests alternate options that put people first | Turning Point, UK
National drug and alcohol treatment waiting times
10,641 referrals were made to community-based specialist drug and alcohol treatment services: 5,123 (48.1%) were for problematic use of alcohol, 3,990 (37.5%) for problematic use of drugs, and 1,528 (14.4%) for co-dependency (problematic use of both alcohol and drugs) | Public Health Scotland, UK
Estimated numbers of people prescribed opioid substitution therapy in Scotland
In the 12-month period ending 31 March 2025 (the end of 2024/25 Q4), Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) was prescribed to an estimated minimum of 28,015 people in Scotland. In the 12 months to the end of the previous financial year quarter (2024/25 Q3) an estimated minimum of 28,644 people were prescribed OST | Public Health Scotland, UK
NHS stop smoking services quarterly
In the period January to March 2025, NHS Scotland achieved 90% (1,585 quits out of 1,757) of a quarter of the annual LDP standard | Public Health Scotland, UK
Estimating the burden of alcohol on the health of Northern Ireland (PDF)
In June 2025, British Heart Foundation Northern Ireland commissioned the Sheffield Addictions Research Group to use recent data on hospital admissions and deaths to estimate the burden that alcohol currently places in Northern Ireland. This analysis builds on previous work in England and Scotland | SHAAP, UK
Alcohol and Older People
This week marks the International Day of Older Persons and the Our Message Our Voice lived experience project are encouraging awareness and reflection on the topic of older persons and alcohol. We have launched our poster campaign and added further resources to our website | Our Message Our Voice, UK
Why are kids snorting pink cocaine? It’s perfect for the Instagram generation
The selling point of “pink cocaine” is not, as you might expect, cocaine. More often than not, the trending party drug of 2025 contains no cocaine whatsoever. Nor does it contain 2CB, the synthetic psychedelic that gives the drug its more common street name: tusi (as in “2-C”). These days, the powder is more likely to be a mixture of MDMA, ketamine and caffeine. No, the reason pink cocaine is “one of the most significant developments in the drug market in recent years” (according to a recent Spanish government report) is rather more basic. It’s because it’s pink | UnHerd, UK
Unions urge UK theatres to limit at-seat alcohol sales as staff face ‘unacceptable abuse’
Rowdy audience members have disrupted performances with heckling, violence and even copulation in the stalls | Guardian, UK
Alcohol-specific Deaths
To ask the Scottish Government what its response is to reports that alcohol-specific deaths in Scotland remain above 1,000 for the 12th year in a row | They work for you, UK
Drugs consumption room may need to open overnight to keep up with demand from users of 'moreish' cocaine
Dr Saket Priyadarshi, Associate Medical Director and Senior Medical Officer at Glasgow Alcohol and Drug Recovery Services, said the prevalence of cocaine had been a ‘surprise’ | Mail Online, UK
Barney ad banned for ‘encouraging underage drinking’
An advert by a Manchester bar that showed Barney the Dinosaur alongside the phrase “T-wrecked” has been banned for encouraging irresponsible and underage drinking | Independent, UK
Co Occurring Mental Health Alcohol and Drugs (COMHAD)A National Overview - webinar
Thu, 6 Nov 2025 10:00 - 16:00 GMT. Learn about the latest national policies and research on co-occurring mental health, alcohol, and drug issues at our online event COMHAD. Speakers include Clare Murdoch, Dr Owen Bowden Jones, author of the CoSum report, Will Side – policy lead from the Department of Health, Speakers from NCISH and our very own Liz Hughes | Progress and NHS Futures, UK
Co Occurring Mental Health Alcohol and Drug Use (COMHAD) Best Practic - webinar
Nov 12 · 10:00 GMT. Learn about the best practices for addressing mental health, alcohol, and drug use issues that occur simultaneously in this online event. Join us as guests and members of Progress talk about Naloxone, Assist Lite, Chemsex, Ketamine, Family work and more…| Progress and NHS Futures, UK