Round up

Citation

Goodair, C. (2015), "Round up", Drugs and Alcohol Today, Vol. 15 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/DAT-12-2014-0042

Round up

Article Type: Round up From: Drugs and Alcohol Today, Volume 15, Issue 1

Alcohol

Alcohol-related liver disease – new map from the Health & Social Care Information Centre showing the impacts that alcohol has on patients and the NHS in England (www.hscic.gov.uk/article/5040/Alcohol-related-liver-disease-new-map-highlights-regional-hotspots)

Statistics on alcohol – England 2014: additional tables – Health & Social Care Information Centre annual report presenting a broad picture of health issues related to alcohol misuse, drinking habits and behaviours, drinking-related ill health and mortality, affordability of alcohol and alcohol-related costs (www.hscic.gov.uk/pubs/alcohol14)

Alcohol Hidden Harm toolkit – resource to support managers, commissioners and practitioners involved in designing, assessing or improving Alcohol Hidden Harm services for children and families (www.alcoholhiddenharmtoolkit.org.uk/)

Drunken nights out: motivations, norms and rituals in the night time economy – asks what role Drinkaware should have in reducing the harms associated with drunken nights out? The review draws on original qualitative research comprising pre-work, interviews and workshops with a total of 80 participants in drunken nights out aged 18-29, a review of literature, and interviews with key informants (www.drinkaware.co.uk/about-us/knowledge-bank/drinkaware-research/drunken-nights-out-strategic-review)

What Brain Studies Reveal About the Risk of Adolescent Alcohol Use and Abuse – neuroscientists at Georgetown University Medical Center (USA) are researching brain factors and behaviours that put teens at risk of problematic alcohol use even before they start drinking (www.georgetown.edu/research/news/brain-behavior-adolescent-alcohol-abuse.html)

Drugs

Monitoring the Future 2014 – annual survey from the US National Institute Drug Abuse Use that monitors substance use of adolescents finds that use of cigarettes, alcohol, and abuse of prescription pain relievers among teens has declined since 2013 while cannabis use rates remain the same. However, use of e-cigarettes, measured in the report for the first time, is high (www.drugabuse.gov/news-events/news-releases/2014/12/teen-prescription-opioid-abuse-cigarette-alcohol-use-trends-down)

New psychoactive substances: a toolkit for commissioners (2014) – describes the challenges facing drug services from the use of novel psychoactive substances (NPS). The toolkit provides commissioners with resources and advice to inform their work in understanding NPS use and problems and gives guidance on planning suitable responses (www.nta.nhs.uk/New-psychoactive-substances-a-toolkit-for-substance-misuse-commissioners.aspx)

Drug consumption rooms in Europe: organisational overview – a report from the International Drug Policy Consortium which gives an overview of the organisation and working methods of drug consumption rooms (DCRs) in Europe. It offers information about the functioning of DCRs as well as on the organisation and structure of such facilities and aims to benefit various groups of stakeholders (www://idpc.net/publications/2014/12/drug-consumption-rooms-in-europe-organisational-overview)

Drug treatment in England 2013-2014 – figures from Public Health England that set out the numbers of people using drugs and those in treatment. Highlights key issues such as rise in drug deaths, use of novel psychoactive substances, and identifies that heroin and crack use is still the biggest problem with many of the users being older (www.nta.nhs.uk/uploads/drug-treatment-in-england-2013-14-commentary.pdf)

Pregnancy and opioid use: strategies for treatment – EMCDDA paper reviewing illicit opioid consumption during pregnancy and looks at treatments (www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/emcdda-papers/pregnacy-opioid-use)

Policy paper: NPS report: tryptamines – Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs publishes recommendations and report on the new psychoactive substance tryptamines (www.gov.uk/government/publications/nps-reports-on-tryptamines-and-ah-7921)

Heroin epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s and its effect on crime trends then and now – Home Office Technical Report that sets out an historical account of the heroin epidemic in England and Wales, assessing its impact on crime (www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-heroin-epidemic-of-the-1980s-and-1990s-and-its-effect-on-crime-trends-then-and-now)

The forgotten people: drug problems in later life – the issue of drug misuse in older people is being systematically ignored according to a report published by the Big Lottery Fund today. The scoping study indicates that while the number of older people with drug problems in the UK is on the rise they fail to get the same attention as young people (www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/-/media/Files/Research%20Documents/Older%20People/the_forgotten_people.pdf)

Etizolam briefing – paper on the unlicensed benzodiazepine Etizolam from the Scottish Drug Forum (www.sdf.org.uk/news-and-media/sdf-news/etizolam-briefing/)

Addiction to over the counter medicines factsheets – The Royal College of General Practitioners Substance Misuse and Associated Health unit (SMAH) have produced four factsheets on addiction to medicine covering prescription and over-the-counter medicines misuse and dependence; prevention; identification; treatment (www.rcgp.org.uk/system-pages/search-results.aspx?keywords=addiction+to+medicine)

Examining the profile and perspectives of individuals attending harm reduction services who are users of performance and image enhancing drugs – findings from a research project undertaken by Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) show that more individuals attending harm reduction services are users of performance and image enhancing drugs (PIEDs) (www.drugsandalcohol.ie/23024/)

The gender differences: non-medical use of prescription drugs in Europe and the Mediterranean region – this study aims to explore the gender dimension of non-medical use of prescription drugs (NMUPD) in Europe and the Mediterranean region and continues to build on the corpus of knowledge on the subject and also help identify gaps. The literature review identifies women as a high-risk category for NMUPD and shows how gender is not predictive in the same direction across different drug categories (www.drugsandalcohol.ie/22964/)

Tobacco

Statistics on smoking: England 2014 – the ninth annual statistical report from the Health & Social Care Information Centre, which presents a range of information on smoking among adults and children including prevalence, habits, attitudes, NHS costs and the effect on health in terms of hospital admissions and deaths from smoking-related illnesses (www.hscic.gov.uk/catalogue/PUB14988/smok-eng-2014-rep.pdf)

Use of electronic cigarettes in Great Britain – since 2010 there has been a significant rise in use of electronic cigarettes among adult smokers in Great Britain. Among children use is extremely rare. This fact sheet from ASH summarises findings from annual surveys (www.ash.org.uk/information/facts-and-stats/fact-sheets)

“When the smoke clears…. Irish Pharmacist”, Vol. 10 No. 16, pp. 4-8 – pharmacists are increasingly being asked to play a greater role in front line public health delivery. Pat Kelly looks at how the sector is promoting smoking cessation for the overall benefit of public health and health services themselves(www.drugsandalcohol.ie/22966/)

A guide for tobacco users to quit – this self-help material was developed based on WHO Capacity Building Training Package 4 entitled “Strengthening health systems for treating tobacco dependence in primary care”. Its target audience is tobacco users. It aims to give advice and information to improve tobacco user readiness to quit and to help those who are ready to quit to plan a quit attempt (www.who.int/tobacco/publications/smoking_cessation/9789241506939/en/)

Blogs, videos and web sites

Best practice portal – designed as a practical and reliable source of what works, and what doesn’t, in the areas of drug-related prevention, treatment, harm reduction and social reintegration, the portal is targeted at practitioners and professionals (www.emcdda.europa.eu/best-practice)

Home Office Alcohol and Drug Statistics – a portal that brings together in one place a range of government statistics on alcohol and drugs including alcohol licensing, drug seizures, and misuse (www.gov.uk/government/collections/alcohol-and-drug-statistics)

History of alcohol in the UK – Alcohol Research UK, Director of Research and Policy Development, James Nicholls, speaks to the Film Exchange on Alcohol and Drugs about the history of alcohol issues in the UK (www.fead.org.uk/contributor.php?contributorid=65)

EUropean-wide, Monitoring, Analysis and knowledge Dissemination on Novel/Emerging pSychoactiveS (EU Madness) – is a collaborative project led from the University of Hertfordshire is monitoring, testing, and profiling novel psychoactive substances in order to prevent health harms. An outcome of this work will be the preparation of educational materials and resources on NPS, in a number of European languages, on the health risks of NPS for use in inter-professional medical, pharmacy and health education settings (www.eumadness.eu/)

I-Trend – Internet tools for research in Europe on new drugs – is a European research project which aims to help prevent health and social harms associated with New/Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS), or “New Synthetic Drugs”. I-TREND consists of five European countries (France, Czech Republic, UK, the Netherlands, Poland). Using a combination of data sources (e.g. law enforcement seizures, evidence on increased interest in NPS among users, NPS-related fatalities) and consultations with key stakeholders, each country will develop a Top List of NPS for in depth investigation (www.i-trend.eu/index.htm)

Addiction and Lifestyles in Contemporary Europe Reframing Addictions Project (ALICE RAP) – is a five-year European research project involving 25 countries. It aims to analyse the challenges posed by addictive legal and illegal substances and lifestyles to the cohesion, organisation, and functioning of contemporary European society. The project is divided into seven areas and 21 work packages (three in each area), making up an integrated multidisciplinary research strategy, encompassing history of addiction, classification and definition of addictions, policy analyses, the business of addiction, youth as customers, the impacts of new technologies on use, the interrelations of culture and biology and many other aspects. The results of the research, conferences and meetings are publicly available on the project's web page (www.alicerap.eu/)

Steroids and Image Enhancing Drugs (SIEDs) – developed by Public Health Wales, in conjunction with partners at the Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University, this web site aims to provide reliable and evidence based information and advice to reduce the harms associated with the use of SIEDs (www.siedsinfo.co.uk/index.html)

Julian Buchanan blog – blog that covers Drug Policy, Drug Law, Discrimination, Human Rights, Harm Reduction, Stigma, Drugs Apartheid, The War Between Drugs, Prohibition, and Regulation (www://julianbuchanan.wordpress.com/)

The Mental Elf – reliable mental health research, policy, and guidance including articles on drug misuse such as looking at benzodiazepine prescribing (www.thementalelf.net/mental-health-conditions/anxiety-disorders/reducing-benzodiazepine-prescribing-in-primary-care/)

Christine Goodair

Compiled by Christine Goodair, who is a Programmes Manager (Substance Misuse), based at Population Health Research Institute, St George’s University of London, London, UK.