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LENGTHY PROCESS
The Scottish Government’s plans to
introduce a minimum unit price for
alcohol have been referred to the EU’s
Court of Justice in the wake the Scotch
Whisky Association’s legal challenge,
with a judgement unlikely to be received
until well into the second half of 2015.
‘We are confident of our case and look
forward to presenting it in the European
Court of Justice,’ said health secretary
Alex Neil. ‘While it is regrettable that this
means we will not be able to implement
minimum unit pricing sooner, we will
continue our ongoing and productive
dialogue with EU officials.’
WHEN THE KHAT’S AWAY
The sidelining of ‘expert views’ in the
UK’s ban on khat reveals ‘a troubling
approach to law making and one which is
all too familiar in drug policy’, says a
report from Swansea University. The
government announced that khat was to
be controlled as a class C drug last year
(
DDN
, July 2013, page 5), despite a
recommendation from the ACMD that it
not be banned. ‘The UK ban is an
unwelcome development that lacks an
evidence base and harm mitigating
measures,’ says
European policy on khat:
drug policy lessons not learned
.
Report at
www.swansea.ac.uk
GENEVA CONSUMPTION
A new documentary has been produced
by the Independent Consortium on Drug
Consumption Rooms (ICDCR) (
DDN
,
October 2013, page 16). The ICDCR
visited the Quai 9 facility in Geneva to
hear from staff, service users and local
residents. ‘Watch it and tell me that
DCRs are controversial, not a vote winner
and encourage people to inject,’ said
ICDCR founder Philippe Bonnet.
Watch at
http://youtu.be/iMTdwF7T0y8
FIRM FOUNDATIONS
A new charity, Foundation for Change, has
been launched to continue the work of the
NEXT project, which aims to build self-
esteem and help people reintegrate into
society. Of the people accessing the project
between 2008 and 2013, 83 per cent went
on to voluntary placements, 65 per cent
went on to further education and 39 per
cent are now in full-time employment.
www.foundationforchange.org.uk
Europe’s drug problem is becoming increasingly
complex and potentially more damaging, according to
the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction (EMCDDA). Positive trends in relation to
established drugs are again ‘counter-balanced by
new threats’ posed by synthetic drugs, says
European drug report 2014
.
People accessing treatment for heroin for the first time
fell from 59,000 to 31,000 across the continent between
2007 and 2012, although there are still an estimated 1.3m
opioid users in Europe, says the document. While falling
rates of HIV infection as a result of improved coverage of
treatment and harm reduction services have been stalled
by outbreaks in Greece, Romania and elsewhere, total
drug overdose deaths were down to 6,100 in 2012 from
6,500 the previous year and more than 7,000 in 2009.
The rise in the amount and variety of new drugs,
however, is showing ‘no signs of abating’, with 81 new
substances notified to the EU’s early warning system last
year and a total of nearly 250 over the last four years.
Cocaine is still the most commonly used illicit stimulant,
although reported use is falling even in countries with high
prevalence rates, such as Spain and the UK, while
methamphetamine use – previously confined mainly to the
Czech Republic and Slovakia – appears to be spreading to
countries such as Germany. ‘Europe’s current
methamphetamine problem has no single face and
appropriate responses will need to be adapted, developed
and tailored to the local patterns of use and problems
observed,’ says the agency. The report also highlights the
trend for combining injecting drug use with risky sexual
practices in parts of the gay scene (
DDN
, April 2013, page
6) as a ‘behaviour of growing concern’, and calls for close
monitoring of the issue as a ‘public health priority’.
‘Looking at the big picture, we see that progress has
been made in Europe on some of the major health policy
objectives of the past,’ said EMCDDA director Wolfgang
Götz. ‘But the European perspective can obscure some
important national differences. Our latest data show how
encouraging overall EU trends on overdose deaths and
drug-related HIV infections, for example, sit in sharp
contrast to worrying developments in a few member states’.
Meanwhile, figures from Public Health England (PHE)
show a continued fall in opiate and crack use, with the
number of adults entering treatment falling from more
than 64,000 in 2005-06 to just under 46,000 in 2012-13.
Injecting rates for these drugs also fell from just under
93,500 in 2010-11 to just over 87,300 in 2011-12. There
was ‘no room for complacency’, however, said the
agency’s director of alcohol and drugs, Rosanna
O’Connor. ‘Alongside this encouraging evidence, we
remain vigilant to the major substance misuse challenges
– such as reaching an ageing population of entrenched
opiate users, and protecting younger people from the
harms of newer substances.’
A status report on new and club drugs has also been
produced by DrugScope, including their health impacts and
related harm reduction initiatives, while a new report from
UNODC also highlights the ‘ever-greater share’ of the drugs
market being taken by synthetic drugs. ‘There is a dynamic
and unprecedented global expansion of the synthetic drugs
market both in scope and variety’ said UNODC’s director of
policy and analysis, Jean-Luc Lemahieu.
European drug report 2014 at www.emcdda.europa.eu
Estimates of the prevalence of opiate use and/or crack
cocaine use, 2011/12 at www.gov.uk
Business as usual? A status report on new psychoactive
substances (NPS) and ‘club drugs’ in the UK at
www.drugscope.org.uk
Global synthetic drugs assessment at www.unodc.org
4 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| June 2014
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
News |
Round-up
NEWS IN BRIEF
New era for Europe’s ‘complex,
damaging’ drug problem
EXECUTIVE DROP IN:
New NHS chief
executive Simon Stevens (left) made a surprise
visit to the Hepatitis C Trust’s testing van at the
Harlequin medical practice in Birmingham.
Trust outreach officer Jim Conneely (
DDN
,
January, page 6) was testing clients when
the NHS boss arrived for an official visit at
the centre, which is jointly run by
Swanswell and a local GP practice. ‘He was
more than willing to engage with me,’ said
Conneely. ‘He was enthusiastic and friendly
and hopefully left with a good impression
about the van and the trust’s work.’
Meanwhile, the trust has appointed a new
peer educator, Archie Christian, to work in
drug services and homeless shelters.
‘Hopefully by dispelling the myths that
surround this virus we can help to prevent
unnecessary transmission, and in the case of those
already with a positive diagnosis, we can encourage
and support them into treatment,’ he said.