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COURT APPEARANCE
The UK’s second Family Drug and Alcohol
Court will be established in Gloucestershire
this autumn, following a successful project in
London (
DDN
, 3 December 2007, page 5).
The service – a partnership between
Gloucestershire County Council, NHS
Gloucestershire and Her Majesty’s Courts and
Tribunals Service – aims to support children
experiencing neglect by shortening the time it
takes to resolve care proceedings. Drug and
alcohol professionals, social workers, mental
health staff and health visitors will provide
coordinated support, with families seeing the
same judge throughout. The intention is to
‘give families struggling with drug and alcohol
problems intensive support to turn
themselves around,’ said cabinet member for
vulnerable families Paul McLain. ‘The focus
will be on the family's needs, concerns and
strengths, with everyone working towards the
best possible outcome for the children – a
stable and safe home.’
ON THE ROAD
The theatrical adaptation of Elizabeth Burton-
Phillips’ book
Mum Can You Lend Me 20
Quid? What Drugs Did To My Family
(
DDN
,
October 2011, page 20) will be on tour in the
autumn, with performances at the Citadel
Arts Centre, St Helen’s (25 -26 October) and
Alba Theatre, Wigan (27 October), followed
by HMP Reading (29 November) Oxfordshire
DAAT annual conference (30 November) and
HMP Peterborough (3 December), with more
dates to be announced soon. Merseyside
Police has also commissioned the play for
performances next spring.
More information
at www.drugfam.co.uk
MAKING THE CASE
A new briefing paper on young women and
drugs has been produced by Youth RISE and
the HIV Young Leaders Fund.
Ain't I a woman?
Recognizing and protecting the rights of young
women affected by HIV and drug use
describes
how young female drug users are particularly
vulnerable to HIV and poorly served by
mainstream health services and policy
makers.
Available at www.youthrise.org
MATERIALS OF SUBSTANCE
A new training resource for people working
with families where there is problematic
parental substance use has been produced
by the Substance Misuse Skills Consortium.
The manual includes group-based training
exercises designed to help improve the
wellbeing and safety of children.
Leading for
outcomes: parental substance misuse
available at www.skillsconsortium.org.uk
More drug-related deaths were registered in Scotland
in 2011 than in any previous year, according to figures
released by National Records for Scotland. There were
584 deaths, says
Drug-related deaths in Scotland
in
2011, an increase of 20 per cent on the previous year.
Six of the past ten years have seen increases, with an
overall increase of 76 per cent since 2001. Although 73 per
cent of those who died were male, the number of female
deaths was the highest ever, with a 117 per cent increase
in 2007-11 compared to 1997-01. The percentage increase
among men over the same period was 85 per cent.
Thirty-six per cent of all deaths were among 35 to 44-year-
olds and 32 per cent among 25 to 34-year-olds, with the
largest percentage increases recorded for 35 to 44 and 45 to
54-year-olds. There was, however, a fall in the number of
deaths among those aged under 25. More than 30 per cent of
deaths were in the Greater Glasgow & Clyde NHS Board area.
Methadone was ‘implicated in, or potentially
contributed to’ 275 of the deaths (47 per cent) compared
to 174 in 2010, which has led to calls in some parts of the
Scottish press for a parliamentary inquiry into substitute
prescribing. Leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth
Davidson, also issued a statement that the ‘appalling loss
of life illustrates the human disaster that is the methadone
programme.7It would appear hundreds of families are
being blighted by what is little more than legalised drug-
taking on an industrial scale.’
However it is unclear how many of the people who
died had been prescribed methadone, as the information
is not collected by the death registration process or
pathologists' questionnaires. Methadone, potentially
combined with alcohol, was recorded as a ‘strong factor’
in 112 of the deaths and the sole cause of death in 14.
The report was a ‘stark reminder of individual human
tragedy and the scale of wider social need in Scotland’
said Biba Brand of the Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF).
‘Wide-ranging income, health and social inequalities
continue to devastate the lives of many people and the
communities they live in – to the extent that services are
now seeing their third generation of families seeking help
for drugs problems.’
National coordinator of the SDF’s government-funded
take home naloxone programme (
DDN
, August, page 4),
Stephen Malloy, added that the statistics were ‘a reminder
that the vast majority’ of deaths were opiate-related
overdoses. ‘There remains a huge amount of work to be
done to ensure adequate supplies of take home naloxone
are available in Scotland’s communities,’ he said.
Meanwhile, figures from the Office for National
Statistics show that drug poisoning deaths – involving
both illegal and legal drugs – in England fell by six per
cent for men and three per cent for women between 2010
and 2011. The overall number of male drug misuse deaths
(involving illegal drugs) fell by 14 per cent to 1,192 in 2011
but female deaths increased by 3 per cent to 413. Deaths
involving heroin/morphine decreased by 25 per cent –
although these were still the substances most commonly
involved in poisoning deaths – with the mortality rate
among males falling by 39 per cent in two years.
The report cites the ongoing ‘heroin drought’ since late
2010 as a possible cause, with availability remaining low in
some areas and consequent falls in purity. ‘Drugs workers
were concerned that the heroin drought may result in more
drug-related deaths, as users who had developed a reduced
tolerance could overdose if they used a high quality batch of
heroin,’ it says. ‘However, ONS data show the opposite trend
with deaths involving heroin falling in recent years.’
There were nearly 300 drug poisoning deaths involving
benzodiazepines, with mortality rates among men reaching
an all-time high of eight deaths per million population in
2011, while deaths involving barbiturates and helium have
increased consistently over the last five years, despite the
number of prescriptions for barbiturates more than halving
over the same period.
Reports at www.gro-scotland.gov.uk and www.ons.gov.uk
4 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| September 2012
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Scots record highest
ever drug deaths
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Round-up
NEWS IN
BRIEF
‘There remains a huge
amount of work to be
done to ensure adequate
supplies of take home
naloxone are available in
Scotland’s communities.’
Stephen Malloy