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Never a dull moment
24 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| December 2014
Review of the year |
2014 in focus
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
JANUARY
The year kicks off with the government
announcing that its ban on the sale of
below-cost alcohol is to come into force
in the spring. The legislation is instantly
derided as ‘laughable’, ‘confusing’ and
‘close to impossible to implement’ by
Alcohol Concern chief executive Eric
Appleby, whose organisation – along
with many others – still wants to see
minimum pricing instead. Alcohol
charity Drinkaware, meanwhile,
announces ‘radical’ changes to its
governance arrangements following an
independent audit and criticisms over
industry links.
FEBRUARY
DDN
’s national service user conference
chalks up a seventh successful event
with
Make it happen!
in Birmingham –
‘emotive speakers with real passion
and drive’, says PHE. As Russia prepares
for the Sochi Winter Olympics, activist
Anya Sarang tells
DDN
about the stark
consequences of her country’s ongoing
opposition to opioid substitution
therapy, and crime prevention minister
Norman Baker accepts the ACMD’s
recommendation that ketamine be
reclassified to class B. Worryingly, more
than a third of services surveyed for
DrugScope’s
State of the sector
report
say their funding decreased in the
previous year, while Nick Clegg tells the
Observer
that ‘if you’re anti-drugs, you
should be pro-reform’ and there’s shock
as actor Philip Seymour Hoffman
becomes the latest high profile drug
casualty.
MARCH
MPs demand action on liver disease,
warning that ‘today’s complacency is
tomorrow’s catastrophe’, with deaths
increasing by a staggering 40 per cent
in the space of a decade. Activists still
have Russia in their sights as they warn
that its annexation of Crimea means
that the peninsula’s drug users are now
at the mercy of its ‘highly repressive’
and ‘deeply punitive’ approach, while
harm reduction organisations brand
the joint ministerial statement issued
at the UN’s Commission on Narcotic
Drugs (CND) in Vienna a ‘capitulation’
to hardline states.
APRIL
A hard-hitting report from Adfam says
that children are being put at risk by a
lack of proper safeguards around OST
prescribing, while NICE says needle
exchange services need to do more to
support users of performance-
enhancing drugs. Meanwhile, Stanton
Peele casts a critical eye at the 12-step
approach in the pages of
DDN
. ‘Like
carp infesting a lake drive out other
species, AA and 12-step treatment rule
out other, often more effective
approaches,’ he writes, ensuring a full-
to-the-brim letters page in the
following issue.
MAY
Positive trends in the use of long-
established drugs risk being
overshadowed by the relentless
increase in new synthetic substances in
an ‘increasingly complex and
damaging’ drug market, says a
comprehensive report from EMCDDA.
PHE figures showing a continuing fall
in the number of opiate and crack users
leave ‘no room for complacency’, agrees
the agency’s Roseanna O’Connor, and
home secretary Theresa May
announces an overhaul of stop and
search following Release’s damning
report from last year.
JUNE
Turning Point’s medical director Dr
Gordon Morse writes that it’s time for
commissioners to start considering
‘evolution over revolution’ in
DDN
,
while more than 100 cities worldwide
see demonstrations as part of the
Support. Don’t Punish
campaign for
more humane drug policies.
JULY
The government’s announcement of a
new set of pledges as part of its
controversial ‘responsibility deal’ with
the drinks industry leaves health
campaigners unimpressed, while new
figures show rates of drug use among
secondary school pupils ‘considerably
lower’ than a decade ago.
AUGUST
Scottish drug-related deaths fall by 9
per cent, after two years of record high
figures, with the Scottish Government
pointing to the success of their take-
home naloxone programme. Legislation
finally comes into force allowing drug
services to provide aluminium foil, and
an all-party group of MPs calls for
health warnings to be put on all
alcohol labels. There’s also a sure sign
that things are changing when a
Sun
editorial says it’s time for a rethink on
drugs policy.
With a general election that could shape
the sector for the next five years and
beyond now looming, DDN looks back on
another dramatic year in the drugs field