takeaway coffee yet this can buy the weekly
recommended alcohol limit of 14 units. The
more affordable alcohol is, the more we drink
and this means more alcohol-related hospital
admissions, crime and deaths.’
DARK DAYS
MORE PEOPLE ARE BUYING THEIR DRUGS ON
THE ‘DARK NET’
, according to the latest
Global
drug survey,
with MDMA, cannabis and NPS
the substances most frequently purchased.
Nearly one in ten respondents reported having
bought drugs this way, with 5 per cent saying
they’d never taken drugs before buying them
from dark net sources. The UK had the highest
overall last-year use of NPS, while NPS users
were three times more likely to seek
emergency medical treatment than users of
traditional drugs.
Full results at
News
INTERVENTIONS UP
THERE WERE NEARLY 100,000 ALCOHOL BRIEF
INTERVENTIONS
carried out in Scotland in 2015-
16, according to official figures – 59 per cent
more than the government expected in its local
delivery plan estimate. The last three years have
also seen a three-fold increase in the number of
interventions conducted in wider, non-priority,
settings such as criminal justice and social work.
Statistics at
LIFE LESSONS
DRUG AND ALCOHOL DEPENDENCY
is one of
the themes of the government's new 'life
chances fund', an £80m initiative to tackle
entrenched social issues. The project will
support social impact bonds (SIB) to 'help
transform people's lives', says the Cabinet
Office, and is launching alongside a new centre
of academic excellence for commissioning
public services, the Government Outcomes (GO
Lab), in partnership with Oxford university. 'This
is about central and local government,
academia and the voluntary sector all coming
together to work at tackling some of the most
entrenched social challenges we face,' said civil
society minister Rob Wilson.
Expressions of interest invited at
-
chances- fund until 30 September.
TAKEAWAY TROUBLE
SCOTTISH DRINKERS
could consume their
entire recommended weekly unit limit for just
over £2.50, according to Alcohol Focus
Scotland. A survey of supermarkets and
convenience stores in Glasgow and Edinburgh
found wine on sale at 32p per unit, lager at
26p per unit, and three-litre bottles of 7.5 per
cent cider at just 18p per unit. Chief executive
Alison Douglas said, ‘£2.52 is the price of a
read the full stories, and more, online
A REPORT FROM THE UK’S TWO MAJOR PUBLIC HEALTH
ORGANISATIONS
has called for the personal possession
of all illegal drugs to be decriminalised.
Published by the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH)
with the support of the Faculty of
Public Health (FPH),
Taking a new
line on drugs
also wants to see
lead responsibility for the nation’s
drug strategy transferred from
the Home Office to the
Department of Health, aligning it
more closely with strategies for
alcohol and tobacco.
The report – which generated
approving editorials in several
newspapers and was the front
page story in the
Times
–
advocates a Portuguese-style
model where possession remains
prohibited but users are referred
to treatment programmes rather
than prosecuted, moving from a
‘predominantly criminal justice
approach towards one based on
public health and harm reduction’,
it says. The organisations are also
calling for universal provision of
‘evidence-based’ drugs education
through statutory PHSE
education in schools, as well as
the use of evidence-based ‘drug
harm profiles’ to inform
enforcement priorities and public
health messages.
The current legal framework
around drugs is confusing and sends ‘misleading signals’
to the public, says the document, nor does it correlate
with the evidence when it comes to assessment of
relative harms – a situation is that is ‘likely to get worse’
with the introduction of the
Psychoactive Substances Act
(
DDN,
June, page 4).
Criminalisation also fails to
address the underlying issues
associated with drug use, it adds,
while the harms associated with
it fall disproportionately on
disadvantaged groups and so
exacerbate existing health
inequalities.
‘For too long, UK and global
drugs strategies have pursued
reductions in drug use as an end
in itself, failing to recognise that
harsh criminal sanctions have
pushed vulnerable people in need
of treatment to the margins of
society, driving up harm to health
and wellbeing even as overall use
falls,’ said RSPH chief executive
Shirley Cramer. ‘The time has
come for a new approach, where
we recognise that drug use is a
health issue, not a criminal justice
issue, and that those who misuse
drugs are in need of treatment
and support – not criminals in
need of punishment.’
Report at
See news focus, page 6
4 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| July/August 2016
PUBLIC HEALTH BODIES CALL FOR
DECRIMINALISATION OF DRUGS
Why people use drugs
2 IN 5
TO RELIEVE
PAIN
ALMOST
1 IN 5
TO RELIEVE
DEPRESSION
AND/OR
ANXIETY
1 IN 3
TO FEEL
MORE
RELAXED
And why they don’t
1 IN 4
SAY IT’S TOO
RISKY OR
HARMFUL
1 IN 6
DON’T LIKE
OR DESIRE
THE EFFECTS
1 IN 10
DON’T WANT
TO RISK
ADDICTION
1 IN 10
DON’T
LIKE OR
DESIRE THE
EFFECTS
1 IN 4
SAY IT’S TOO
RISKY OR
HARMFUL
1 IN 10
DON’T WANT
TO RISK
ADDICTION
ALCOHOL OR TOBACCO
ILLEGAL DRUGS
2 IN 5
TO BE
SOCIABLE
Source: RSPH public opinion survey of 2,090 UK
adults carried out on behalf of RSPH by Populus,
12-14 February 2016
‘nPS users
are three
times more
likely to
seek
emergency
medical
treatment...’
CONSUMING
SCHEMES
THE IRISH GOVERNMENT
intends to proceed
with plans to open the country’s first
supervised injection facility this year (
DDN
,
October 2015, page 4), health minister
Simon Harris told the
Irish Independent
newspaper, with
the drafting of the
necessary
legislation now ‘at
an advanced
stage’. The site will
be in Dublin, a city
that has seen
increasing
problems with
street injecting,
while the country has also experienced a
spike in blood-borne virus transmission.
Meanwhile, the Glasgow City Alcohol and
Drug Partnership (ADP) has established a
working group to look at opening a facility
in that city, along with plans for heroin-
assisted treatment.
Glasgow has an estimated 500 vulnerable
people who inject in public places and has
seen increasing rates of HIV infection. A
business case will be presented to ADP in
the autumn.
Supervised
injection
facility ‘at an
advanced
stage...’
Simon HarriS
