TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT
NINE PER CENT OF DRINKERS
in the UK had
drunk more than the new recommended
weekly limit in a single day, according to the
latest alcohol figures from ONS. While the
proportion of 16-24 year olds who had drunk
in the previous week had fallen from 60 per
cent in 2005 to less than half, those young
people who did drink were the most likely to
have consumed their weekly recommended
limit in one day, and almost three in five
adults reported drinking some alcohol in a
typical week. ‘It’s clear from these figures that
although there are now more people,
especially younger ones, who don’t drink
alcohol at all, there is still a significant group
of other people who are drinking well in
excess of the latest health advice,’ said ONS
statistician Jamie Jenkins.
Figures at
News
POPPING OUT
THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PSYCHOACTIVE
SUBSTANCES ACT 2016
,
which was due to
come into force last week, has been
temporarily postponed by the government.
Alkyl nitrites (‘poppers’) have also been
exempted from the controversial legislation
after the ACMD wrote to drugs minister
Karen Bradley to say that, in its view, they did
not fall within the scope of the act’s current
definition of ‘psychoactive substances’. A
proposed amendment to exempt poppers
from the legislation was defeated earlier this
year (
DDN
, February, page 4).
CHANGING TIMES
CRI HAS CHANGED ITS NAME
to change, grow,
live, the organisation has announced. ‘Our
priority is to work with service users, who are
some of the most vulnerable people in society,
and help them to make the changes they need
to make to live independent and
purposeful lives,’ said chief executive
David Biddle. ‘We believe that everyone is
capable of positive and lasting change and
we wanted to have a charity name that
more closely reflects this vision.’
DECRIMINALISATION
CALL
ALL ‘MINOR AND NON-VIOLENT DRUG USE
,
possession and petty sale’ should be
decriminalised, according to a commission
established by the
Lancet journal
and Johns
Hopkins University. Existing drug policies are
directly contributing to ‘many of today’s most
urgent public health crises’, says the
commission’s report, which was produced to
coincide with this month’s UN General
Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on the
world drug problem.
Public health and inter-
national drug policy at
Read the full stories, and more, online
THERE ARE ‘NO SIGNS OF A SLOWDOWN’
in the develop-
ment and discovery of new psychoactive substances
(NPS), according to the European Monitoring Centre for
Drugs and Drug Addiction’s (EMCDDA) latest report on
the continent’s drug markets. A hundred new substan-
ces were reported for the first time in 2015, and the EU’s
early warning system is now monitoring close to 600.
As the UK government delays the implementation of
its beleaguered Psychoactive Substances Act (see below),
the report also warns that, given the nature of the
market and the ‘continuous stream’ of new substances,
it is ‘unfeasible’ that all of them could be controlled. ‘It is
unlikely that any regulatory system can be designed to
sufficiently limit the stream of new substances being
manufactured without resorting to a ban on a huge
range of chemicals,’ it states.
Europeans spend at least EUR 24bn a year on illicit
drugs, says the document, with evidence of increasing
links between drug trafficking and other criminal
activities, including terrorism. Criminals have also been
quick to exploit the opportunities presented by the
internet and increased globalisation, it says, and
warns that instability in regions neighbouring the
EU could also have a ‘profound’ effect on Europe’s
drug market.
Cannabis is estimated to account for 38 per
cent of the entire retail market for illicit drugs,
while cocaine is the continent’s most commonly
used illicit stimulant, with a market estimated to
be worth at least EUR 5.7bn per year. The heroin
market, meanwhile, is estimated at EUR 6.8bn a
year, with recent signs of increasing availability
that ‘may signal increased harms’. Levels of opium
production in Afghanistan have remained high,
and there is evidence of ‘increasingly flexible and
dynamic’ production techniques and trafficking
routes, says the report, including via the Southern
Caucasus, Africa, Iraq and Syria.
‘The EU drug market is driven by two simple
motives: profit and power,’ said EMCDDA director
Alexis Goosdeel. ‘Understanding this, and the wider
impacts of drug markets on society, is critical if we
are to reduce drug-related harm.’
2016 EU drug markets report at
4 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| April 2016
CANNABIS
CASE
CANNABIS SALES
SHOULD BE ALLOWED
TO ADULTS
from
‘specialist, licensed’
stores, according to a
report published by
the Liberal Democrats.
The document is the
work of an expert
panel commissioned
by the party to look at
how a regulated
cannabis market
could function in the
UK. ‘Millions of
people use cannabis
in the UK and there is a pressing need
for government to take control of the
trade from gangsters and unregulated
dealers,’ said panel chair Steve Rolles.
A framework for a regulated market for
cannabis in the UK at
‘Millions of
people use
cannabis in
the UK and
there is a
pressing
need for
government
to take
control of
the trade...’
Steve RolleS
‘NO SLOWDOWN’ IN NEW PSYCHOACTIVE
SUBSTANCES, SAYS EMCDDA
‘We believe
that everyone
is capable of
positive and
lasting
change.’
DaviD BiDDle
