Jul 10, 2008

A Review of What Works

Introduction
Alcoholism affects millions of people in the United States alone. According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse (NIAA), a division of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland USA, at least 700,000 Americans receive treatment for this disease every day. Some kinds of treatment, such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) have been around for many years while others are relatively new. Clinical research to determine the effectiveness of these various treatments has resulted in some important findings.
In October 2000 the NIAA released a summary of its conclusions based on fifteen years of research on alcohol treatments. According to the NIAA, self-help programs such as AA, psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy, either alone or in combination, are in fact effective and do reduce the use of alcohol.
Alcoholics Anonymous
Of all the treatments for alcohol misuse, Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is probably the most well known. In AA, a form of “self-help” treatment, participants take part in a series of mental, written and verbal activities that can lead to recovery and abstinence. In one study, alcoholic patients who received inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy, as well as AA, had better outcomes than those patients who attended only one kind of treatment.
It is thought that AA helps people because it provides a new social network that replaces the alcohol abuser’s usual group of friends who drink with him or her, and provides a fellowship that inspires motivation and lends support toward the goal of reaching and maintaining abstinence. AA also teaches a set of coping skills so that, when stressed, the alcohol abuser has more constructive ways of coping, and does not need to turn to alcohol to escape his or her problems.
Another study, conducted at a Department of Veteran Affairs hospital, indicated that those alcoholic patients who underwent either cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) or a 12-step program in combination with CBT did better, over the long run, than those who participated in the 12-step program alone. (CBT entails learning coping skills, new ways of interpreting and reacting to stressful situations, and changing one’s destructive or maladaptive behavior patterns.) The patients who received the combination treatment stayed sober longer and were able to hold down a job for longer periods than those patients who received only CBT.
Both of these studies seem to show that a combination of some kind of psychotherapy and a 12-step program such as AA produces the most beneficial results for patients who use alcohol in excess.
Other beneficial treatments
Other promising treatments of alcohol abuse that are being studied include Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET); couples therapy; Brief Intervention Therapy; dual-addiction treatment; and pharmacotherapy.
Motivational Enhancement Therapy: The key component of MET is an interviewing technique conducted by a trained psycho-therapist. The goal of this method is to increase an individual’s degree of motivation to stop drinking and to maintain abstinence. This is accomplished by the therapist gauging the individual’s readiness to change and then adjusting feedback accordingly. An intensive, individualized interviewing strategy, MET was demonstrated to overcome many patients’ disinclination to address their alcohol problem in treatment and increase their willingness to change.
Couples Therapy: Patients who include their non-alcohol abusing partners in their psychotherapy are more apt to attend therapy, and more likely to alter their unhealthy drinking habits. In one model of couples therapy known as Behavioral-Marital Therapy (BMT), communication and conflict-resolution skills are taught. When a relapse-prevention plan was added to this model, alcohol abstinence rates were even higher.
Brief Intervention Therapy: This treatment method usually takes place when alcohol users visit their primary care physicians. It typically entails the imparting of information about the negative consequences of drinking to excess, as well as supportive programs in the community. Two studies, carried out in the United States and Canada, showed that patients did reduce their alcohol consumption as a result of these interventions. This treatment seems to work best with those individuals who are at-risk for alcohol abuse. Those who are already dependent are better off being referred to specialized treatment programs.
Dual-addiction treatment: This method attempts to target both cigarette (nicotine) and alcohol dependencies at once. The use of one of these substances seems to make an individual more susceptible to dependence on the other. The rationale behind dual-addiction treatment is that reducing dependence on one may help a person reduce his or her reliance on the other. Although this is a newer approach to treatment, a recent study seems to suggest that this is indeed the case.
Pharmacotherapy: Finally, if taken on a regular basis, the drug naltrexone, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1995, can be a valuable aid in preventing relapse among recovering alcoholics receiving psychotherapy. Another medication, acamprosate, proved helpful in several European trials. (Editor’s note: It is now undergoing clinical trials in the United States.) Zofran, a medication usually used to prevent nausea during chemotherapy for cancer, was beneficial in the treatment of early-onset (i.e. those who started drinking heavily before age 25) alcoholism. Sertraline (Zoloft), an anti-depressant, was found to be helpful in reducing drinking in those with late-onset alcoholism.
Summary
Using proven methods of evaluating medical therapies, recent research reveals that many effective treatments exist to help people to stop drinking and maintain abstinence. These treatments include self-help groups such as AA, psychosocial approaches and medications.
Continued research in the field of alcoholism is likely to produce highly specific medications that will reduce the craving for alcohol. It will also yield an even broader range of therapies, including those mentioned here, that will improve the alcohol abusing person’s chance for recovery.
Over time, those who suffer from alcohol abuse and/or dependence will have even more and possibly better options for successful treatment. In the meantime, effective treatments already being offered by mental health professionals and community groups have been demonstrated to reduce alcohol use and promise a better life for people who make use of them.

Source: Jul 10, 2008 WorldWideAddiction.com

“Drug driving tests have been an outstanding success in reliably identifying drivers whose capacity to drive is dangerously compromised,” Mr Holding said. “There can be no mistake that driving under the influence of illicit drugs is just as dangerous as driving while affected by alcohol and is a major contributor to death and trauma on Victoria’s roads.

“The first four months of the saliva drug testing program have identified a worrying level of substance use among drivers that will not be tolerated.” Mr Holding said a three-step process ensured the integrity of the tests. Drivers are initially asked to provide a saliva sample by placing a small absorbent pad on their tongue for a few seconds.

Drivers who return a positive test are then asked to accompany police into a drug bus, similar to a booze bus, for two further saliva samples – one to be kept by the driver and the other for further on-the-spot analysis. If this indicates a positive result, the sample is sent to a laboratory for verification. Motorists who return positive laboratory results for cannabis or methamphetamines are fined $307 and lose three demerit points, or are prosecuted in court. If the offence progresses to court, the maximum penalty for a first offence is $614 and three months’ licence cancellation. Subsequent convictions can result in fines of up to $1227 and up to six months’ licence cancellation.

Mr Holding said in the four months to 17 March 2005, a total of 4619 drivers were tested, with 63 drivers testing positive for drugs. He said 21 drivers tested positive for cannabis and methamphetamine-based drugs. Five drivers tested positive for only cannabis, with 37 testing positive to only methamphetamine-based drugs.

Of the 3488 car drivers tested, 47 returned a positive result. Sixteen out of 1131 truck drivers tested positive for drugs. Eight preliminary tests were not confirmed by the drug bus.

Mr Holding said test handling procedures had been reviewed after three drivers’ final tests ultimately came up negative in the very early stages of the program. “Independent laboratory tests since have conclusively verified the accuracy of saliva drug testing,” Mr Holding said.

White ‘repackaged’ drug facility idea as crime prevention tool
The newcomer to Ottawa credited with being the catalyst for a new residential drug-treatment centre for youth managed the feat by “repackaging” the proposal from a health issue into a crime prevention issue.
Yesterday, as a who’s who of politicians and community leaders gathered for a multi-million-dollar funding announcement by Premier Dalton McGuinty, police Chief Vern White was praised for being instrumental in putting together the deal that has eluded Ottawa for two decades.
Chief White has been in Ottawa only 15 months, but has done what no one else had managed to do in
“Everyone complains about lack of health care. So I called it a ‘crime prevention tool’,” said Chief White after the press conference yestserday. “The old packaging wasn’t working, so I repackaged it.”
According to Chief White’s calculations, taking 20 youths with drug addictions off the street would result in 80 to 160 fewer minor crimes each day. Each addicted youth commits four to eight crimes a day, ranging from prostitution to vehicle smash-and-grabs to support a drug habit, he estimates.
Chief White took his repackaged argument on the road in the Ottawa area, speaking to more than 50 community groups and service clubs. He didn’t talk about youth, he talked about parents.
“They’re our kids,” he said.
As it stands, drug-addicted youths must go to Thunder Bay and even farther for residential drug-treatment programs. According to figures from the United Way of Ottawa, one in six Ontario high school students reports symptoms of drug use, which translates into 9,000 Ottawa high school students. Young people typically begin to experiment with alcohol at age 12 and with illicit drugs at 14.
Long-term residential treatment for addicts results in a 71-per-cent decrease in substance use and a 61-per-cent decrease in criminal behaviour, according to the United Way.
A campaign to get a residential treatment centre had been on the agenda for years, but plan after plan fell apart.
In June 2006, a proposal to buy the former Rideau Correctional Centre near Burritts Rapids and convert it into a treatment centre was shelved amid concerns about a native land claim encompassing the property.
A likely location for a new anglophone residential centre is the Meadow Creek treatment facility on Carp Road, currently used for programs helping adult addicts. The program is scheduled to be moved into Ottawa in about a month. East-end locations are still being scouted for a francophone program.
Chief White credited restaurateur and fundraiser Dave Smith with being the “DNA” behind the project.
“I have been hollering and screaming for 20 years,” said Mr. Smith yesterday. “Sending kids to the American side wasn’t the answer.” Mr. Smith’s campaign to get a residential centre for youth resulted in the creation of an outpatient drug treatment program. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it was “better than nothing at all,” he said. Mr. Smith said he’s just glad Ottawa will finally be getting a residential centre.
Source: The Ottawa Citizen Published: Wednesday, June 11, 2008

New law puts alcohol and drugs on an equal footing in roadside checks for impaired driving, and promises to reduce driving “high”

The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA), Canada’s national addictions agency, welcomes new legislation set to go into effect on July 2 that, for the first time in Canada, establishes parity between drug- and alcohol-impaired driving under the law. Bill C-2, the Tackling Violent Crime Act, comes into force after a decade of rising rates of drug-impaired driving in Canada. Canadian studies indicate that drugs, often in combination with alcohol, are detected in up to 30% of fatally injured drivers. CCSA’s 2004 Canadian Addiction Survey found 5% of Canadian drivers admitted to driving within two hours of using cannabis—a 50% increase since 1989. Among 16–18 year olds, 21% reported driving after using cannabis, slightly higher than the 20% of their peers who reported driving after alcohol use. ―Such findings suggest that the drugs-and-driving problem is by no means insignificant and appears to be increasing,‖ said CCSA Manager of Research and Policy Doug Beirness. Mandatory roadside checks for alcohol impairment are recognized as having a deterrent effect on drinking and driving because of the perceived risk of being caught and charged. However, before Bill C-2, a police officer who suspected a driver of being impaired by drugs could only request that the driver undergo voluntary testing and there was no sanction if the driver refused. This left officers with little chance of pursuing a conviction on the basis of drug-impaired driving. ―As a result, many drug-impaired drivers have been risking their own safety and the safety of others because they believed they would not be caught,‖ said Beirness. Beginning July 2, refusing a roadside drug test will be equivalent to declining a breath test for alcohol and will be subject to the same sanctions. Refusing to take a breath test is a Criminal Code offence. ―The legislation clarifies that you must comply with demands from police to assess whether you are impaired, and if you refuse, you are subject to the same penalties,‖ said RCMP Cpl. Evan Graham, National Coordinator, Drug Evaluation and Classification Program, Traffic Services. The new legislation empowers Canadian police who suspect a driver of being impaired by any drug, illegal, prescription or over the counter, to conduct a Standardized Field Sobriety Test, a roadside test of physical coordination. If found to be impaired, the driver must submit to a mandatory Drug Evaluation and Classification (DEC) assessment, a 12-step process that requires the driver to provide a bodily fluid sample (blood, saliva or urine). The DEC is conducted by a Drug a DEC-trained community police officer, and takes 45–60 minutes to complete.

In this way, Bill C-2 has the potential to reduce the harms associated with drugs by enabling police officers to remove dangerous drivers from Canadian roads, whether they are impaired by drugs or alcohol” said Beirness.
The DEC programme has been operating in Canada for 13 years, but only in cases where drivers agree to participate. Research on the DEC programme, including studies conducted by CCSA staff, has established the accuracy and reliability of this method in determining impairment from a variety of drugs and drug combinations.

Impaired drivers will face new penalties under the law, including a fine of not less than $1,000 for the first offence, and imprisonment for the second offence of not less than 30 days, and not less than 120 days for each subsequent offence.

Impaired drivers who cause an accident can face a maximum 10 year sentence in the case of causing bodily harm, and a life sentence in the case of causing death.

Anyone convicted of operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs, alcohol or both will be prohibited from driving a vehicle for one to three years for the first offence and two to five years for the second offence.

We hope that by creating awareness of the new legislation, its tests and penalties, we can prevent Canadians from getting behind the wheel while they are impaired by drugs, alcohol or both, said Beirness.

Source: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse June 25th 2008

―In this way, Bill C-2 has the potential to reduce the harms associated with drugs by enabling police officers to remove dangerous drivers from Canadian roads, whether they are impaired by drugs or alcohol,‖ said Beirness.
The DEC program has been operating in Canada for 13 years, but only in cases where drivers agree to participate. Research on the DEC program, including studies conducted by CCSA staff, has established the accuracy and reliability of this method in determining impairment from a variety of drugs and drug combinations.
Impaired drivers will face new penalties under the law, including a fine of not less than $1,000 for the first offence, and imprisonment for the second offence of not less than 30 days and not less than 120 days for each subsequent offence.
Impaired drivers who cause an accident can face a maximum 10-year sentence in the case of causing bodily harm, and a life sentence in the case of causing death.
Anyone convicted of operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs, alcohol or both will be prohibited from driving a vehicle for one to three years for the first offence and two to five years for the second offence.
―We hope that by creating awareness of the new legislation, its tests and penalties, we can prevent Canadians from getting behind the wheel while they’re impaired by drugs, alcohol, or both, said Beirness.

Source:

―In this way, Bill C-2 has the potential to reduce the harms associated with drugs by enabling police officers to remove dangerous drivers from Canadian roads, whether they are impaired by drugs or alcohol,‖ said Beirness.
The DEC program has been operating in Canada for 13 years, but only in cases where drivers agree to participate. Research on the DEC program, including studies conducted by CCSA staff, has established the accuracy and reliability of this method in determining impairment from a variety of drugs and drug combinations.
Impaired drivers will face new penalties under the law, including a fine of not less than $1,000 for the first offence, and imprisonment for the second offence of not less than 30 days and not less than 120 days for each subsequent offence.
Impaired drivers who cause an accident can face a maximum 10-year sentence in the case of causing bodily harm, and a life sentence in the case of causing death.
Anyone convicted of operating a vehicle under the influence of drugs, alcohol or both will be prohibited from driving a vehicle for one to three years for the first offence and two to five years for the second offence.
―We hope that by creating awareness of the new legislation, its tests and penalties, we can prevent Canadians from getting behind the wheel while they’re impaired by drugs, alcohol, or both, said Beirness.

Controversial new law takes effect in a week

OTTAWA – Drivers who get behind the wheel while high on drugs will face roadside testing and they could be ordered to surrender urine, blood or saliva samples at the police station under a controversial new law that takes effect one week from today.

Drivers who refuse to comply will be subject to a minimum $1,000 fine — the same penalty for refusing the breathalyzer.

Police will be given their new powers to nab drug-impaired drivers after almost five years of intense debate in the federal Parliament.

The law, passed this year after three failed attempts, has been lauded by law enforcement and groups who say drug-induced drivers are escaping unpunished at a time when their numbers are climbing.

“Love it,” said Gregg Thomson, a father from Kanata, Ont., who predicted yesterday that the new testing will deter people from driving under the influence of drugs, just as the breathalyzer test produced a drop in drunk driving.

Mr. Thomson has been lobbying for a new law since 1999, when his son, Stan, and four of his high-school friends were killed when a 17-year-old who had been smoking marijuana attempted a highway pass that led to a pileup.

The crash became a catalyst for the group Mothers Against Drunk Driving to start pushing for changes to the Criminal Code, which outlaws drug-impaired driving but until now has not included measures that allow police to order a battery of tests.

The new law, however, has sparked warnings about potential court battles from critics who contend that demanding bodily fluids is overly intrusive and scientifically unreliable in detecting drug impairment.

“This is going to be challenged left and right,” predicted Murray Mollard, executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association.

Beginning July 2, drivers suspected of being high will be required to perform physical tests at the side of the road, such as walking a straight line. If they fail, they will be sent to the police station for further testing by a trained “drug recognition expert” and then be forced to give blood, urine, or saliva samples if they flunk the second test as well.

Critics say the new law could cause more problems that it solves, particularly because there is no reliable scientific test to detect drug use. Also, while there is a measurable link between blood alcohol levels and driving ability, research is lacking to equate drug quantity and impairment.

Another potential problem in testing bodily fluids is that they can detect marijuana smoked several days or months earlier and the effect has worn off.

“This kind of testing doesn’t test for impairment, it tests for past use of a substance and we know with certain substances they stay for a long time,” said Mollard.

Federal privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart and the Canadian Bar Association have also raised alarm bells.

Testing is already happening in Quebec, Manitoba, and British Columbia — but only when the driver voluntarily participates. But that hardly ever happens because nobody “is going to consent to pee in a bottle” when they are not legally required, said Andy Murie, chief executive officer of Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Source http://www.nationalpost.com/todays_paper/story.html?id=612887 June 2008

ALCOHOL problems in the Western Isles are so widespread that experts find it difficult to decide which section of the population to target.

A new report says moves towards a cultural change must be maintained and developed to make excessive drinking less acceptable.

It says it makes sense to focus on young people, to attempt to reduce future problems. In addition to education and prevention, help must be given to young people affected by adult drinkers. Another study suggests a significant proportion of youth homelessness in the islands is related to parental alcohol misuse.

The report by the Western Isles Alcohol and Drugs Action Team will be discussed by the islands’ health board on Thursday. It shows men in the Western Isles drink more than women and are more likely to drink above sensible guidelines, but youngsters aged 18-24 drink more than older age groups.

Overall, the number of people taken to hospital with alcohol-related illnesses rose by 30 per cent between 1990-2000 and 2004-5, compared with a 21 per cent rise across Scotland. Most of these – 338 out of 437 (77 per cent) – were men, an increase of 23 per cent in the five years.

Over the same period, alcohol-related discharges of women from hospital in the Western Isles rose by 60 per cent, compared with a 20 per cent increase in the rest of Scotland. The report recommends this as a priority area for investigation and action.

Findings among children shows 53 per cent of 13-year-olds in the Western Isles (57 per cent nationally) have had an alcoholic drink, as have 92 per cent of 15-year-olds (84 per cent nationally).

Source: The Scotsman 26th August 2008

Teenagers are to be banned from buying alcohol in France, as health advisers dismiss the cherished Gallic belief that children should be initiated in the art of wine-drinking at an early age. With British-style binge drinking gaining ground among French youth, officials say they want to send out a clear message against adolescent consumption. Roselyne Bachelot, the Health Minister, said that she was planning to make it illegal to sell alcohol to the under18s, with legislation likely to be introduced next year.
Her announcement signals a sea change in a society where 16-year-olds have been able to buy wine and beer, although not spirits, in cafés and restaurants and all alcoholic drinks in supermarkets and other shops with an off-licence. It marks a shift in official thinking over the hallowed French tradition of initiating the young in drinking rituals, notably involving wine. The French consensus has been that the first sips should be taken in early adolescence – or before – under parental supervision. This is believed to foster a mature, sensible approach to alcohol far removed from Anglo-Saxon excesses – a couple of glasses of red with lunch and dinner throughout the week, rather than ten pints of lager on a Saturday night.
A senior French health adviser told The Times that his compatriots were deluding themselves. Bernard Basset, deputy managing director of the National Institute for Health Prevention and Education, said that not only did childhood tippling encourage adult alcoholism, but it was also no barrier to binge drinking. He said: “In effect, you are authorising them to drink and suggesting that alcohol consumption is a normal thing.”
Studies showed that those who started drinking under the age of 18 were likely to consume more in later life than those who started afterwards, he added. Mr Basset hopes that the ban on serving alcohol to teenagers in public will encourage a similar move within Gallic families. “What we say is, don’t drink before adulthood.”
Research has debunked the idea that the French were immune to le binge-drinking, as it has become known. The percentage of under18s saying they got drunk regularly rose from 19 to 26 per cent between 2003 and 2006, for instance. According to the Health Ministry, the number of people under 24 treated in hospital in connection with alcohol increased by 50 per cent between 2004 and 2007.
Gilles Demigneux, a public health specialist, said: “The fact that you can get completely smashed in an Anglo-Saxon way, using alcohol as a drug, is something we couldn’t have imagined in France in the 1980s.”
In an attempt to curble binge-drink-ing the Health Ministry released Boire Trop(Too Much to Drink), a hard-hitting advertising campaign this summer, cautioning that excessive alcohol could lead to comas, violence, accidents and sexual abuse.
Critics say the government action could be counter-productive, however. The Federation of General Student Associations, a leading students’ union, said: “There is a tendency to infantilise young people when it would be better to make them take responsibility for themselves.” Olivier Douard, a sociologist at the Laboratory for the Study of and Research into Social Intervention in southern France, said: “Bans are not generally efficient as far as adolescents are concerned. They often lead to transgression.”
The debate has been given added urgency by the death from alcohol poisoning last month of an 18-year-old student in central France who had been out to celebrate passing his end of school exams. In another well-publicised case this week, a father from Brittany sued the supermarket that had sold three bottles of spirits to his 16-year-old daughter, who was taken to hospital after losing consciousness.
Source: The Times August 26, 2008

The Jornal da Tarde, a newspaper published in Sao Paulo, in its edition of September 1, 2008 (see below) exposes some of the never ending new formulas for the drug trraffickers to attract and keep their drug using clients. Now in Brasil, they have found a new way to go about the fact that the Brazilian Matihuana is of “low quality” (less that 1% THC content). They simply have started adding
crack to the marihuana cigarettes which are old so that their clients can have stronger psicoactive effects when they smoke those cigarettes.

The alert was first given by the Director of the Toxichology Center of the prestigious Hospital das clinicas in São Paulo, Anthony Wong.
Luiz Carlos Freitas Magno, a Delegate of the Denarc which is São Paulo State Department of Narcotic Investigations, has known about this practice of adding crack to marihuana.
About a year and a half ago, the drug traffickers of Rio de Janeiro started selling marihuana mixed with crack, but they sell it as a new drug called crackonha (in English it would sound as crackonia).
Dr. Womng says that the danger of young people using this new mixture drug is that it is very addictive. Another problem pointed out is that when somebody arrives at an Emergency Room because of drug problems, it is more difficult to know rapidly which was the drug causing the problem
Source: Journal da Tarde Sept. 1st 2008

Counselling centres for the prevention of drug abuse would be opened in various parts of the capital, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit said here Thursday.”The Delhi government would set up counselling centres to bring forceful awareness about prevention. It is better to prevent occurrence of any bad incident than cure it after it takes shape and grows gradually,” Dikshit said while inaugurating a day-long seminar on drug abuse prevention.
She said the administrative reforms department has already cleared the proposal for appointment of counsellors and it would take sometime to make such centres functional.
Dikshit called upon NGOs to come forward and put an end to menace of drug abuse, which is affecting the youth.
“There would be no dearth of funds for extending help to NGOs to enable them to substantially contribute in prevention of drug abuse,” said state Health and Social Welfare Minister Yoganand Shastri here.
Source: Thaindiannews.com 4th Sept.2008

Dutch growers earn around €2bn from exporting marijuana to the rest of the world every year, a senior police chief told the NRC newspaper this weekend. This compares to €5.5bn for the country’s entire flower and plant export trade, paper says.
Every year, more than 500 tonnes of marijuana grown in the Netherlands is shipped abroad, police commissioner Max Daniel told the paper. The figures are based on police research.
Daniel says that 80% of cannabis grown in the country is for export. ‘In the Netherlands, we have 400,000 cannabis users. If that was it, we would have a much more manageable problem.’
He claims that the involvement of organised crime in the marijuana trade is increasing. ‘Hemp has a role in almost every major murder, guns and drugs case,’ he tells the paper.
Organised crime
And the police chief claims that the lines between the underworld and ordinary society are becoming increasingly blurred. Banks give mortgages to hemp growers, while companies allied to universities help them improve their production techniques, says Daniel.
This summer the government set up a task force involving the police, justice ministry officials, energy companies and housing corporations to look at the role of organised crime in marijuana production.
It is illegal to grow marijuana in the Netherlands although police turn a blind eye if they find up to four plants. Marijuana possession is also technically illegal, but up to five grammes will be ignored.
Source: Drugwatch International quoting DutchNews.nl Oct. 20th 2008

The mother of popular hip-life musician Okomfuo Kwaadee, known as Jerry Anaba in private life, has confirmed the open secret that the artiste smokes.
Auntie Cecilia, who made the disclosure last Saturday on Peace FM, an Accra radio station, openly said her son smokes Indian hemp, locally called “wee”, adding, that was what led to the musician’s psychological problem some time ago.
Kwaadee has for some years now been off the music scene due to a mental problem.
However reports last year indicated that he was healed by a Man of God and is now leading a normal life.
“Musicians smoke, so by all means Kwaadee also smokes wee,” she said, adding, “I believe that was what worried him.”
Kwaadee, she indicated, was introduced to smoking through bad company, but did not say whether the influence was from colleagues in the music industry or elsewhere.
By the grace of God, she said, Kwaadee has stopped smoking because “he has come to the understanding that it would not help him.”
The singer, she revealed, was now fit and lives a normal life.
She, however, could not get the son to speak on air as he was not around at the time his mom was contacted.

Source: Francis Addo Daily Guide. Ghana 23 Oct 2008

Australian Premier John Brumby’s promise to battle the social ills of alcohol has been undermined by inaction on the expansion of big discount liquor stores and bottle shops, often in socially disadvantaged areas. The State Government has accepted only two of the 27 recommendations from its Liquor Control Advisory Council on how to control the booming retail liquor market and its impacts on binge and under-age drinking.
The council’s report found the number of retail liquor stores had increased more than 60% in Victoria in the past decade — to 1851 outlets. The report also revealed the dominance of the state’s biggest purveyor of alcohol — Woolworths.Since the Government lifted the cap on big players in the liquor market five years ago, Woolworths, which owns the Dan Murphy’s chain, has boosted its outlets from 135 to 233 stores. Coles liquor group owns 178 licences.
Woolworths has recently been involved in several cases where communities and local councils, concerned about a saturation of liquor stores, have fought to stop the company establishing new Dan Murphy’s outlets. In September, residents and Manningham City Council lost its bid to stop Woolworths turning a Doncaster Safeway supermarket into a Dan Murphy’s. Last year, against the wishes of police and the Darebin Council, a Dan Murphy’s was approved next to a Salvation Army alcohol treatment centre in Preston. (if ever there was a case of big business succeeding over a community need this must surely be it NDPA)
In its submission to the council’s review of the liquor store market — or packaged liquor — the Liquor Stores Association of Victoria said the state’s saturated market would lead to irresponsible discounting “in direct conflict with the principle of harm minimisation”. Most submissions to the inquiry, including some from the liquor industry, said communities should be given more power to object to new liquor store licences, and community or social impact statements should be included in the application process.
The council, however, did not recommend giving more power to communities. It did say the State Government should review home delivery of alcohol with takeaway meals and groceries because it was concerned the practice gave minors easier access to alcohol. The council, which advises the Government on alcohol issues in the community, is made up of community, police and alcohol industry representatives. The State Government, after sitting on the report for seven months, recently adopted two of the council’s recommendations: one that requires outlets to have extra shelf signage about under-age drinkers, and another about applicants advertising their intentions in local newspapers.
A spokeswoman for Consumer Affairs Minister Tony Robinson said the other recommendations would be looked at during a review of all categories of liquor licences, as outlined in the Victorian Alcohol Action Plan. Two recommendations have been referred back to the council. Mr Robinson said the Government was committed to reducing alcohol abuse in the community. He denied that the community had little say in fighting liquor store applications. Input was also sought from local councils and the police.
“Each application is judged on its merits, and the director of Liquor Licensing’s decision may be challenged at the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal,” he said. But Mary Wooldridge, the Opposition’s community services spokeswoman, said the minister was doing nothing to curb the saturation and inappropriate location of liquor stores, despite evidence linking them to a range of social problems, including property damage.
The Government’s alcohol plan only briefly mentioned packaged liquor, she said.
In its battle against booze culture, the State Government has been accused of unfairly focusing on nightclubs. A recent government report into the regulatory impact of increasing licence fees shows that although packaged liquor licences have massively increased over 10 years, the bigger growth has been in “on-premises” licences for bars, clubs, restaurants and cafes. The overall growth in new licences peaked in 2002-03 and has since been in decline.
The report, released last month, shows the number of offences recorded at licensed premises in Victoria has actually decreased from 8166 in 2002-03 to 6835 in 2006-07.
But total police incidents where the offender was alcohol or drug-affected (including those on licensed premises) rose from 11,808 to 14,556 in the same period.
A spokesman for Woolworths declined to comment for this report.

Source: TheAge.com.au Sun 2nd Nov.2008

President Evo Morales has announced he is suspending “indefinitely” the operations of the US Drug Enforcement Administration in Bolivia.
Mr Morales accused the agency of having encouraged anti-government protests in the country in September. He did not say whether its staff would be asked to leave the country, as coca- growers have been pressing him to do.
Bolivia’s first indigenous president once served as the leader of the country’s union of coca-growers. Relations between Bolivia and the US have been strained since Evo Morales won presidential elections in January 2006.
Coca is the raw material used in the production of cocaine and is widely grown in Bolivia. The country is a major producer of cocaine, but millions of Bolivians poorest people also chew coca leaves as part of their daily routine. Many believe the leaf offers health benefits.
‘Defending Bolivia’
“From today all the activities of the US DEA are suspended indefinitely,” the Bolivian leader said in the coca-growing region of Chimore, in the central province of Chapare.

Coca is widely used by Bolivian Indians
“Personnel from the DEA supported activities of the unsuccessful coup d’etat in Bolivia,” he added, referring to the unrest in September which left 19 people dead.
“We have the obligation to defend the dignity and sovereignty of the Bolivian people.”
US officials have denied any wrongdoing. In recent months, a string of tit-for-tat expulsions of diplomats and agencies increased tensions between both countries, the BBC’s Andres Schipani reports from Bolivia. Bolivia’s government expelled the US international development agency and the US ambassador to La Paz.
Washington retaliated by expelling its Bolivian counterpart, while last month President George W Bush himself put the Andean country on an anti-narcotics blacklist that cuts trade preferences. Making his announcement, Mr Morales also declared that his government had eradicated more than 5,000 hectares (12,300 acres) of illegally planted coca.
Source: BBC News Sat.1st Nov.2008

Harm reduction, which has been the central focus of drug policy in this country since 1992, by its very definition does not focus on getting drug users off drugs. ‘Harm reduction’ is defined by the International Harm Reduction Association as ‘efforts to reduce the health, social and economic costs of mood altering drugs without necessarily reducing drug consumption’.Alarmingly, leaders of the harm reduction movement want Australia to move on to the next step, getting rid of the prohibitions against drug use, prohibitions which the Australian
community support so strongly.

Dr Alex Wodak, Australia’s most prominent proponent of harm reduction both nationally and internationally, responsible for introducing it to Australia in 1985, wants currently prohibited
drugs made legal for personal use. He says,

“In many countries it is time to move from the first phase of harm reduction – focusing on reducing adverse consequences – to a second phase which concentrates on reforming an ineffective and harm-generating system of global drug prohibition.”

Dr Alex Wodak; Paper presented to the 15th InternationalConference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm

Many leaders of the harm reduction movement in Australia are seeking government support for new harm reduction interventions which show little interest in getting users off drugs,
but rather perpetuate their drug use while spending large amounts of tax-payer funds for programs to keep them safe while their use continues.

Injecting rooms
The Kings Cross injecting room does little to get users off drugs, with less than 4.5% of clients being sent to detox or rehab. Rather it spends $2.5 million per year saving clients from overdoses. The 2003 evaluation showed there was 36 times more overdoses in the
injecting room than on the streets of Kings Cross, despite injecting room clients injecting 97% of the time on the streets of Kings Cross rather than in the room. Proponents are working for multiple injecting rooms in every Australian city. Injecting rooms are very ineffective in reducing drug use.

Heroin On Prescription
It is not legal in Australia for the government to provide heroin to heroin users, with methadone being substituted instead. However many harm reductionists want an expensive program providing heroin on prescription to heroin users. Heroin on prescription focuses most on maintaining a user’s addiction. Other agendas that perpetuate drug use are the decriminalisation or legalisation of cannabis, the legalisation of raw cannabis for medical purposes, and pill testing at RAVEs.

EX-INJECTING ROOM CLIENT TELLS WHY INJECTING
ROOMS HAVE SO MANY OVERDOSES
“They feel a lot more safer, definitely because they know they can be brought back to life straight away. They know that they can, like some people go to the extent of using even more. So in a way they feel it is a comfort zone, and no matter how much they use if they drop they just get brought back. What users look for is in heroin and pills is to get the
most completely out of it as they can, like virtually be asleep but awake for 4 – 5 hours. For instance to get that you have to test your limits. And by testing your limits that is how you end up dropping.”
desire for a society free of illicit drugs
CHRISTOPHER
I became addicted and it took seven years for me to realise that I had to stop .In those seven years . . . I would get windows of opportunity to get out. I would feel like I could go to rehab or detox and everything like that but, when I would get on the phone to get in contact with [a treatment agency],there would not be a place available. The feeling of ‘okay, I’ve had enough, Ican get out’ would disappear. I would go back into it.

Christopher, transcript, 7 April 2007 p 68 – cited in Winnable War on Drugs, House of Representatives Standing
Committee on Family and Human Services. p209

TIM
With early inquiries in September 2006, and desperate to rid himself of drugs, Tim was assessed and approved for suitability to participate in a drug rehabilitation program at the Woolshed Drug Rehabilitation Community, Adelaide. Elated at such an opportunity he diligently marked off the list of preparatory requests made, he telephoned regularly as required on 22, 26 and 29 September, and 3, 6, 10, 13, 17 and 20 October for a period
extending five weeks, hoping and waiting desperately for a placement, for an opportunity to learn how to live without drugs.

Throughout this time, Tim had returned to live with us. He had stated that it was a particularly difficult time as not only did he have to deal with the long-term effects of taking drugs and withdrawal, he had to deal with the loss of autonomy in living in his own place of residence. He felt unable to apply for employment outside of the family business, because of his commitment to securing a placement at the Woolshed. Rehabilitation could take as long as six months, with then ongoing support required. On Sunday, 22 October 2006, in a desperate bid to end his pain and suffering, Tim committed suicide in our family home. I have been informed by the Woolshed that there is only accommodation for 24 participants, with up to as many as 34 waiting for a bed at one time for periods as long as 12 weeks. As of 24 May this year, 30 people were waiting. Tim could wait no longer.

Drug Free Australia Ltd

Alberta Health Services (AHS) and the Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission (AADAC), together with the RCMP, recently announced the launch of a new prevention program called Kids and Drugs — A Parent’s Guide to Prevention. The program is intended to assist parents and other concerned adults in helping school age children avoid alcohol and drug abuse. Kathie Gavin, prevention co-ordinator for AADAC, says the new program goes beyond the basic drug education provided to parents in the past, addressing important protective factors for youth including effective parenting practices.

“In the past, when parents asked about drug information sessions we would give them the good, bad and ugly … The new program broadens the scope of parents’ understanding. It’s about giving your kids confidence, having open communication and giving them support,” says Gavin.

Content of the program is built on known factors that prevent substance abuse, says Gavin, like improved communication, support, decision-making and discipline.
The programs four core areas examine the importance of parental role modeling, enhancing communication skills, decision making, and the final area, “What parents need to know about drugs.” This final workshop provides information on commonly used drugs and their risks, as well as reasons why kids use drugs and the signs and symptoms of a developing problem.

Gavin says different substances are used according to different trends, but a constant remains in that tobacco, alcohol and marijuana are the most likely drugs of choice.
“Other illicit drugs are small in number with regard to use by young people. The really common ones are right in front of us, ingrained in our culture. We need to talk about prevention with consideration of all the substances we use in our culture, and develop some respectful attitudes about that.”

Gavin says prevention is a long-term investment, and it’s an important one that involves consideration of cultural values, attitudes and norms. The focus of the new program is on prevention, not on intervention or treatment, says Gavin, so the program’s workshops are designed for families where there is no significant problem already.

Gavin says input into the new program was gathered from addictions, enforcement and educational specialists then piloted at six sites across Canada. Through formative evaluation, Gavin explains that certain aspects of the program were then revised. For example, because one of the objectives was to give communities flexibility in when and how they offer the program, suggestions like offering it at work sites or through school councils was incorporated into the program’s design.
The Kids and Drugs prevention program was developed over a three year period by AADAC and the RCMP, says Gavin, and replaces an earlier RCMP program called Two Way Street.
For more information about the program, including a free download of the parent’s booklet, go to http://www.aadac.com/565_502.asp. The AADAC website also contains a parent information series, addressing prevention, intervention and treatment of substance abuse in youth (http://www.aadac.com/). AADAC can also be reached toll free;
Source: Prairie Post West. Canada. Jan. 22nd 2009

Today, Sunday, the prestigious daily newspaper paper O Globo (Rio de Janeiro) publishes a text with the title: The absolute Majority prefers Marihuana. The text presents the results of a study by the name: Drug Consumption in Rio’s Nightlife” (which had already been published by the O Globo magazine on Nov 2, 2008, and which was done by Retrato Consultoria and Marketing. The numbers presented are staggering. Anyone who knows a little bit of Statistics sees that this data and this analysis are very biased and do not represent in any way the general situation of a city. For example: they interviewed 857 people who were partying in nightclubs and/or attending shows, gas stations, restaurants and other places where there are concentrations of people from 15 to 40 years.

Some of the results: 71.7% of those who answered were males, 47% do not work, just study; 90.7% are single, 82.7% do not have children, and so on and on. Those figures do not represent Rio’s population but the title of the text implies otherwise. Well, 71% declared that they can obtain easily the drugs of their choice although 91.3% of those using drugs prefer Marihuana over any other drug.

What is frightening is that 85% of those who were interviewed declared that they had driven after using alcohol and taking illicit drugs. Of those, 6% declared having had some sort of accident.

Source: Drugwatch International Forum 25th Jan.2009

MEXICO CITY (AP) – President Felipe Calderon’s war on drug trafficking has
led to his own doorstep, with the arrest of a dozen high-ranking officials
with alleged ties to Mexico’s most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa Cartel.

The U.S. praises Calderon for rooting out corruption at the top. But
critics say the arrests reveal nothing more than a timeworn government
tactic of protecting one cartel and cracking down on others.

Operation Clean House comes just as the U.S. is giving Mexico its first
installment of $400 million in equipment and technology to fight drugs.
Most will go to a beefed-up federal police agency run by the same people
whose top aides have been arrested as alleged Sinaloa spies. “If there is anything worse than a corrupt and ill-equipped cop, it is a corrupt and well-equipped cop,” said criminal justice expert Jorge Chabat, who studies the drug trade.

U.S. drug enforcement agents say they have no qualms about sending support
to Mexico. “We’ve been working with the Mexican government for decades at the DEA,” said Garrison Courtney, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. “Obviously, we ensure that the individuals we work with are vetted.”

Agents who conduct raids have long suspected Mexican government ties to
Sinaloa, and rival drug gangs have advertised the alleged connection in
banners hung from freeways. While raids against the rival Gulf cartel have
netted suspects, those against Sinaloa almost always came up empty – or
worse, said Agent Oscar Granados Salero of the Federal Investigative
Agency, Mexico’s equivalent of the FBI. “Whenever we were trying to serve arrest warrants, they were already waiting for us, and a lot of colleagues lost their lives that way,” Salero said.

The U.S. government estimates that the cartels smuggle $15 billion to $20
billion in drug money across the border each year. Over the last five months, officials from the Mexican Attorney General’s office, the federal police and even Mexico’s representatives to Interpol have been detained on suspicion of acting as spies for Sinaloa or its one-time ally, the Beltran Leyva gang. An officer who served in Calderon’s presidential guard was detained in December on suspicion of spying for Beltran Leyva.

Gerardo Garay, formerly the acting federal police chief, is accused of
protecting the Beltran Leyva brothers and stealing money from a mansion
during an October drug raid. Former drug czar Noe Ramirez, who was
supposed to serve as point man in Calderon’s anti-drug fight, is accused
of taking $450,000 from Sinaloa.

Most of such tips are coming from a Mexican federal agent who infiltrated
the U.S. embassy for the Beltran Leyva drug cartel. No such infiltrators
have been found for the Gulf cartel, which controls most drug shipments in
eastern Mexico and Central America. Sinaloa controls Pacific and western
routes. The DEA’s Courtney agrees that there has been a greater crackdown on the Gulf Cartel in both the U.S. and Mexico, with more than 600 members of the
gang arrested in September. But he declined to answer questions about
Mexico favoring Sinaloa.

Calderon has long acknowledged corruption as an obstacle to his offensive,
which involved sending more than 20,000 soldiers to battle drug
trafficking throughout the country. The U.S. aid plan includes technology
aimed at improving the way Mexico vets and supervises police. The president vows to create a “new generation of police,” consolidating agencies under Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna, who heads all federal law enforcement.

That’s what worries Granados Salero and other agents. So many of Garcia
Luna’s associates are under suspicion of Sinaloa ties that many wonder how
he could not have known. Calderon has publicly backed Garcia Luna, calling him “a man of great capacity.”

“Obviously, if there was any doubt about his honesty, or any evidence that
would call into question his honesty, he would certainly no longer be the
secretary of public safety,” the president said recently.

But some see the alleged Sinaloa ties with Garcia Luna’s lieutenants as an
old tactic used widely under the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or
PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years with a tight fist. Officials in the
past preferred to deal with one strong cartel rather than many warring
gangs – what Calderon faces now. More than 5,300 people died in
drug-related slayings in 2008.

“I fear that Secretary Garcia Luna … is working on the idea that once
one cartel consolidates itself as the winner, that is, Sinaloa, the
violence is going to drop,” said organized crime expert Edgardo Buscaglia,
who tracks federal police arrests and has studied law enforcement
agencies’ written reports.

Garcia Luna has denied being involved in corruption. He has acknowledged
that authorities in the past chose the path of managing cartels. But in an
interview with the newspaper El Sol, he said that approach only
strengthens the gangs in the long run. Others say the high number of Sinaloa infiltrators is a reflection of the two cartels’ very different styles.

The Gulf cartel is led by military-trained hit men so violent that they
reportedly planned to attack even U.S. law enforcement agencies.
“They don’t necessarily try to build networks of corruption. They prefer
networks of intimidation,” said Monte Alejandro Rubido, who leads Mexico’s
multi-agency National Security System.

Sinaloa, on the other hand, appears to use bribery and infiltration at
least as much as its gunmen. Cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman
bribed his way out of a Mexican prison in 2001, provoking suspicions the
government was on his side.

Many Mexicans worry about giving so much money and power to a still
corrupt force. Of more than 56,000 local and state police officers
evaluated between January and October last year, fewer than half met the
recommended qualifications, Calderon reported to Congress in early
December. No similar numbers are available for federal police.

Agents like Granados Salero wonder who is in charge of police integrity.
“We agents find out about a lot of things,” he said, “but who can we turn
to?”

Source: Drug Watch International Sun.25th Jan.2009

A Review of Australian public opinion surveys on illicit drugsA strong trend since the 1998 NDSHS (National Drug Strategy Household
Survey) has been a hardening in attitudes towards cannabis, a review from Australia revealed. The review, published by National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in December 2008, analysed a range of illicit drug opinion surveys conducted in the country.

Cannabis is now more associated with “a drug problem”, is a greater concern to the general community, its use is approved of less than in 1998, and there is also less support for cannabis legalisation and decriminalisation, it is pointed out in the review.

In 2004, 25 per cent of Australians approved use of cannabis compared to 10 per cent in 2007.
The strongest support for legalisation of cannabis was observed around
1998 and since then the support has been declining down to 19 per cent in 2007.

Certainly there has been an increased interest in the link between cannabis and mental health, with new evidence showing the link between cannabis use and disorders such as schizophrenia; It is possible that an increased research and policy focus on cannabis and mental health has affected public opinion on this matter, says Pr Ritter from the Drug Policy Modelling Program at the University of New South Wales, one of the authors of the review.

The change in attitudes to the cannabis legalisation has not resulted in support for increased penalties. The majority of the Australians would like to see increased spending for education and treatment.

Source: ECAD Newsletter, 26. Jan. 2009

In May 2008 the current Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced that she would reverse the 2004 decision and put cannabis back into category B.
The move went against the ACMD’s latest recommendations, but was, she said, necessary because of research linking heavy use of the drug with schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

Ms Smith said she was particularly concerned over the rise in consumption of super-strength strains of cannabis, such as “skunk”.
The Home Office say such strains account for 80% of all cannabis seizures in the UK.

Read the article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/7845023.stm

*** THE NEW APPROACH

Class A: Ecstasy, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, magic mushrooms,
amphetamines (if prepared for injection).
Possession: Up to seven years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Dealing: Up to life in prison or an unlimited fine or both.

Class B: Cannabis, amphetamines, Methylphenidate (Ritalin), Pholcodine.
Possession: Up to five years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Dealing: Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.

Class C: Tranquilisers, some painkillers, Gamma hydroxybutyrate (GHB),
Ketamine.
Possession: Up to two years in prison or an unlimited fine or both.
Dealing: Up to 14 years in prison or an unlimited fine or both

Source: ECAD Newsletter 25th Jan. 2009

Germany’s health minister announced on January 22, 2009 that the government banned the production, sale or possession of a synthetic marijuana-like drug known as “Spice” (CP-47,497 and JWH018).
Health Minister Ulla Schmidt says Spice must “quickly be taken out of circulation.”
Germany is the fourth nation to ban the substance, marketed as an herbal room-freshener, after Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.Read the article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/21/AR2009012100543_pf.html

Source: ECAD Newsletter Jan. 2009

MANILA, Philippines – Dangerous Drugs Board (DDB) chairman Vicente Sotto III on Friday expressed disappointment over the Commission on Human Rights’ opinion that the planned random drug testing could violate an individual’s rights.

During a meeting with education officials on Friday morning, Sotto insisted that the random drug testing – set to be conducted in over 8,000 schools – would not trample any human rights as claimed by various sectors.

“They (CHR) got it completely wrong. The objective of the drug test is not punitive, but preventive. This is a health issue. The students’ confidentiality is assured and anyone testing positive can be rescued in time through counseling,” Sotto said in a statement. “In fact, Sotto said “any attempt to block the implementation of the latest effort against illegal drugs should be the one considered as a violation of human rights. Preventing drug testing is a violation of human rights because you are preventing the government to cure drug dependence,” Sotto said in a separate radio interview.

It’s like stopping efforts to stamp out drug dependence and help drug addicts,” he added. Sotto gathered officials form the Department of Education, the Commission on Higher Education, and the Technical Education and Skills Development to draw up guidelines in the planned random testing for high school and college students nationwide. Sotto said they did not invite the CHR to Friday’s meeting, but added that the rights body is more than welcome to send a delegate to supervise or contribute ideas in the creation of the guidelines. He also reiterated during the meeting that the random drug testing could no longer be taken out of the government’s intensified anti-drug campaign because it is considered as its most important part.

The measure’s significance lies in the fact that it not only involves the “prevention” of drug dependence, but also the government’s “intervention” in ensuring that the students would be subjected under counseling to cure them of their addiction. In his statement, Sotto assured transparency in the conduct of the testing, adding that various sectors including the Supreme Court had approved of the measure.

“The student’s family will also be alerted about the situation. Those who fear that drug-testing will violate the privacy of students and put them behind bars are mistaken,” he said. “The matter of drug testing was the product of consultation and had been the subject of DDB Resolution No. 6 promulgated since August 1, 2003. Likewise, the Supreme Court, in the case of Social Justice Society vs. DDB promulgated on November 3, 2008, decided that random drug-testing in schools is constitutional,” Sotto added.

He also said that passing a drug test has in fact been a requirement for admission in a number of schools in Metro Manila for quite some time now.
The government is slated to carry out the initial stages of the drug testing in March. Then at the start of the school season in June, the government would resume the program for its second instalment.

The DepEd earlier said it would expand its random drug testing to include more students and more schools, ultimately targeting to include about 6 million students from 8,000 schools. For its part, the Department of Health on Thursday suggested that the drug testing which it had been conducting since 2005 should now include the detection of cocaine, Ecstasy, and barbiturates – and not just shabu and marijuana.

Source: GMANews.TV Jan.16 2009

PARIS: France will ban the sale of alcohol to minors and drinking in public near schools as part of a broad crackdown on binge drinking among youths, the health minister said in an interview published on Sunday.
Roselyne Bachelot said that a recent study showed an over all decline in alcohol consumption among youths but the frequency of drunkenness was increasing.
“Almost half of youths said they had had five glasses of alcohol on a single night on at least one occasion in the previous 30 days, which is the definition of binge drinking,” she said in an interview with Journal du Dimanche newspaper. She said she was working on a new bill that would also ban promotions known as “open bar” which allow customers to drink as much as they want to for a fixed price. “We are also going to ban open bars … which are a classic at student parties and which encourage binge drinking,” Bachelot said.
She said the number of under-25s hospitalised because of excessive drunkenness had doubled between 2004 and 2007. “Drinking alcohol in public places close to schools will also be forbidden,” she said.
She told the newspaper that at present there was a grey area surrounding sales of alcoholic drinks to teenagers aged 16 to 18, with different rules depending on the kind of alcohol and whether the sales point was a bar, a club or a supermarket. She said her bill would unambiguously ban any sale of alcohol to under-18s anywhere in France.
Another measure will be to ban sales of alcohol in filling stations. Bachelot said that at present, such a ban exists only from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and the new rule should help curb drunk driving.
Bachelot said the measures, which she expected will come into force in 2009, would be accompanied by an advertising campaign featuring youths in a heavenly environment that turns hellish after they have been drinking. In May, a government body in charge of fighting drug and alcohol addiction said it was considering banning “happy hours” during which bars offer cheaper drinks early in the evening to attract customers. Bachelot’s interview made no mention of this.
Source: Reuters July 13, 2008

Long-term addicts to get two free doses of heroin a day in a Danish scheme that could be replicated across the UK Danish drug users will inject heroin in clinics under doctors’ supervision.
State-funded heroin is becoming a reality in Denmark, the latest in a small, but growing, number of European countries – including the UK – concerned with improving drug users’ quality of life and reducing criminality.
Since 1 January, hundreds of drug addicts in the Nordic country have the right to receive two free doses of heroin a day, paid for by their health system. The offer is only for adult, long-term users for whom substitutes such as methadone and subutex have not worked.
“The aim is to improve their state of health, help them avoid committing crimes and stabilise their lives,” explains Dr Anne Mette Doms at the Danish Board of Health, which supervises the project. “Quitting altogether is not a realistic option for most of these patients. For them, this will be a chronic treatment, as if you were treating a chronic disease.” Addicts will need to attend one of five specialist drug clinics across the country, where they will inject diamorphine – pharmaceutical-grade heroin – under doctors’ supervision. The drug will not be available on prescription so as to avoid resale on the street.
Danish authorities are in the process of setting up the clinics, registering the doctors who will work there, and finding out which drug companies they will source the heroin from. The £7.2m project is expected to be up and running by March.
The initiative was adopted by overwhelming consensus in February 2008, after all but one of the parties represented at the Danish parliament voted in favour of the policy – the only one against it was a tiny far-left party that did not oppose the project per se, but the way it was funded. Among those in favour was the far-right Danish People’s Party, a movement not usually known for its progressive views: at the last general election in 2007, it described some Danish Muslims as benefit-scroungers and fifth columnists who threatened Danish democracy.
Some might think this initiative is not surprising in a country with a historical tradition of progressive, social democratic policies. But, just as in the UK, the drug debate has been bruising in Denmark. And unlike in Britain, where heroin is available on the NHS for some cancer patients, heroin as a palliative is completely forbidden in the Nordic country.
“Five years ago I decided I would not participate in yet another debate on drugs,” recalls Preben Brandt, the chairman of the Council for Socially Marginalised People and an advocate of the policy. “It was too emotional, with different groups being very aggressive.”
“The counter-argument was always ‘you kill people by giving heroin’ or ‘with this initiative, you are telling people that taking heroin is OK’,” he says. “It is very difficult to have a rational debate when you are arguing against beliefs.”
The turning point came when results became available from experiments trialling the policy in other European countries, including Switzerland and the Netherlands. “The politicians became convinced that it could help those with the most severe drug problems,” says Mads Uffe Pedersen, the head of the Centre for Alcohol and Drug Research at the University of Aarhus. “You could not argue against the (positive) findings.” “The debate became more practical,” agrees Brandt. “It was about what policies worked and which ones did not. It was no longer about morality.”
Attitudes towards drugs addicts improved too. “Drug addicts in Denmark are less stigmatised,” says Brandt. “They are no longer perceived as criminals who are a danger to society. They’re seen as patients who have a disease they need help with. The new scapegoats in Denmark are the foreigners.”
Could a similar initiative be possible in the UK? It’s actually happening already, with three schemes taking place in Brighton, Darlington and south London, where long-term heroin users can inject drugs under medical supervision at specialised clinics. Early results indicate that the scheme has cut crimes and stopped street sales.
Crimes committed by the addicts involved in the scheme dropped from about 40 to six a month after six months of treatment, Professor John Strang, the head of the National Addiction Centre at the Maudsley hospital, told the Independent newspaper. A third of addicts stopped using street heroin and the number of occasions when the rest used it dropped from every day to four or five times a month, on average.
It remains to be seen whether UK politicians will expand the policy nationwide, especially if they fear a possible backlash from voters. But if British voters are similar to their European cousins, this would not be an issue. Last November, Swiss voters approved the scheme overwhelmingly, with 68% supporting the plan. And there has been no popular backlash in Denmark, following the adoption of the policy by parliament.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk 5th Feb.2009

While a worldwide study has found teenagers on the whole are smoking less marijuana and going out less often with friends, Maltese teenagers have been found to be doing exactly the opposite in both respects.

A study published this week has found that the prevalence of smoking marijuana and going out with friends are inextricably linked. Out of 31 countries, marijuana use among 15-year-old boys and girls between 2002 and 2006 had increased only in Malta, Estonia and Lithuania, and among Russian girls.

Malta’s increases in both sexes were the highest recorded, as were the increased number of nights out with friends. Between 2002 and 2006, the prevalence of cannabis use among Maltese 15-year-old boys increased by 2.7 per cent – from seven per cent in 2002 to 9.7 per cent in 2006 – while the female increase was even higher at 5.6 per cent – from 4.2 to 9.8 per cent in 2006.

In both years, more Maltese girls reported having used cannabis over the previous year than boys while the female rate of increase was also far higher. In both sexes, Malta saw the largest increase in cannabis use, but in terms of overall prevalence Malta’s was ranked in an overall 26th place, and its 9.7-9.8 per cent usage rate paled in comparison to leading countries Canada, Switzerland and the United States – all of which saw rates in the mid to high 20s.

In tandem, Malta also saw the highest increase in the numbers of nights spent out with friends – from 1.9 in 2002 to 2.61 in 2006 for boys and from 1.63 to 2.43 for girls. Both were also the highest increases across the 31-country spectrum. While rates varied widely among countries, prevalence was highest both years in Canada, where 30 per cent of boys and almost 28 per cent of girls used marijuana in 2006. That was down 13 per cent among boys and almost 10 per cent among girls.

According to a study of 15-year-olds across 31 countries between 2002 and 2006, going out with friends and smoking marijuana are related, mostly because research has found that children who spend many evenings out are more likely to smoke marijuana than those who prefer to stay at home.

Since few parents approve of marijuana use, teenagers are most likely to smoke cannabis secretly away from home, said lead author Emmanuel Kuntsche of the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems. While reasons for the declines are unclear, the researchers said drug prevention efforts and technology may have contributed. Moreover, instant messaging, email and mobile phones “may have partly replaced face-to-face contacts, leading to fewer social contacts in the evenings,” Dr Kuntsche said. But while the latter trends have also seen a sharp increase among Malta’s teenagers, so has the practice of going out at night with friends.

The researchers analysed data on 93,297 15-year-olds from periodic health surveys, the “Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children” study, conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organisation, which, among a multitude of other things, asked about marijuana use and evenings out with friends in the past year. Responses to 2006 surveys were compared with those from 2002. The next such research is due to cover the year 2010.

The results of this week’s study – titled “Decrease in Adolescent Cannabis Use from 2002 to 2006 and Links to Evenings Out with Friends” – were published in February’s Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, released on Monday.

Source: Malta Independent Online 6th Feb 2009

The Government will look at an open-minded and balanced approach to reducing drug use but there will be no relaxation of the laws around cannabis, Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne said today.

There were too many mental health problems, respiratory diseases and social issues related to cannabis for the Government to consider legalising the drug, he told an international drug policy symposium in Wellington.

Reports that levels of cannabis and methamphetamine use had levelled off were encouraging, but were not a reason for complacency, he said. “Evidence indicates a balance is needed between reducing supply of drugs through interdiction and enforcement, and also reducing the demand for drugs through prevention and treatment strategies, if we are to be effective in reducing adverse health and social consequences of drug misuse.”

Drug Foundation chairman Tim Harding said it was important the issues were taken seriously. “The problem we face is that sound policy is not always popular or, for that matter, obvious. It has to be based on solid foundations of research, experience and a liberal dose of wisdom.”

Police Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope released an Illicit Drug Strategy at the conference, which detailed the police response to drug related crime until 2010.
The strategy focused on methamphetamine, cannabis and how to protect and deter groups that were most at risk of using the drugs. “We now have increased capacity with the new National Intelligence Centre (NIC) based at Police National Headquarters.” Mr Pope said. “This is going to enable us to more actively record intelligence around drug related crime from each police area and district.”

The strategy recognised that cannabis and methamphetamine were the biggest drug issues in New Zealand, he said. “Preventing today’s young people from becoming tomorrow’s drug users contributes to reducing harm and reducing the overall crime rate.”

United Nations director of policy analysis and public affairs at the office on Drugs and Crime, Sandeep Chawla, told the conference the international community needed to work together to continue stemming the use of illicit drugs.

The multilateral drug control regime had contained illicit drug use to less than 5 percent of the world adult population, and hardcore problem drug users to less than 1 percent, he said.

“There has been considerable reduction over recent decades in the consumption of opiates, the most problematic of drugs, and opium cultivation and production has been limited to just one or two countries in the main.” However, he said containment did not mean the problem had been solved and consequently a thriving criminal black market in drugs had emerged.

“It also appears we have created a system where those who fall into the web of addiction find themselves excluded and marginalised, tainted with a moral stigma, and often unable to find treatment even when they want it.”

Mr Chawla said the international community must renew its commitment to existing conventions and work together on reforms based on empirical evidence rather than ideology, and that public health, the first principle of drug control, must be brought back to centre stage.

The symposium is being held as a precursor to a March meeting of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs in Vienna where the direction of global drug policy for the next 10 years will be set.
Source: http://www.3news.co.nz/News/NationalNews/No-relaxation-on-cannabis-laws- Wed, 18 Feb 2009

Due to the UAE’s strategic location, policies and free zones, the nation is a thriving commercial hub. This country should take pride in the way it has become both a marketplace of goods and services as well as a marketplace of ideas.

But not all the influences that arrive on the UAE’s shores are positive. Yesterday’s revelation of the seizure of 100kg of the stimulant Captogan, an amphetamine commonly used as a recreational drug, came only weeks after customs officials confiscated 16kg of heroin at Dubai International Airport. The Ministry of Interior’s department of anti-narcotics has said that drug related crimes have risen significantly due to the increase in population and in the transit of people and goods through the country.
These recent discoveries and other high profile arrests such as the jailing of a British DJ last year for possession of cannabis illustrate how seriously the Government takes the threat. This no nonsense approach is commendable. No amount of investment in narcotic control is big enough. Drug use may be an individual crime but it has tremendous social costs. Crack-cocaine ravaged American cities in the 1980s and a dependence on the flowering plant khat, chewed by 80 per cent of Yemen’s adult population for its stimulative effects, has been widely attributed as a cause of that nation’s unemployment and poverty levels.
The UAE’s large population of young people, particularly those living outside the cities, have a limited amount of entertainment outlets and drugs all too often become an insidious escape route from boredom. The authorities must continue their vigilant approach, but through education and the creation of more extra-curricular options for youth, the false appeal of drug use can be diminished.

Dubai Customs’s ability to locate the Captogan stash in 152 industrial sized spools of thread through a study of their density is a testament to the effectiveness of their technology and their thoroughness. But drug smugglers will still attempt to flout the law. Strategies for education and rehabilitation are needed to help further reduce the risks that drugs pose to society.
Source: TheNational digital edition Feb. 2009

Six to 10 thousand youth in Ottawa will have a better chance of saying ‘no’ to drugs thanks to a federal government donation. On Feb. 10, Pierre Poilievre, MP for Nepean-Carleton on behalf of the Honorable Leona Aglukkaq, minister of health, announced the federal government will contribute $1 million over a four year period to help eradicate youth addiction and drug usage.
Poilievre announced the government’s support for S.T.E.P. (support, treatment, education and prevention) – a project that provides targeted help for youth in Ottawa who are at risk of engaging in substance abuse. S.T.E.P. is Ottawa’s response to addressing the need for residential addiction treatment, education and prevention for young people aged 13 to 17. It is a fundraising campaign involving community partners such as Ottawa West-Nepean MPP Jim Watson, Ottawa Police chief Vern White, Mayor Larry O’Brien and Michael Allen, president and CEO of United Way Ottawa.
“This project will help to prevent young people in high schools from taking drugs in the first place,” said Poilievre “Activities will be held in those schools for students who are at risk of drinking or taking drugs. This strategy helps to prevent the use of drugs, treats people with drug addictions, and combats drug trafficking. The strategy also emphasizes education for young people and their parents on the damages that drug use can cause.” The initiative was announced at the Ottawa Police headquarters and is part of the government’s national anti-drug strategy, which was introduced in 2007.
“That’s why our Conservative government is providing the project S.T.E.P. with up to $1 million in support—over the next four years—from its drug treatment funding program,” Poilievre added. According to Allen, this initiative “will no less than double the capacity for counsellors and prevention education” and will -double the infrastructure that is already in place in Ottawa schools. “It’s a good day for the future of our community,” said White.
“A number of schools don’t have the resources they need and a number of schools certainly don’t have the capacity to deal with the challenges they are facing right now.” White said six to 6,000 to 10,000 youths in Ottawa will benefit from this programming. Poilievre concluded by saying this initiative is close to his heart since he has seen some of his loved ones battle drug addiction.
“It’s very important that lives are spared from this terrible destructive path and I’m hoping that this million dollar donation will help us to achieve that goal.”
Source: meghan.graham@nepeathisweek.com Feb.21 2009

The so called war on drugs is 100 years old this year, yet the taking of illicit drugs is showing few signs of coming under control.

The International Opium Commission, first convened in Shanghai in 1909 and since then the number of internationally-controlled substances has grown to more than 200. The United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board, in its annual report released yesterday, paints a picture of an ever-expanding and increasingly violent drugs market, with new trafficking routes being opened regularly, many of them in our region.

WATTERS: It will be an ongoing battle. I think it’s like a lot of other things we face in life, poverty, discrimination and racism. It’s a continuing battle. But certainly things would be a great deal worse if it hadn’t been for what was launched in China in the year 2009 [1909]. For example, in 2009 [1909], there was, in China alone there was three thousand tonnes of morphine equivalent of opium being consumed. Now in the whole world today, there’s not that much, including what’s being used legally. So we know there’s been a very significant downturn in the use of that drug, even though it’s very much in the hands of very clever criminal syndicates, but we’ve certainly controlled it to a very large extent.

LAM: Your report also notes that the internet is playing an increasing role in the trafficking of legal and unauthorised prescription drugs. How is the Internet being used for drug trafficking?

WATTERS: Well Sen, like a lot of other areas in our modern life, we’re having to cope with changes in technology and certainly the rapid movement of information and the free movement of information on the Internet allows for criminal syndicates around the world to plan their movements of drugs and place their orders using various sorts of cryptology, avoiding the open statement. Then on top of that, we have what we call the Internet pharmacy proliferation around the world and these pharmacies are very often, not all, but a significant number of fronts for Illegal organisations to allow controlled substances to be moved freely from country to country through the postal systems.

LAM: And indeed, with modern communications being so efficient now, the drugs do pass quite easily from country to country. For instance, your report pointed out that Chinese chemicals are being used by Canadian ecstasy manufacturers to make drugs which then end up being sold in Australia and Japan. So it’s quite a daunting challenge, isn’t it?

WATTERS: Yes, it’s an international movement and certainly part of what we’ve been doing at the International Narcotics Control Board is seeking to control those precursors and we do very, very well in many ways, but when you think that a country like China with its vast numbers, they tell us they have got 50,000 factories there that are producing chemicals that could be diverted illicitly into the methamphedamine markets, so it’s a huge task and the India similarly has a big task just to control these things.

LAM: So is there a sort of common attitude by world authorities towards drugs and drug use. For instance, the chair of Britain’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Professor David Nutt, recently said that using ecstasy was no more dangerous than horse riding. So are we wasting resources by targeting drugs like ecstasy?

WATTERS: Well, with all due respect, I think he’s being very foolish to even talk like that. One of the difficulties we face in many countries is to use the term recreational or party in relationship to dangerous drugs. We do know that more than 95 per cent of the member states of the United Nations are signatories to the convention and that covers 99 per cent of the world’s population. So in principle, they all agree that we should control drugs, make available where necessary, but certainly not allow for the recreational use of these dangerous substances and to suggest that…there is so much medical evidence that these methamphetamine type drugs can have seriously long term psychotic affects. I suppose it could be said if you fell of a horse and landed on your head, that might be equivalent.
presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Major Brian Watters from the Salvation Army is a Member of the International Narcotics Control Board and Chairman of the Australian National Council on Drugs
Source:www.radioaustralia.net Feb20th 2009

The effects of cannabis use on health and social adjustment are profound.
Substance misuse by Indigenous people has long been recognised
as one of the devastating consequences of contact with
Western culture. Misuse of tobacco, alcohol and petrol
among Indigenous Australians has received much attention. Cannabis,
by contrast, has not been viewed as a major problem. But
since the 1990s, it has become apparent that heavy cannabis use is
common in some remote Indigenous communities.1 The associated
health and social burdens are now being recognised.
Indigenous Australians, whether living in urban or rural
settings, are more likely than other Australians to report cannabis
use. Recent reports suggest that cannabis use is also relatively
high among Indigenous populations in New Zealand, Canada
and North America. Limited data are available on patterns of
cannabis use among Indigenous Australians. However, a recent
5-year study of adolescents and young adults in three remote
communities in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory has
found that not only is cannabis use common in remote Indigenous
settings, but its effects on health and social adjustment are
profound. These three communities are close to one another but very
isolated, being over 550 kilometres from the nearest city. There is
one local Indigenous language, and English is a secondary language.
Tobacco use was found to be the norm in these communities,
with over 90% of adolescents and young adults smoking.
Because of restricted access to alcohol, problem drinking was
uncommon. In contrast, cannabis use was endemic, with over
70% of males and 20% of females being current users. Cannabis
was typically consumed mixed with tobacco and smoked using a
locally fashioned “bucket bong” that gives the user a rapid and
intense dose with little smoke lost. Regular heavy use (_6
“cones” daily) was found in almost 90% of users. This is around
twice the consumption of regular cannabis users elsewhere in
Australia. Furthermore, about 90% of the Indigenous users
reported symptoms of cannabis dependence. This compares with
about 20% of users aged 18 or over in the general Australian
population.3 Of even greater concern was a suggestion that, for
most Indigenous users, cannabis was not a passing adolescent
phase. After 5 years of follow-up, the great majority reported
continuing heavy use.
Cannabis use was linked to substantial health problems and
social burdens in these communities, which are already disadvantaged
by isolation and poverty. Up to 10% of the communities’
total income and between 31% and 62% of a user’s median weekly
income was spent on cannabis. Cannabis users were less likely
than non-users to participate in education or training and more
likely to report auditory hallucinations, suicidal ideation, symptoms
of depression, and having been imprisoned. Community
violence increased when cannabis supplies were scarce. The
effects on traditional life were described by one NT Indigenous
mental health clinician in the following way:
Too many of my people are chained to [cannabis]. They don’t
go out hunting or spend time by the river with their family.
They just sit and smoke [cannabis], then look for money to buy
more [cannabis] and get into fights when they can’t get any
(Muriel Jaragba, personal communication).
What accounts for the unusual patterns of cannabis misuse in
these remote Indigenous communities? There is little evidence that
cannabis is grown locally, but much anecdotal evidence that
market networks supplied by dealers based in urban or regional
centres are extensive and resilient, making cannabis readily available
(A R C, unpublished observation). Alcohol restrictions have
been effective in reducing problem drinking within communities,
but may have had the undesirable consequence of encouraging an
increase in cannabis use where it could be easily obtained. As
with risks for other forms of substance misuse in these communities,
the social context is important. Limited employment and
education opportunities; crowded, poor-quality housing; community-
wide feelings of disempowerment; and grief and loss related
to high mortality, morbidity and incarceration rates are all likely
risk factors for substance misuse. Cannabis misuse is likely to be
both a consequence of this type of social disadvantage and a
perpetuating influence.
Cannabis misuse in remote Indigenous communities has been
overlooked for too long. It is now clear that it is yet another major
problem for these already disadvantaged communities, with evidence
of cannabis misuse across a broad area of northern Australia.
As well as in the NT, concerns about the level of cannabis
use have recently been noted in Cape York and anecdotally in
other parts of remote and regional Australia. Further research is
needed to investigate the impact of cannabis use on urban
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians.
Effective responses will not be easy. Controls on supply by
state- or territory-based police are one of the few available
measures. In order to be effective, policymakers and service
providers would need to work collaboratively with local communities
to tie in local prevention and treatment initiatives with
existing supply control initiatives. Such programs would need to
use Indigenous language and cultural frameworks, build capacity
of local Indigenous professionals, and improve understanding of
the harms associated with cannabis misuse. Ultimately, tackling
the misuse of cannabis and other substances in remote settings
will depend on creating opportunities for social development
and for continuing education, training and employment of
adolescents and young adults.

Source: 228 MJA • Volume 190 Number 5 • 2 March 2009

Tuesday 03 March 2009
The tax on alcohol should be doubled to discourage under-age drinking, according to a group of experts in Tuesday’s AD. The move would also save billions of euros as the damage caused by drunken teenagers declined, says the paper.
The call comes from the alcohol prevention foundation Stap, criminologist Jan van Dijk and paediatrician Nico van der Lely, who say it is time for drastic measures. They say the soft approach of the past 20 years has not worked and the only option is to raise the price of alcohol.
The Netherlands has been wrestling the problem of teenage drinking in recent years. Last December new figures from the national statistics office CBS showed that Dutch teenagers are now drinking less. The number of teens who use alcohol fell from 85% in 2003 to 79% in 2007. This is ‘probably’ due to the need to prove you are at least 16 when buying alcohol, said CBS researcher Jan Latten.
Source: Daily Dose 4th March 2009

We, participants of the World Mayors’ Conference against drugs – reaffirm our support for the UN Conventions and declare that all people have the right to expect their governments to work according to the conventions and their intentions.Worldwide, cannabis is the most frequent used illicit drug, which calls for action from each city and country. Extensive research confirms that the use of cannabis is detrimental to health, causes crime, and is addictive. Cannabis, and certain other drugs, for example khat, should be viewed in the same way as other types of illicit/psychotropic drugs for example cocaine,
heroine and amphetamine, when it comes to control policy, rehabilitation and preventive measures.

We, participants …..
 Reaffirm our unwavering determination and commitment to overcoming the world drug problem through international and domestic strategies to reduce both the illicit supply of and demand for drugs;

 Recognize that action against the drug problem is a common and shared responsibility requiring an integrated and balanced approach in full conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law;

 Affirm our determination to provide the necessary resources for treatment and rehabilitation and to enable social reintegration to restore dignity and hope to children, youth, women and men who have become drug abusers, and to fight against all aspects of the world drug problem;

 Urge all people to work with their governments to strengthen, support, and encourage the UN system of drug control, in order to reduce the global demand and supply of illicit drugs;

 Emphasize the immediate need for all countries and cities to place drug issues as one of the high priorities on their development agendas;

Together we can meet the challenge and make a difference!

Minister of State for Community Affairs John Curran has expressed “grave concern” that people addicted to drugs “seem to be on methadone for an extended period of time”.
He said “not everybody who uses methadone uses it exclusively” and it appeared to be taken with a combination of other drugs. “I may not be in my position long enough, but I would like to see the hard evidence to show progression” and an “active methadone-reduction programme”.
The Minister was answering questions about Health Research Board figures which revealed 2,442 drug-related deaths in the eight-year period from 1998-2005.
Labour spokesman Jack Wall expressed concern that 60 deaths in 2005 involved the use of methadone. If drug addicts were getting access to methadone from more than one source “instead of curing themselves, addicts are creating more problems for themselves” with addiction to methadone. Mr Curran said the HSE “is in the process of implementing a national overdose-prevention strategy which would address the issue of benzodiazepines, prescription drugs and methadone”.
Referring to the figures for 2005, the Minister said of the 400 drug-related deaths “cocaine was implicated in 100 deaths”, while 25 per cent of deaths from poisoning were “the result of alcohol in conjunction with another drug”.
He said while illegal drugs were involved in many cases, “prescribed drugs and over-the-counter medication, such as anti-anxiety drugs like valium, antidepressants and pain-killers, are frequently involved in such deaths, either alone or in conjunction with illegal drugs”.
Catherine Byrne (FG, Dublin South Central) expressed concern about service cutbacks in drugs task force areas. “I will not criticise the Minister, whose heart is in the right place,” she said.
However, she warned that crime was greatly linked to drugs, and the Government had to “take the drugs issue seriously if we are to get anything done”. She said the local Inchicore drugs team had to reduce its budget by €30,000, and other services in Wexford and Tipperary had being asked to reduce their budgets by 14 per cent.
Mr Curran said while the funding in 2008 was €34.776 million, it was €34.6 million for 2009, a slight reduction. However, spending had increased significantly over the years.
Source, Marie O’Halloran, The Irish Times,05/03/2009

Last year seven student-athletes at Green Valley High School tested positive for drugs or alcohol. This year? Zero.
Green Valley High School players cheer before the second half of their game against Bishop Gorman during the Nevada girls basketball state semifinals Feb. 26 at the Orleans Arena. Student-athletes at the school and other students engaged in extracurricular activities that involve travel are subject to random drug testing.
Green Valley High School administrators say the success of their year-old random drug testing program can be seen in the lower numbers of drug users they are catching.
But Taylor Ashton, a sophomore at the Henderson campus, said he has seen the changes in a more direct way — in the school’s “bathrooms and hallways.” A year ago, he explained, it wasn’t unusual to walk into a campus bathroom and smell smoke. He said he couldn’t be more specific about the type of smoke.
These days, even the talk about drugs — on campus, at the bus stop and at parties of Green Valley students — is down, he said. Green Valley students appear to be trying hard to avoid failing a test that an increasing number of Clark County schools are adding to their curriculums. Next month, seven additional Clark County high schools will begin randomly testing students for drugs.
In February 2008, Green Valley became the first public high school in Nevada to randomly test students for drug use. One of the reasons, Green Valley Principal Jeff Horn said, was that during the 2006-07 academic year, the school caught nearly 8 percent of its athletes using drugs or alcohol, more than twice the rate for the rest of the school’s student population.
This academic year, just two student-athletes have been referred to the dean’s office for offenses involving controlled substances, said Jackie Carducci, assistant principal for athletics and activities. That equates to less than a half-percent of the school’s student-athletes. Horn said the two were playing hooky when they were caught by Clark County School District Police and brought back to campus, where it was determined that they had been smoking marijuana.
The number of students who are flunking urinalysis is also down.
Through the end of the academic year in June 2008, seven of the 264 Green Valley athletes tested positive. From the start of the 2008-09 academic year through January, Green Valley tested 263 students with only four positive results. None of those were student-athletes. This year’s testing pool has been expanded to include students who participate in extracurricular activities that require travel, such as forensics and musical groups.
The U.S. Supreme Court has deemed random drug testing of students participating in sports or other school activities constitutional, but public schools cannot require testing of all students. At Green Valley, parents can opt to have their children added to the pool and more than 100 have, the principal said.
“Our community is behind us,” he said. “I would say things are going extremely well.”
Funding uncertain
In September, Coronado and Silverado high schools followed Green Valley’s lead. Since then, Coronado has tested 224 students and five student-athletes flunked the tests. Silverado has checked 100 student-athletes and five didn’t pass. The school is testing only student-athletes — a pool of about 500 — because that’s all it can afford.
And because it doesn’t have any external funding, Silverado’s program has an uncertain future, Principal Kim Grytdahl said. To cover the cost this year, he boosted the fee for athletic registration to $20 from $5. “With the way school budgets are right now, I don’t know that we can fund the program at the level that it needs to be, so that it does what it’s supposed to do,” Grytdahl said. “Given the economic climate, I don’t think it’s fair to pass any more of the price along to the children.”
At Green Valley, the program is covered by private grants and donations, enough to keep it going at least through 2010, Horn said.
A three-year, $450,000 federal grant is paying for the random drug testing that is to begin next month at Centennial, Del Sol, Desert Pines, Durango, Eldorado, Foothill and Mojave high schools. But whether additional federal money will be available to allow more high schools to start drug testing is unknown.
The Bush administration made random student drug testing a priority; opponents of such programs hope that “with a new administration that values evidence-based outcomes, … money will no longer be diverted from student-based programs to random drug testing,” said Jennifer Kern, youth policy manager of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national advocacy group. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Education Department said Tuesday that the new administration has not yet taken up the question of random student drug testing.
Proponents say random testing serves as a deterrent, helps schools identify students who need help and gives those students an excuse to say no to offers of drugs or alcohol, while opponents contend the at-risk students who often benefit the most from involvement in school activities and sports drop out rather than risk being tested.
Administrators at Green Valley, Coronado and Silverado all said, however, that student participation in sports or extracurricular activities has not declined since the random testing programs began. In fact, participation is up at Coronado, Principal Lee Koelliker said. The testing will continue at Coronado next year, he said.
“Our athletes as well as their parents understand that there is a drug problem in our schools, not only in the CCSD but throughout the country, and appreciate the fact that we are taking a stance to try and combat the use of these substances,” Koelliker said.
‘False sense of security’
Kern contends, however, that random testing gives parents a false sense of security that if there’s a drug problem at a school or with their child, campus administrators will catch it. “The prevention research out there shows what really works is helping students feel connected to school and getting them to believe there is an adult who cares about them,” she said. “With random testing, you’re treating students like they’re guilty until proven innocent.”
In addition to questions about the long-term efficacy of random testing, organizations such as the ACLU say the program raises serious concerns about privacy rights, and can serve only to diminish trust among students and school staff.
Leah Yaffe, a senior and president of Green Valley’s forensics team, said she doesn’t find the random drug testing policy intrusive. “I don’t see it as administrators trying to find out who the bad kids are,” she said. “It’s trying to find out who might have a problem.”
The program might be less of a deterrent to students who are regular drug users, especially those whose social group revolves around the behavior, Yaffe said. But for a student who might be considering experimenting, she said, the specter of the test offers “a viable excuse” for turning down an offer of drugs or alcohol — a way to deflate peer pressure without losing face.
Green Valley junior Asli Kupoglu, a starter on the varsity girls soccer team, had to pass the test twice in three weeks, and it was inconvenient and a little embarrassing. Still, Kupoglu said she fully supports random drug testing for students who represent Green Valley in extracurricular activities. The possibility of being called for a drug test has made some students rethink some of their choices, she said.
Kupoglu also said she would support expanding the testing pool to include all extracurricular activities, and not just the ones that involve travel. She pointed out that the Student Council members who weren’t in the testing pool voted to voluntarily add their names, to set an example.
“I was really proud of them for doing that,” Kupoglu said.
How the testing works
Green Valley, Coronado and Silverado high schools are all using Sport Safe, an Ohio-based vendor, for testing services.
Green Valley and Coronado require students who participate in athletics or extracurricular activities that require travel — music and vocal groups, forensics teams — to be part of the testing pool. Both schools also allow parents of students who don’t fall into those categories to sign their teens up for the program. Silverado currently tests only student athletes.
Sport Safe chooses the names of students to be tested at random, and provides the list to the school. Those students are escorted by a staff member from class to the nurse’s office, where they must provide a urine sample. Refusal to give a sample is considered a positive test.
The test covers a range of substances, including alcohol, nicotine, anabolic steroids, amphetamines, marijuana and cocaine. Nicotine is included on the list because the use of tobacco products is a violation of Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association regulations, even if the student is of legal age.
The sample is processed at a local lab, and the results go to Sport Safe. If a test is positive, Sport Safe notifies parents within 24 hours. The school’s principal is also notified.
Students who test positive for any banned substance are required to undergo drug counselling, and are restricted from participating in school activities, in keeping with the guidelines of NIAA. Students who test positive a second time are not allowed to participate in interscholastic competition for a minimum of six weeks and cannot practice with their teams or participate in offseason activities. Students who have a third positive drug test are ruled ineligible for interscholastic competition for the remainder of their high school careers in Nevada.
Students who test positive must also submit to five follow-up tests over the course of the academic year, and the school can charge them $35 per test.
Source Las Vegas Sun 6th March 2009

NDPA COMMENT
The following item on BBC Online (Newsbeat) 13th July has a spokesperson from the Department of Health declaring that “The government has invested £406 million for drug treatment in 2009/10, of which £24.7 million is available to support young people’s treatment,” … And yet the only residential rehab in the country for those age under 18, Middlegate Lodge, is fighting closure for lack of funds. ‘Treatment’ in the UK often means methadone maintenance (useless for cocaine addiction) or counselling sessions for a few weeks – also useless if the young person is still living in the same area and meeting the same using friends. The Department of Health and the National Treatment Agency need to seriously re-consider ‘treatment’ – and not only for young people – and to seriously invest in more effective drug prevention.

Cocaine A&E cases hit record high
Seventeen people a week are now being admitted to accident and emergency departments after taking cocaine, according to official government figures seen by Newsbeat.

More than one million people regularly use cocaine in the UK
Doctors treated 894 people in England for a “cocaine-induced health emergency” in 2007/8, compared with 740 in 2006/7 and just 448 in 2003/4.
The total number of people taken to hospital after using any type of illegal drug has risen 45% in five years to 9,543, according to the figures obtained by the Liberal Democrats.

“These statistics are really shocking,” said the Liberal Democrat health spokesman Norman Lamb. The price of cocaine has come down significantly but at the same time it has also [become] chic. That hides the massive health risks.”

Health problems
More than one million people regularly use cocaine in the UK – more than any other European country – according to the UN’s latest report.

Snorting the drug in large or strong quantities often leads to hallucinations and disorientation. At the extreme end “cocaine poisoning” can occur where the user starts fitting and vomiting.
Cocaine use also constricts blood vessels and can result in a rise in body temperature, burst blood vessels and, in some cases, death from brain seizures, heart failure and respiratory problems.
Research in the medical journal Circulation suggests that up to 25% of heart attacks in people under 30 can be blamed on regular cocaine use, instead of the more typical coronary artery disease.
John, not his real name, from Northampton told Newsbeat he collapsed in a pub after months of serious cocaine use.
“I had bought coke that day and had been using it. As the night went on I got more paranoid to the point where not a lot was making sense. That’s when the anxiety set in,” he said.
“I remember getting up and thinking I need to get out and within five steps I collapsed and started having fits on the floor. It felt as if I was being kicked to pieces on the ground.”
“I can’t remember a great deal from that evening. I went straight to hospital and was seen by the mental assessment team and that is when I realised I needed to change my life.”

Falling price, growing use
Doctors say the falling price of cocaine means users are more likely to take larger amounts on a night out, increasing the risk of an accidental overdose. The average street price of the drug is now down to £42 a gram – partly because it is increasingly cut with other chemicals – according to the charity DrugScope.

That could make a line more dangerous as people either react badly to the cutting agent or get used to the low purity making them more vulnerable if they accidentally come across a strong batch.
The government’s drug advisors warned last year that they are seeing more cases of young people ending up in hospital after snorting lines of MDMA – or powdered ecstasy – thinking it was cocaine.
Kerry, 23, from Kent, told Newsbeat she had a couple of bad nights on coke before deciding to stop taking the drug for good.
“I was doing too much of it. I remember being sick a few times and eventually I was found underneath the building fitting with my eyes rolling up the back of my head,” she told Newsbeat.
“I don’t remember any of it. I just remember waking up with my friends in front of me crying. They wanted to call an ambulance but I just about managed to come round but was hazy for about three days.”

‘Record investment’
Six months later one of Kerry’s best friends died on a night out after taking the drug.
“She hadn’t touched it for a while and then one weekend she got the wrong sort of stuff – which was mixed with MDMA and some other things – and then once it went up her nose it killed her,” she said.
“By the time she got to the hospital it was too late; she died in the ambulance. I was devastated because we both just thought it was a bit of fun and it would never happen to us.”
While government surveys show that drug use as a whole has fallen since records began in 1995, the number of adults taking cocaine has risen from 0.6% in 1994 to 2.3% last year.
A spokesperson for the Department of Heath said tackling drug misuse remains a priority.
“The government has invested £406 million for drug treatment in 2009/10, of which £24.7 million is available to support young people’s treatment,” she said.
“Drugs use amongst young people is actually declining. Thanks to record investment, specialist substance misuse services have expanded greatly and there are now more young people getting treatment.
“This is encouraging and reflects our continuing efforts to tackle drug use amongst young people.”

While treatment is an important component in many people’s recovery, its effect becomes less and less pronounced the further away you get from the treatment episode. As William White, the recovery researcher and historian says, the further away you get from treatment, the more important is the post-treatment environment.
Aftercare and mutual aid are evidence-based components of the post-treatment environment. We know that those who come out of treatment who take up aftercare and mutual aid do better than those who don’t.
In Scotland, we have a long tradition of mutual aid groups and they form an important part of the recovery community. In the USA, there are much better developed recovery communities in many areas. We need to nurture recovery communities locally here.
On Friday 17th July, in Edinburgh, there will be the first of several ‘Recovery Cafes’ this summer. This one will be held at Old St. Paul’s in Jeffrey Street and will run from 6.00pm to midnight.
The cafe has been developed by those in recovery and those who support recovery and will offer a safe and sober meeting place for those in recovery to gather. If these cafe nights are successful then dedicated premises will be sought and Edinburgh will have a permanent facility to support and nurture the recovery community.
If you are in the city on Friday and you are in recovery or support those who are, check it out! Like Wired In, this is a valuable resource and recovery tool. It’s also another piece of evidence of how recovery is here in Edinburgh and growing.
Source: Wired In July 2009

Four out of ten teenagers know someone with mental health problems caused by cannabis, a report shows. More than half of youngsters questioned also believed that those smoking the drug lose motivation and do badly at school.
The survey, by the Home Office funded drugs advice service Frank, is fresh evidence that the supposedly soft drug has harmed the health, education and careers of millions of teenagers. It comes a week after a study showed that even one-off users of cannabis show signs of behaviour linked to schizophrenia, with half of those tested having an ‘acute psychotic reaction’.
The results challenge the orthodoxy – followed by Frank in its guidance to youngsters – that cannabis is dangerous only to heavy users or those who already have mental health problems.
The advice service’s report showed that 42 per cent of 11 to 18-year-olds knew someone who had suffered mental problems from the drug, including paranoia, panic attacks and memory loss. The figure suggests that 1.5million teenagers have had direct experience of the harm caused by cannabis.
It could be a reason why fewer youngsters have been taking the drug, with use falling since 2001. However, the number of under-25s smoking cannabis was still almost one in five last year. Among those who knew someone who had suffered damage from cannabis, 64 per cent said the harm took the form of panic attacks.
The survey of 28,000 teenagers, which was carried out through a social-networking website, also found that 56 per cent of those questioned ‘associate cannabis use with losing motivation and doing badly at school or college’. Almost 15 per cent said they used cannabis, which they claimed helped them cope with life. But only 11 per cent said they thought using the drug made them look cool.
The criminal status of cannabis was downgraded to Category C by Labour in 2004, meaning it ranked alongside performance-enhancing drugs used by cheating athletes. This meant users would be arrested only rarely if caught by police.
However, deepening concerns over the mental health effects of the drug – and the stronger varieties now sold on the streets – meant it was pushed back into the more serious Category B this year. But still only a few of those caught with cannabis will be arrested, with police more likely to use powers to hand out on-the-spot fines.
Frank spokesman Chris Hudson said: ‘The majority of teenagers don’t want to risk their health by using cannabis, however some people choose to take the risk.
‘Others wrongly believe cannabis is harmless because it is a plant. Cannabis messes with your mind – and reactions can be more powerful with stronger strains such as skunk, which is around twice as potent.’ The organisation is to start an anti-cannabis advertising campaign next week, timed to catch teenagers during their summer holidays when they may be tempted to use drugs.
The Frank website currently states that only regular use of cannabis is associated with the risk of mental illness. It also says that nobody knows whether stronger strains of the drug carry higher risks. Phone lines run by the advice organisation, paid for out of a Home Office subsidy of £6.5million a year, can be even less discouraging.
One caller was told earlier this year: ‘Alcohol is a powerful drug in what it does to your body and how many brain cells it kills and stuff. Cannabis is not to be taken lightly, but it’s a lot less powerful. If alcohol were illegal it would be a Class A drug. Cannabis should just be a Class C drug. In terms of its effects it’s a lot less powerful than drinking.’
Anti-drug campaigners welcomed the Frank research. Mary Brett of Europe Against Drugs said: ‘Frank has been stuck in a time warp. Their website still isn’t up to date. They have always said you should steer clear of cannabis if you have a history of mental illness. It doesn’t seem likely that the damaged people known to 42 per cent of teenagers all had a history of mental illness.’
Source: Daily Mail 6th Aug. 2009

The following letter from Peter O’Loughlin regarding the NTA Report is very illuminating. Harm Reduction is central to the UK government policy on drugs but the continued increase in deaths related to drug misuse must surely necessitate a change. Prevention first, then intervention, then treatment leading to abstinence. Treatment should include the choice of residential for those who desire it and harm reduction should be used as a last resort for a limited time.
SMMGP POLICY UPDATE – Good Practice in Harm Reduction Report NTA (October 2008)

I would respectfully point out that the claim regarding reduction in drug related deaths fails to acknowledge the fact that there was an increase between 2003-4, largely accounted for by deaths involving heroin/methadone and morphine (1)

Your update also disregards the fact that drug related deaths are at their highest for 5 years.(2) In fact as you should be aware the total number of drug poisoning deaths in 2007 including a staggering 16 per cent rise in deaths involving heroin and morphine compared to 2006, increased to 2,640.

It is even more regrettable that you chose not to point out that deaths from heroin and morphine appear to be increasing year on year, or the fact that in 2007 there were 196 deaths involving cocaine, the highest recorded number of deaths involving cocaine since the ONS database began in 1993.

A further notable omission are the deaths relating to methadone, which increased by a wholly unacceptable increase of 35 percent over 2006 to 325 and once again the highest level since 1999.

An even more glaring omission is the fact that in males no less than 67 per cent of drug poisoning deaths were attributable to ‘drug misuse’.

In the light of the foregoing, I have to consider whether your update ‘Good practice in Harm Reduction’ is being unrealistically optimistic, or, like the title, misleading. I will reserve judgement pending your comments.

(1) Office of national Statistic in 2007s: April 2007

(2) Office of national Statistics: Health Quarterly Statistics autumn 2008.

Source: e-mail from Peter O’Loughlin, The Eden Lodge Practice.
Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009

In 2008 organized crime in Australia is estimated conservatively to cost $10 billion according to the Australian Crime Commission.
The estimate includes the loss of legitimate business revenue, loss of taxation revenue, law enforcement expenditure, regulation and social harms where criminal activity compromises the health, safety and wellbeing of individuals and communities.
Illicit drugs account for at least 50 per cent of the costs of organized crime which are conservatively estimated at $5 billion per year.
As the illicit drug profits are repatriated overseas the costs involving money laundering will add to the cost of organized drug crime.
The Australian Crime Commission believes that organized crime gangs are highly efficient, use the latest technology and employ highly paid professionals to protect their activities.
(Source: Organised Crime in Australia, Australian Crime Commission, February 2009).

The romance with weed is never-ending for California marijuana devotees. Now, they claim their beloved drug can save the state by solving its unrelenting budget nightmare.
State legislation is afoot to legalize and tax marijuana to backfill the state budget. But, like the grandiose daydreams of a stoner, the reality of this plan would be far different from its vision. I won’t go all “Reefer Madness” on you or claim that hemp T-shirts are a slippery slope to damnation. The problem with marijuana legalization is simpler and worse.
California cannot afford more stoned people, especially stoned young people. We need a lot fewer stoned people.
Prevention experts understand the problem with legalization: The greater the access to an intoxicant, the more abuse there will be of that intoxicant. Alcohol isn’t the most dangerous drug in the world because it’s worse than heroin or cocaine. It’s the most dangerous drug because it’s so easily accessible. You can get large quantities of it anywhere, and cheaply, too. Underage drinking is a big problem because kids can get alcohol so easily.
Legal marijuana would mean more access to marijuana. The number of marijuana users would spike, including teens. Problems related to marijuana use would spike. Marijuana lobbyists argue that if a dangerous drug such as alcohol is legal, then marijuana should be, too. I’ve never understood that. With all the problems we have with alcohol, why would we want to legalize another intoxicant?
Right now, there are 127 million alcohol users and 14 million marijuana users in this country – because one is legal and the other isn’t. But, most alcohol users don’t get intoxicated. About one-fifth of alcohol users binge drink or regularly drink heavily.
The serious problems from alcohol occur when people get intoxicated. With marijuana, you get intoxicated every time you use it. That’s the whole point. Marijuana intoxication and alcohol intoxication may be different, but both are bad for society.
Marijuana intoxication means cognitive impairment, grandiosity, short-term memory loss, difficulty in carrying out complex mental processes and impaired judgment. It severely hurts your ability to perform at school and work. It saps initiative and drive. It increases confusion. In other words, it makes you stupid.
An increase in stoners among California’s young people and work force would be very bad for the state. Right now, we’re in a recession in which people without college degrees are losing jobs twice as fast as people with college degrees. Our future economy will be based on innovation, education and highly skilled labor.
But we’re already not producing enough college graduates for our future work-force needs. With many more stoned teens and young people, the problems of an unskilled, uneducated and unmotivated work force will get worse. Stoned people can’t learn or work very well. Marijuana is the loser drug: That’s the big problem with it.
What about the idea that California can balance its budget by legalizing marijuana and taxing the heck out of it? You haven’t been paying attention to special-interest politics if you believe that.
Moneyed special interests run policy in this state. Look what happened when California criminal justice policies made prison guards one of the most powerful lobbies in the state. The union quickly began dictating policy in its own interest.
The alcohol industry is so powerful in California that beer taxes haven’t increased in nearly 20 years; the last time they were raised was by a minuscule amount and the industry almost killed that. A wealthy marijuana industry will soon co-opt policy-makers and dictate how much tax we charge, where we sell the product and who gets to buy it. Why would a marijuana industry be different from any other special interest?
Personally, I don’t think the marijuana lobby believes its own arguments. When I talk to legalization proponents, it usually boils down to their angry demand that people should be left alone to get stoned if they want to. That libertarian sentiment shows a complete disregard for the public good. If legalizers can’t understand that, elected policy-makers certainly should.
The disingenuousness of the marijuana lobby becomes clear on the subject of medical marijuana. For marijuana lobbyists to push both recreational marijuana and medicinal marijuana at the same time is duplicitous. It’s nakedly obvious where their real desires lie.
Recreational drug use and medical drug use have nothing in common. If pharmaceutical lobbyists pushed recreational and medical use of the same drug, they’d get hauled before Congress and slammed by state attorneys. But the marijuana lobby sees nothing wrong with its tactics.
How about a little more candour from marijuana romantics? Like the panhandler standing on a street corner with a sign that says, “Why lie? I just want a beer.”
Source: San Diego Union Tribune March 26, 2009

Bandar Seri Begawan – The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in its tireless vigilance has once again apprehended several individuals suspected of consuming and distributing illegal drugs openly in public.
According to a press release from NCB, investigations into these activities have warranted the arrests of 10 men between the ages of 18 and 38, including two men who had been reported to have blatantly sold these drugs to passers by at a jetty and the back streets of Kg Saba Darat in the capital.
Some 70 NCB officers were involved in the drug bust last Thursday where they succeeded in seizing several packets of illegal drugs.
The operation is part of a series that NCB will be conducting in known drug hotspots in their commitment to clean up the streets of illegal drugs.
According to Section 39(a), Paragraph 27 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, any person found guilty for possession of controlled drugs will face a minimum sentence of 20 years imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane, and a maximum sentence of 30 years with 15 strokes of the cane.
But possession of controlled drugs exceeding 500 grammes carries the death penalty in Brunei.
Meanwhile, suspects found guilty of consuming controlled drugs will be charged under Section 6(b), Paragraph 27 of the Misuse of Drugs Act and will face a minimum of three years and a maximum of 10 years or imposed with a $20,000 fine or both.
Source: Borneo Bulletin www.BruDirect.com March 2009

The number of babies being referred for temporary foster care in Edinburgh because of parental drug misuse has doubled in the last year.
Edinburgh City Council said the statistics showed that the capital was in “desperate need” of more carers. An appeal has been launched to encourage more people to help care for vulnerable babies.
The plea was made at the launch of a training DVD to help people looking after vulnerable babies. Some 99 babies under six months old were referred for foster placement in 2008, double the number in the previous year.
Fifty of those babies were referred before they were born and two thirds of all the babies were suffering from the effects of alcohol or drug addiction as a result of the mother’s addiction problems.
Growing demand
Those babies often suffer from a range of physical, cognitive and emotional problems and need extra care. Councillor Marilyne MacLaren, Edinburgh City Council’s leader for children and young people, said: “The city’s foster carers are dedicated people but the problem we have now is that there aren’t enough carers to meet the growing demand.
“We want the people of Edinburgh to know that a wide range of people can be foster carers. Whether you are in your 20s or your 50s, in a couple or single, you can apply as long as you’re committed and are willing to help a child who has had a tough start in life.”
Ms MacLaren said the increasing number of cases meant social workers were stretched and services could not be sustained or improved without adequate investment.
“It’s a vicious cycle. If we don’t have the resources to tackle the problem at its source then we will see more vulnerable babies,” she added. I’ll be approaching the Scottish Government to ask them to revisit the issue and to take action because if things don’t change, the lives of vulnerable children will get even harder.”
Source: BBC NEWS: go2009/03/26
http://news.bbc.co.uk/ /pr/fr/-/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7965526.stm

Brandon Muir was only 23 months old when he was killed by the boyfriend of his drug-addicted mother.
BBC Scotland’s home affairs correspondent Reevel Alderson reports on the children who are living with drugs. The statistics are shocking and bleak – and they reveal the human consequences of Scotland’s drugs epidemic.
Glasgow University has estimated that between 40,000 and 50,000 children live with at least one drug-addicted parent.
The number of children removed from their own home because they are being neglected is rising.
And, according to a report seen by BBC Scotland, 30% of those taken into emergency care in Edinburgh are newly born.
The report, produced by Scotland’s Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) but not published outside the organisation, examined the cases of children in Edinburgh made the subject of a Place of Safety Warrant – an emergency removal from their own home.
In 2006-07, just over 60% were under 24 weeks old, and a further 30% were newly born. Warrants were issued by a Children’s Hearing because, in 80% of cases, the baby was feared to be in danger of neglect.

Sadly, this is a familiar picture for social workers across Scotland. Ruth Stark, spokesperson for the British Association of Social Workers, says her colleagues must make an assessment about whether a child can not safely remain at home.
“For young mothers and fathers who are already addicted to drugs, often we find ourselves having to go into a situation where this is a key issue that is interfering with their ability to look after their children. In some circumstances, we have to take drastic action,” she said.
A Place of Safety Warrant follows a Children’s Hearing called to address emergency or high-risk situations, and allows measures to be put into place immediately to protect a vulnerable child.
They only last three weeks – although after investigation children can be placed in care away from the family home.
The Principal Reporter of the SCRA, Netta MacIver, said drug-dependency was not by itself a ground for concern.

But she added: “If there’s a degree of chaos in the household, then the basics of feeding, changing, cleaning – the repetitiveness of a lot of that is quite often challenging, so you can have ancillary supports.
“But if there are behaviours within the parents which aren’t moderated, then the risks will continue.”
Brandon Muir is the latest in a series of tragic cases in which drugs, alcohol or the chaotic lives of adults have led to the death of a young child.
There are a number of projects around Scotland which aim to help parents to better care for their children, while also coping with their own problems.
Andrew Horne, director of Addaction in Linthouse in Glasgow, said it was vital that drug or alcohol-dependent parents were given help – not just for them, but for all of us.

“People don’t see that this has a huge impact both on our resources in terms of our taxpayers, but also on our communities.
“If we can help children stay safe and happy, and in families, then we are not paying for children to be in care systems, to be in foster care, being involved in social work.”
There are controversial solutions to this problem. Duncan McNeil, Labour MSP for Greenock and Inverclyde, has suggested administering contraception with addicts’ methadone to prevent them having children.
A new inquiry, under the former chief constable of Fife, Peter Wilson, is now to be held to learn lessons from the Brandon Muir case.
Perhaps the real question to be asked is how does society cope with children brought up in the midst of Scotland’s drugs epidemic?

Source: BBC News Channel 3 March 2009

DRUG exporters are turning to the postal system in a bid to get illicit drugs into Australia.
And border authorities admit they face a challenge to detect the substances amid the estimated 160 million pieces of mail to be sent into the nation this year.
The Courier-Mail has learnt that drug dealers are sending small parcels through the post, fully expecting to lose some to border authorities but expecting they will get enough through to make a profit. Ecstasy traffickers were keeping parcels to between 300 grams and 500 grams and were increasingly sending through MDMA powder because it was more difficult to detect than pills.
Australian Customs national intelligence manager Andrew Rice said MDMA or ecstasy detections in the post were rising, with more than two every week in the past financial year. “The detections in the post are going up in their sheer number, not necessarily in weight,” Mr Rice said. “There is no pretence from us that we do miss things just because of the volumes. Even in that environment of mass input, we do quite well in terms of significant proportion of drugs being sent through the postal system. But we do see criminals moving between different importation methods and the significant shipments are still likely to be attempted by sea cargo.”
Australia is obliged under a United Nations charter to accept mail from across the world. This year, Customs expects 120 million letters and 40 million parcels to be sent from overseas to the checking points in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth.
Mail is screened by Customs or the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service, through the likes of sniffer dog patrols and X-rays, before being handed to Australia Post for distribution. “We think about every item of mail. Some items are given different treatment based on the different risks that we assess,” Mr Rice said.
The figures for ecstasy busts in the last three years have been distorted by the monster find of 4.4 tonnes or 15 million pills in a shipping container in Melbourne in June 2007. The container, sent from Italy, was stacked with tinned tomatoes but Customs authorities were suspicious when X-rays revealed inconsistencies in the tins’ contents. Customs alerted the Australian Federal Police, which decided to seek more information by following the drugs. They opened each tin and replaced the ecstasy with harmless tablets and then followed the trail. An investigation lasting more than a year, involving 400 AFP agents and 20,000 hours of surveillance, resulted in 20 arrests.
In the last financial year, Customs detected 172kg of MDMA/ecstasy and a further 260kg of amphetamine-type stimulants among mail and cargo. This compares with 611kg of cocaine, 72kg of heroin and 49kg of cannabis.
Customs also made large detections of precursor chemicals to methamphetamines, including 105kg of pseudoephedrine in air cargo 18 months ago.
Mr Rice said the criminal networks that controlled much of the world’s illicit drug trade had “access to specialist knowledge around the import and export fields”. “The game is all about concealment,” he said.
Source: www.couriermail.com.au 31st March 2009

Texas Prevention Impact Index or TPII numbers for the past 4 years show decreases across the board here in Amarillo.
The Texas Prevention Impact Index is a report showing statistics in the usage of drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and violence among students in the Amarillo independent school district.
The TPII look at risk and protective factors that lead students to or away from the various substances. They look at perceptions in the community towards alcohol, drugs, and tobacco use. The numbers also reflect the usage of these substances by the students that fill out the survey.
25 hundred surveys are filled out by a cross section of students in the Amarillo school district, ranging from the 6th grade up to seniors in high school.
Here a few noteworthy statistics you may find interesting from the data collected by Research and Educational services, a private evaluation and research firm based out of Houston. The company has done the surveys and completed the data for A.I.S.D. since 2002.
47.9% of students say they would go to parents if they had a question about alcohol or drugs, versus 20.7% say they would ask a friend their age.
The number of students who say it’s ok to have alcohol to have a good time is 26% down from 30% just 4 years ago.
The number of students who think schools do NOT enforce rules on drinking have gone down form 30% to 19%, which means more students are getting the idea that it’s not acceptable to use alcohol from the school district.
In the category of usage in the past 30 days here are some numbers that show improvement.
In the past 30 days, seniors are using alcohol 7% less, using tobacco 6% less, and nearly 14% less of the students serveyed say they have participated in binge drinking in the past 30 days. All are positive stats.
87% of all students across the board have NOT used Marijuana in the past 30 days.
Frequency of usage numbers also show decreases. Tobacco is down 12%, alcohol is down 6%, marijuana is down 11%, this means that those kids that do use these substances are not using as frequently.
Some statistics that show perception changes are the following: 93% of the students surveyed say that they are harming themselves by smoking. 79% of students, up from 69% say that they are harming themselves by smoking marijuana.
Switching gears to violence and safety issues.
15% of students say they have been bullied during the past 30 days.
12% say they’ve been involved with a group fight.
In the past year the percentage of students who have been in a fight at school was 15%.
33.4% of the students say they have discussed safety issues with family in the past 30 days.
All in all, some of the numbers shown are alarming and some show great improvement in prevention and awareness programs here in Amarillo. The Amarillo community should be proud that the students have made progress and the school district is working decrease these all important problems.
“It shows, basically that the efforts that are being conducted here are working, to be honest with you when you look at the rest of the state or other areas in the state, I don’t think you see the same kind of trends or same kind of change in those areas, it’s been very successful here,” said Dr. Robert Landry, Director of Research and Educational Services.
“We’re seeing some decreases in some types of drug use which we’re glad to see, we also know that we need to continue the education K-12 for our students and be able to share current information with them,” said Teresa Kenedy, A.I.S.D. Prevention Specialist.
Source: www.connectamarillo.com 31st March 2009

Alcohol was officially recognised by the Government today as a gateway drug that can lead users to other addictive substances. The Cabinet decided to re-designate the issue of problem drinking with anti-drugs initiatives as part of a new national strategy.

Minister John Curran, who has responsibility for the National Drugs Strategy, said alcohol abuse is causing huge levels of public concern around the country. Mr Curran said a combined strategy will facilitate a more coherent approach to the issues and consequences of alcohol and illicit drug use, including addictive behaviours.

“We cannot continue to look at these problems in isolation. The time has come for more joined-up thinking,” he said. Mr Curran and Health Minister Mary Harney brought the issue to today’s Cabinet meeting, where it was approved.

Mr Curran said: “Alcohol is seen, for many, as a gateway to illicit drug use and poly-drug use, often including alcohol, is now the norm among illicit drug users. “People also have serious concerns in relation to the high level of alcohol consumption in Ireland, the pattern of drinking, especially binge drinking among young people and in the community generally, and the wider social harms which are associated with the misuse of alcohol.”

The minister is preparing a new National Drugs Strategy for the period 2009/16. Discussions will be held around a new National Substance Misuse Strategy in coming days. Meanwhile, Ms Harney announced today she is banning the stimulant drug BZP, which is available in so-called “head shops”. Possessing or selling the substance is now an offence under the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977.

She said: “This will now make the possession of BZP illegal and make sure that BZP is no longer available for sale in ’head shops’ around the country, which has been an issue of concern to my Department and the wider public.”
SOURCE: WWW.IRISHNEWS.COM THURSDAY, APRIL 2, 2009

On a day when the government is meeting to discuss drivers of crime it is worth looking beneath the veneer of the Police offence statistics for the past 10 years to understand just how endemic the violence caused by methamphetamine and drug abuse has become in New Zealand and the need for strategies to address this according to MethCon Group director Mike Sabin.

“Again through 2008 violent offences continued to increase unabated but when you look at the past 10 years you get a far better feel for the way our communities have been held to ransom by failed drug policy”, said Mr. Sabin
“Violent offences and serious assaults increased by 51 percent and 59 percent respectively. Robbery has increased by 57 percent, while intimidation and threats have increased by 73 percent with offences involving grievous harm increasing by a staggering 105 percent, up from 92 percent last year” said Mr. Sabin

“During the same 10 year period there has also been dramatic increases in offences related to methamphetamine including 169 percent increase in supply offences, 208 percent increase in possession for supply, 400 percent increase in importation, while importation of pseudoephedrine to manufacture the drug has increased by well over 10,000 percent with methamphetamine manufacture increasing by over 9500 percent since 1998”, claimed Mr. Sabin “On the back of that we have also become some of the highest recorded use rates of cannabis in the world with 80 percent of those aged 25 in this country now saying they have used the drug”, said Mr. Sabin

“My point is that there is a clear nexus between increased drug abuse in this country, particularly with regard to methamphetamine, and violent crime. While alcohol is a lead contributor to violence, what are we doing to actually identify and respond to poly drug abuse, which is far more common than any other form of drug abuse?”

“For example, as much as 89 percent of our prison population are drug users and yet too often we hear that alcohol is the driver of violent crime and disorder. Drugged driving is more frequently a contributor to fatal vehicle accidents than alcohol use alone, but what do we do to identify drugged drivers on our roads?” said Mr. Sabin.

“Beyond this, why has New Zealand become the highest recorded users of methamphetamine and cannabis in the world over the past 10 years? The answer is quite simple; since 1998 our national drug policy has focused centred on ‘harm minimisation’. Rather than focusing on prevention of drug use and healing drug abusers to a point of abstinence, our national drug policy has focused on accepting drug use as an inevitability and finding ‘safe ways’ to use, while treatment has been more about methadone maintenance programmes and giving addicted users clean needles”, said Mr. Sabin

Justice Minister Simon Power signalled their clear intentions to look at new approaches to address the drivers of crime and I commend the government for having a forum to begin this process as it goes to the heart of solving the cause of the problems rather than tinkering with the symptoms. The role of drug abuse as a driver cannot be underestimated and I would encourage efforts to arrive at strategies which reflect this”, said Mr. Sabin

Source: www.methcon.co.nz. (NZ’s specialist methamphetamine education providers and policy consultants). 3rd April 2009

Executive Summary

Following two decades of progress dealing with alcohol impaired driving, greater attention is now being directed toward the issue of driving while impaired by drugs. Currently, there is far less information related to drug impaired driving than alcohol-impaired driving. This report describes a study on the extent of drug use by drivers. A random survey of drivers was conducted at pre-selected locations in British Columbia from Wednesday to Saturday nights in June 2008. The purpose was to collect information on the prevalence of alcohol and drug use among night time drivers. Those surveyed were asked to provide a voluntary breath sample to measure their alcohol use and an oral fluid sample to be tested subsequently for the presence of drugs. Of the 1,533 vehicles selected, 89% of drivers provided a breath sample and 78% provided a sample of oral fluid.
Key findings include:
• 10.4% of drivers tested positive for drug use
• 8.1% of drivers had been drinking
• 15.5% of drivers tested positive for alcohol, drugs or both
• Cannabis and cocaine were the drugs most frequently detected in drivers
• Alcohol use among drivers was most common on weekends and during late-night hours; drug use was more evenly distributed across all survey nights and times
• Alcohol use was most common among drivers aged 1to 24 and 25 to 34; drug use was more evenly distributed across all age groups
• No drivers aged 16 to 18 were found to have been drinking
• While driving after drinking has decreased substantially since previous surveys, the number of drivers with elevated alcohol levels (over 80 mg%) was higher than in the past

Source: Beirness, D.J., & Beasley, E.E. (2009). Alcohol and Drug Use Among Drivers: British Columbia Roadside Survey 2008. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse. 2009

A new Australian study has found that the number of newborns suffering serious drug withdrawal symptoms is now more than 40 times higher than in 1980.

The research, published in the latest edition of the international journal Pediatrics, also found that these infants were at greater risk of neglect and of being taken into care.
The data analysis revealed that of 637195 live births in Western Australia between 1980 and 2005, 906 were diagnosed with Neonatal Withdrawal Syndrome. For every year, there was an average 16.4% increase in children born with the syndrome.
Report co-author, Professor Fiona Stanley from Perth’s Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, said the study identified a range of factors that should assist with the early identification of children at risk.
“It is clear that if we are to reduce the number of these children suffering from abuse and neglect, then there is a need to start working with their mothers before these babies are born, and ideally, pre-conception,” Professor Stanley said.
“Our data show that the majority of the mothers had already had contact with hospitals for mental health and substance use issues which suggests there could have been numerous opportunities to intervene to prevent unplanned pregnancy and provide intensive support with antenatal care and substance abuse treatment.”
“A multidisciplinary team that includes obstetricians, social workers, drug and alcohol workers, and welfare workers is required to case manage and support the women through the complex issues that they face. However it is imperative that this support continues long term.”
Professor Stanley said the increase in babies suffering NWS reflected the overall rise in substance abuse within the community and the increased recognition of NWS by health professionals. While this study was in WA, it is likely that it reflects a national trend.
“We now have the situation where 4 babies out of every 1000 births are born suffering the effects of illicit drugs — that is over 1000 newborns per year in Australia. This has serious implications for the child, the family and the whole community and is an issue that must be tackled well before these children suffer potential harm.”
The study was made possible by a groundbreaking agreement by the Western Australian Government Departments of Health and Child Protection that allowed health and welfare records to be linked and the de-identified information given to researchers for analysis.
The research was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage Project Grant.

Source: Telethon Institute for Child Health Research (2009, April 24). Alarming Increase In Drug-affected Newborns. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 27, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com¬ /releases/2009/04/090423100821.htm

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The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has praised Sweden for pioneering the most successful illicit drug policy in all Europe, reports David Perrin.

Sweden’s illicit drug use is lower than any other European country. The UN has praised the Swedish policy of wanting a drug-free society and has endorsed its program of increasingly strong laws against drugs as the reason for its success.

In 2003, lifetime prevalence of drug use among 15-16 year olds in Europe was 22 per cent. In Sweden, by comparison, it was only 8 per cent. In 2006, Swedish teenage drug use had fallen to 6 per cent.

Illicit drug use in Sweden has declined in recent years, whereas it has increased in other European countries. Sweden has low levels of HIV/AIDS infections resulting from injecting drug use. Its laws require the country’s small number of syringe exchange programs to divert users into detoxification and rehabilitation programs.

Measuring success

Sweden regularly polls its citizens to determine whether drug use is increasing or decreasing. Surveys are made of teenagers (15-16), the general population (18-64) and military conscripts. The surveys look at drug use in the past month, the past year and over a lifetime. These surveys are important not only to determine drug use trends, but to see which policies are working.

Sweden has enjoyed a broad political consensus over the direction of drug policy with changes in government not leading to changes in drug policy. One of the key planks of Swedish drug policy is the courts’ powers to divert users into detoxification and rehabilitation.

Sweden targets its drug policies at teenagers to stop them trying drugs and, if they get hooked, to get them off drugs quickly and permanently. Sweden’s experience is that if a young person has not taken an illicit drug by age 20, he or she is highly unlikely to use illicit drugs later in life.

Australia has high levels of illicit drug use, similar to most of Europe. We have adopted permissive “harm minimisation” policies which have led to high levels of demand for illicit drugs, with new drugs such as “ice” (methamphetamines) coming on the scene.

Ice is known to cause mental illness, psychosis, violent behaviour and even death in those who try it. The drug is highly addictive with few known methods of rehabilitation.

Sweden has succeeded in its drug policy because it has reduced the number of drug-users, and hence the demand for illicit drugs. This is a lesson Australia has yet to learn. Sweden is not on a known drug route, so drug crime syndicates avoid trafficking to Sweden because of the difficulty involved. High prices, few outlets and strong drug policies deter the supply of drugs.

Like Sweden, Australia is not on a known drug supply route; but we have weak policies, low drug prices and a permissive culture that accepts the use of drugs. None of the strong drug policies of Sweden, as outlined here, are present in Australia, so, like Europe, we continue to suffer high drug usage.

In Canberra, the House of Representatives’ standing committee on family and human services is looking at the impact of illicit drugs on families and is due to report before the federal election.

This committee could perform no better service to our nation than study the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime report, Sweden’s Successful Drug Policy: A Review of the Evidence (September 2006) – obtainable at its website www.unodc.org – and use the findings to replace Australia’s failed drug policy with the successful Swedish approach.

With a federal election due later this year, political parties have an opportunity to offer the Australian public a proven strategy to combat illicit drug use.

Source: Article by David Perrin of the Australian Family Association reported in
Drugwatch International 30th April 2009.

Why do the young turn into drug addicts and what could be the reasons for their increasing number in our country? Riti Naik looks for answers.

The ‘d’ generation
Ranmeet never came second in class throughout his school life, he was that brilliant. Besides, being an excellent drummer and a swift swimmer, he was also an obedient child. However, when he got through IIT Kharagpur, he lost interest in studies as he had never wanted to take up engineering. With a huge syllabus before him and an adamant mother behind, today, the boy stays with his father in his room. Ranmeet is a drug addict, and his father tries day and night to help him out, fully aware that sending him to a rehab would put an end to his studies. And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
This incident talks about a victim who has been treated mercilessly by circumstances. Yet, everyday, thousands of students, all over the country are actually willing to become drug abuse victims. Among these, numerous have already become addicted and blighted their lives.
No one ever aims to become an addict. Who knew that a brilliant boy like Ranmeet would turn his life into such a hell? Well, a question can be asked here: did he turn his life into that of an addict? The answer is ‘yes’ because no one could have taken the drug for him to become an addict. Yet, is he solely responsible for his state? Can we put the entire blame on him? This is the general mistake made by society, which comprises people like you and I – to put the blame on the user. No doubt the user is most guilty, but the contribution of circumstances is something undeniable here.
First, why did a studious boy like Ranmeet take a drug? Or, if we expand the question: why do students of the twenty-first century take drugs?
In most cases youngsters ‘try out’ drugs. When peer pressure threatens to label someone as an outcaste, people generally give in. After the effects are experienced, whenever, a youngster feels s/he cannot cope with her/his circumstances, they fall back on drugs. In this way, they become dependent on drugs during their stressful times. Once a person is under the influence of drugs, s/he will subsequently need more amounts of it every time to produce the same effect. If this is not nipped in the bud, there is very little chance of the person not to turn into an addict.
This is a very crucial point of one’s life, where s/he needs support from loved ones, which is denied most of the times. And specially, after becoming an addict, society turns its face away once they push her/him to a rehab. We must understand that they are what they are today because, somewhere in their lives, they have made a wrong choice, somewhere they haven’t been guided well. And because of this mistake, their lives have changed, they have become unknown beings to themselves, the spark within them flickered out.
So, if we consider ourselves to be responsible people who are wise enough not to make that wrong choice, don’t you agree that it’s our responsibility to accept them too? To try to give them what they deserve? To at least help them get back to their previous life?
No matter how much we try, we cannot run away from drugs. The menace has crept into the very roots of society. Drug abuse is rampant everywhere, all around us -some in large magnitudes, others in less significant numbers. In Australia, selling of loose petrol (which is directly not put inside the engine), is banned. Addicts inhale the smell of petrol for they can’t pay for ‘harder’ drugs. Many times, while waiting at road signals, we see little boys and girls coming with scraps of cloth to wipe the car windows and ask for alms. Some of them, in a quick gesture of picking up something on the ground, wipe the exhaust pipe, preferably of bikes. Once the signal is back , they wait for the next one, sniff the cloth to kill hunger. The child becomes a victim of drug abuse.
One does not become a drug addict only from heroin, cocaine, crack, marijuana(or any other form of it) or club drugs (like Ecstasy, LSD). Many times some addicts even sniff Fevicol, dendrite, nail polish removers, enamel paints and correction pen fluids. These are referred to as ‘inhalants’ and cause severe permanent damages to the brain in the long run. These volatile substances, if taken in good quantity can actually give the user a ‘high’ and lead to addiction. And along with this, we also have alcohol, cigarettes, and pharmaceutical products (sleeping pills, cough syrups and painkillers). Even if they don’t make addicts, they pave the road for one.
The human body can function well without drugs. Mentally, we are quipped with reasoning power with which we can fight every thought that disturbs us. We therefore can solve every problem ourselves, and in case some of us are unable to, there are various other options. Seeking refuge in drugs is not the solution.
Drugs are illegal, hard to obtain and have terrifying after effects – we all know that. So why fall victim to something as heinous as drugs, when you can manage everything yourself? Many take drugs to get that feeling of confidence and being on top of the world. This feeling can be experienced the moment you know what you are doing and your conscience favours you.
The reasons why the youth take drugs, like stress management, for getting that euphoric feeling, making their bodies feel they way they want to —can be all achieved with a little bit of hard work which will in turn do wonders for the mind and body as well.
A human being is a natural creation and a part of it cannot be artificial. Drugs produce effects that are artificial; be it the painkiller or the LSD effect, when you become part of another world. Once, one starts using drugs, one is less dependent on her/his own body functions and more dependent on this foreign stimulant. At first the body refuses to take in excess of such stuff and the person rejects it by throwing up. But once the bodily functions are somewhat affected and the normal working of the human body has decreased, the body gives in and the addict becomes a victim of overdose.
Many movies depict the complete destruction of a character due to drug abuse. Fashion portrays a super model Shonali (played by Kangana Ranaut), who initially a drug addict, spoils her entire career and subsequently, her whole life with her increasing dependence on drugs. In Dev D, Dev (Abhay Deol), doesn’t care to see how much he has started deteriorating in the eyes of those who love him. Other movies like Devdas, Don-2, we see that though the protagonists knew that another drink would kill them, yet they could not restrain themselves. They chose drugs over normal life, destruction over self-restraint.
Many times, events in our lives compel us to give up all hope and shut ourselves up in darkness. Most people use drugs in such a situation to escape that dreadful feeling of loss. And this is the excuse many of our friends give when we come to know about their addictive habits. Most of the times we let them indulge in it, thinking it would be better for them to forget the incident. However, supporting the usage of drugs is as dangerous as misuse of drugs. As a responsible generation, we have to make a decision now; we have to say ‘No’ to drugs.
Nothing can equal the confidence with which an innocent child dreams. These dreams long to be fulfilled by the child buried deep inside us as we grow up. Some claim to need drugs just to feel confident, yet a major bulk of the world population is functioning very well without drugs.
A drug is not a prerequisite for existence. With an able mind and body, we can surely create our own style, we can have our own vision. With a little awareness we can be naturally high on confidence and nurture our own dreams.
And now that we know that we can do well without drugs, we must completely do away with it. We can only be great individuals once we are completely independent, when we do not have to depend on anything to bring out the best in us.
A drug is not a scary subject. It’s just about a strong decision we’ve have make and say “No thanks, I’m fine without drugs”, whenever someone offers it to us.

Coordinator, La Martiniere for Girls
Source: Daily Dose May 2009

THE effectiveness of the country’s main drugs education programme for schools has been seriously questioned in the new National Drugs Strategy (NDS).
The NDS 2009-2016 said the design and concept of the Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE) programme was in line with best international practice.

“However, its effectiveness at second level was consistently questioned during the NDS consultation process, in particular by school-goers themselves.”

According to the national strategy, the aim of the SPHE is to build the esteem and confidence of young people by developing their life skills and substance misuse is regarded as “an integral” part of the curriculum.

The Walk Tall programme and On My Own Two Feet are key parts of the SPHE curricula at primary and post- primary level respectively.

The NDS said one of the “key concerns” was the level of commitment given to the programme by individual schools and the supports available to teachers.

The report said an external evaluation by NUI Galway found a number of limitations with the programme:

* Support services were crucial for school and teachers that find it difficult to implement SPHE.

* There is little engagement with parents in the planning and development of the programme.

* Curriculum overload, timetable pressures and lack of status for SPHE affect its provision in schools.

The NDS concluded: “School-based education programmes, on which the NDS places particular emphasis, were considered to be very uneven in their delivery and, therefore, in their overall impact.

“The impact fundamentally depends on the commitment of individual schools and the confidence and competence of individual teachers. Young people consulted were highly critical of their experiences of the delivery of SPHE.”

The strategy called for improved delivery of SPHE in primary and secondary levels, taking into account the views of the evaluation.

The NDS said only 72% of schools responded to a Department of Education survey as to whether they had substance misuse policies. Of those, 71% of primary schools and 75% of post-primary schools had policies.

The strategy said the provision of drug education in non-school settings remained “fragmented and uncoordinated”.

It said that the provision of alternative recreational facilities for young people was also “underdeveloped”.

That was despite the provision of facilities under the Young People’s Facilities and Services Fund, which had provided e127.5 million between 2002 and 2007 to 500 services and facilities.

The strategy said the Office for the Minister for Children was currently examining the issue of youth cafes.

“During the consultation phase for the new strategy, the need to ensure late night and weekend opening of such facilities was highlighted,” it said.

The NDS regards a stabilisation in recent (last year) drug use among young people and a reduction in current (last month) usage as a key performance indicator in the area of prevention.
Source: Irish Examiner Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Aim is reducing first-time use of dangerous narcotic through outreach, media
The Hawaii Meth Project kicks off today at the Kalihi YMCA, citing a new survey that says 30 percent of Hawai’i teens believe there is no risk to trying meth, and 19 percent say it’s readily available.
The statewide drug prevention project targets youths 12 to 17 years old and is aimed at reducing first-time methamphetamine use through a community outreach program and aggressive — some would say graphic — media campaign that begins today.
In one radio spot, Gloria, a 15-year-old recovering drug user, confesses:
“When you’re doing ice, everything is fast, everything is going like 500 mph, and all you can think about is getting high. And then I started doing things I normally wouldn’t do. I would have sex with my dealer for money. I would have sex with guys for money. I lost myself completely in one month.”
Hawai’i has one of the nation’s worst meth problems, ranking behind just four other states in a 2007 survey measuring meth use.Meth is one of the most addictive, destructive drugs in terms of the financial burden and human cost, said Michael Broderick, lead judge of the Special Division of First Circuit Family Court.
“Once someone has begun using, it’s very difficult to get them to stop,” Broderick said. “The Hawaii Meth Project is crucial to our efforts to combat this epidemic by preventing our young people from ever trying meth.”
In Hawai’i the perception among youths is that meth is good and consequences are minimal, so using it once or twice is not a problem, said Cindy Adams, executive director for the Hawaii Meth Project.
“It’s really alarming that kids see significant benefit with meth use in the way of weight loss, increased energy and alleviating boredom,” Adams said. “They don’t correlate risk with use.”
The television portion of the project’s Not Even Once campaign shows young, vibrant teens promising to try the drug just once, then spiraling out of control, losing their good looks, selling their bodies and turning to crime to sustain a habit they thought they could control. Radio ads made from testimonials by recovering teen drug users like Gloria will also be used.
Gloria goes on to say in her ad: “I lost my friend. (He) hung himself because of it, because he couldn’t handle hearing all the voices he heard,” Gloria said. “My friends were all selling their bodies. They’re in jail. Two of them are dead.”
Adams acknowledged that some people might have a visceral reaction to the spots, but she said the kids say this is what gets their attention. Before the campaign, the Meth Project surveyed 1,065 teens, 318 young adults and 400 parent of teens. Their replies demonstrate the need to change youths’ perception, Adams said.
The 2009 Hawaii Meth Use & Attitudes Survey found that one in three teens believes there is little or no risk in trying meth, 35 percent believe it can help you lose weight, 24 percent believe it gives you energy, 21 percent believe it can make you happy and 19 percent believe it helps alleviate boredom.
The survey also shows that teens and young adults are at high risk of exposure to meth, with 19 percent of the teens and 36 percent of young adults reporting that meth is readily available.
According to a 2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, 7.3 percent of Hawai’i 10th-graders said they had used meth, up 87 percent from 2005. National surveys on drug use and health conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that Hawai’i ranked fifth in the nation for meth use by people 12 and older as recently as 2007.
Besides the television and radio ads, the project will place posters in areas where youths visit and run banner ads on www.MySpace.com, a popular Internet destination for youth ages 12 to 17. Eight radio spots were made from interviews with Hawai’i teenage drug users. Their names and neighborhoods were changed to protect their identities, but their stories are real, Adams said.
Lucien, 18, would use the rent money to buy his drugs and he said he didn’t care when his mother would cry about it.
“I started doing meth when I was 12 years old,” Lucien said in his radio spot. “My mom used to cut open her pillow and put her wallet inside and sleep on the pillow. It was so hard for her to trust us.”
Alan Shinn, executive director of Coalition for Drug Free Hawaii, said meth use is reportedly down in the Islands, but the state’s love affair with the drug persists. He said preventive education is a proven way to reduce the problem. When Montana launched the first such Meth Project in 2005, it was ranked No. 5 in the nation for meth use. Two years later, meth use among teens had dropped by 45 percent, and Montana ranked 39th.
“(Hawaii Meth Project) is looking at youths who have not ever used it, so they’re trying to keep them from using it at all,” Shinn said. “So for some of them, yes, I think it will be very effective, and for others, I think we’re going to have to look at other methods or strategies.”
Source: Honolulu Advertiser. 5th June 2009

An examination into the €140 million spent by State agencies on drug treatment services has found a very small proportion of heroin-users on methadone maintenance ever get off the drug.
About 8,000 people in the greater Dublin area are on methadone maintenance, the main form of treatment for heroin addiction, according to a special report by the Comptroller Auditor General. However, it is estimated annually that about 1.25 per cent progress to detoxification treatment or follow-on rehabilitation.
The report says there are no national targets for treatment progression and calls on health authorities to set objectives to help provide better planning. However, it acknowledges that long-term methadone treatment is likely to be the best outcome that can be achieved for a significant proportion of heroin users.
It is one of a series of often critical findings in a report which raises questions about how effectively the Government’s National Drugs Strategy is being implemented. Other key findings in the report are:
* About 460 people were waiting over a year for methadone treatment in April 2008. The official target is to provide treatment within a month of assessment.
* Cannabis and cocaine use is increasing, but there has not been a proportional increase in the number of cases treated for problem-use of these drugs.
* Non-opiate drug users in the capital are less likely to get treatment than elsewhere in the country, possibly due to the heavy focus on opiate drug treatment services in Dublin.
* Drug treatment courts – where drug use may be a contributory factor in offending – handled just 22 cases a year, rather than about the 100 originally envisaged. The completion rate of this programme is just 17 per cent.
Responding to the report yesterday, Fine Gael’s community affairs spokesman Michael Ring TD described the drug problem as a “national crisis” and said Government spending cutbacks on treatment services would create massive problems in the future.
“We have a drugs time bomb, just when the Government is cutting back on treatment services,” he said. “The budgets for local drugs task forces have been slashed by 20 per cent, while funding for the Government’s own drugs advisory board has been slashed by 23 per cent.”
The report itself raises questions about whether the aims of the National Drugs Strategy – which is aimed at improving and co-ordinating the delivery of treatment of preventative services – are being reached.
The strategy, for example, envisaged that treatment would be based on a “continuum of care” model, which would co-ordinate services and provide for a better transition between different phases of care.
However, it says health authorities have still not put in place a national framework for care planning and management across the State. This would play a key role in providing wider social support – such as accommodation, education and training – to people with drug use problems.
The report also says it is important for local drugs projects to be governed by service level agreements that specify the services to be provided and the standards to be met. In addition, it calls for greater transparency on the cost of treatment and rehabilitation services, and says responsible agencies must provide more information on the effects of their actions or services.
The report says that more research is needed to continue evaluating the effectiveness of drug treatment services. While it says good and informative work has been done in the past, it is important to do follow-up studies to identify long-term outcomes for those in receipt of treatment.
Source:IrishTimes.com 6th June 2009

MAASTRICHT — About 30 cannabis-vending coffee shops in the south of the Netherlands announced Tuesday they would become private members’ clubs at the start of next year to keep out foreign drug tourists.
“We will transform the coffee shops from open establishments, accessible by all, to closed establishments of which clients need to be members,” Maastricht’s Mayor Gerd Leers told a press conference in the border town.
In the latest move away from the traditionally liberal Dutch approach to such issues as soft drugs and prostitution, coffee shops in the province of Limburg said they would start issuing membership cards.
The application procedure would take several days, in effect preventing short-term tourists from buying marijuana. The move is backed by the national government, and is seen as a pilot project for possible expansion to other areas.
Some four million foreigners travel to Limburg every year to buy cannabis, according to a municipal official.
The measure, to be applied uniformly by all coffee shops in the province which borders Belgium and Germany, would seek to “discourage the majority of drug tourists,” said Leers. “We have been fighting for years against the nuisance brought here by the Belgians, the French and the Germans,” he added. These included damage to city property, heavy road traffic, a rising trade in hard drugs and other criminal activities.
From January 1 next year, the province will limit the sale of cannabis in its coffee shops to three grams per person per day. Each buyer would have to present a membership card that would work on the basis of a fingerprint, iris or some similar identification system. Purchases will only be possible by bank card or credit transfer.
Dutch law allows the consumption and possession of up to five grams of cannabis per individual, but prohibits the cultivation and mass retail of the soft drug. Some 700 so-called coffee shops nationwide have special licenses to sell marijuana but are allowed to keep no more than 500 grams on site.
Home Affairs Minister Guusje ter Horst told Tuesday’s launch that the new project was the first step in a “harder approach to illegality” by Dutch law enforcement. Also, the Dutch Council of State, which advises the government on legislation, had asked the European Court of Justice to weigh the legality of limiting access to Dutch coffee shops to Dutch citizen. An answer is expected in about 18 months.
Several Dutch municipalities have recently announced plans to close all or part of the coffee shops within their borders, partly to discourage crime and drug tourism.
But Leers said closing coffee shops was not a viable alternative, as this risked “chasing clients into illegality”.
Source: Agence France-Presse 05/13/2009

AUSTRALIA is in a mental health crisis. It’s not impending. It’s here. Government figures show one in four people under 25 will suffer a mental illness.
While we’re worrying about lifting the retirement age and caring for our ageing population, it will cost billions to treat people who develop mental illness in their youth. This bill will soar if we don’t act now.

The ready availability of alcohol and its enthusiastic promotion to make it a normal part of society are major contributors to the youth mental health problem.
According to the 2007 National Drug Strategy Household Survey, more than 20 per cent of 14 to 19-year-olds drink alcohol weekly. A third of boys aged 12-17 downed seven-plus drinks at a time and one in three girls put away five or more in a session.
One in 20 students put away 50 standard drinks or more in a month. An Australian study published in international medical journal The Lancet found that alcohol caused 27 per cent of deaths involving 15 to 29-year-olds in 2002.
That’s tragic, but the physiological effects of drinking on young, developing brains are much more insidious. Brain development continues until the age of 20. Damage from alcohol during this time can be long-term and irreversible. Adolescents need only drink half as much as adults to suffer the same memory loss.
Kids who binge once a week, or increase their drinking between the ages of 18 and 24, increase their chances of not attaining the goals of young adulthood like marriage, educational attainment, employment and financial independence.
While alcohol consumption rates among young people have remained stable for 30 years, what’s really disturbing is the rising intensity of drinking in a small proportion of young people, especially girls.
TV networks have profited tremendously from aggressive alcohol industry ads. The Australian Medical Association has called for a ban on cable and free-to-air TV alcohol ads before 10pm but why not go a step further and ban all alcohol marketing?
Alcohol is a legal product, but why allow it to be marketed so aggressively when the Government is spending millions telling Aussie kids not to binge?
Parents set an example, but an Australian Childhood Foundation report in 2004 said 60 per cent of parents felt they could do better. About 75 per cent said being a mother or father did not come to them naturally. That tallies with research this year by Generation Next, the parenting education group that I will represent in a town hall-style seminar at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre on Saturday.
The Generation Next survey of the parents of 500 children found half were worried or concerned by the challenge of raising children and one in five felt overwhelmed.
When we give them a no-nonsense helping hand and take away the alcohol marketing that makes their job harder, they may become confident enough to take the next step of talking to their kids.
Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is a Melbourne adolescent psychologist. More information about the Generation Next seminars at www.gennext seminars.com.
Source: heraldsun.com.au 9th June 2009

According to a report CASA issued this morning, federal, state and local governments spend almost half a trillion dollars every year — almost 11 percent of their total budgets — as a result of alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse and addiction. The worst part is that, for federal and state spending, about 95% of that money is spent “Shoveling Up” the mess created by a failure to provide enough money for prevention and treatment.
That’s right. Out of every dollar federal and state governments spent on substance misuse in 2005 (the latest data available), 95 cents paid for the enormous burden of this problem on health care, criminal justice, child welfare, education, and other programs. And only 2 cents were invested in prevention and treatment programs that could reduce many of these costs – and save lives.
1. See detailed expenses for your state and download the report:

http://www.jointogether.org/NO

Our researchers studied all federal, state and local budgets for 2005 using careful, conservative methods to determine how much of each major budget category was directly linked to substance misuse. For example, they determined how much of each state’s Medicaid and other health care expenses were due to one of over 70 medical diagnoses that are caused or made worse by alcohol, tobacco and other drug abuse and addiction. They did the same for criminal justice, welfare and other key government budgets. They also identified all government spending on prevention, treatment and research, regulation of alcohol and tobacco products and drug interdiction.
When the numbers are added up, the total is really shocking: 467.7 billion dollars. Spending less than 2% of the federal and state costs for prevention and treatment, and more than 95% shoveling up the mess, is upside down public policy that wastes billions in taxpayer dollars at a time when resources are scarce, and results in untold human suffering.
David L. Rosenbloom, President and CEO
The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia Univ.
Source: CASA May 2009

ROUGHLY one-third of Australians have tried it. Half of all people aged 20 to 29 have used it and some of those, like Jade, have smoked so much cannabis that their mental health has crumbled, triggering depression, psychosis, panic attacks, paranoia and even suicidal thoughts.
Former cannabis user Jade experienced paranoia and psychosis before she successfully sought treatment. “It was very scary. I thought people could read my mind. I was getting messages from watching TV. I was very paranoid. I felt like there was a big conspiracy and that everyone was in on this agenda and it was all about me. Cameras were on me. It was something I’ll remember forever and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” recalls Jade, now 29, off “bongs” and studying for a career in youth work.
Jade — who began smoking when she was only 13 — says the psychosis she experienced from using and eventually abusing cannabis landed her in Melbourne University’s Orygen Youth Health in-patient clinic for eight days. She wishes someone had helped her recognise that she had a serious cannabis use problem before she hit the wall. Unfortunately, if anybody noticed, they did nothing.
Now somebody is doing something, if not for Jade then for other young people at risk of cannabis-induced mental health problems. The Orygen Youth Health Research Centre has teamed up with the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre — based at the University of NSW — to produce the first evidence-based guidelines to help people such as Jade’s friends and family identify and assist users who may be sliding down the slope to mental illness. The so-called “first aid” guidelines reflect NCPIC’s job description, says its director Jan Copeland. “There’s a lot of community misinformation about cannabis and only a small proportion of people with problems seek treatment”. And that’s a worry, claims Copeland, a research psychologist specialising in drug and alcohol addiction: “The earlier the intervention the better the outcome.”
Not only can heavy cannabis use lead to the kind of mental illness Jade suffered, it can worsen problems associated with the use of alcohol and other illicit drugs. The resulting emotional cocktail has a host of consequences: impaired judgment, breakdown of families and social connections, legal problems and injuries from car crashes and other accidents. While many of such difficulties can be alleviated by getting off cannabis, others may persist for years, or even life. That’s especially true if people being using very early.
Neuroscientists have learned that different parts of a young brain develop at different rates. Final “wiring” is not complete until the mid-20s, addiction psychiatrist Dan Lubman says. According to Lubman, with Orygen and Melbourne University, that discovery goes a long way to explain why 75 per cent of mental disorders commence before age 25. “It’s a time of huge developmental growth,” he says, noting that stress, drugs and genetic predispositions can make developing brains even more vulnerable.
Most experts agree that developmental mis-wiring involves the brain’s endocannabinoid system. That’s so, as it appears to modulate brain chemicals called neurotransmitters, which relay and regulate signals between brain cells. Lubman says: “Certainly, there’s some evidence from animals that early use of cannabis can cause cognitive problems and problems with social interaction that persist and aren’t seen in adult animals.” There’s also solid evidence that young humans with abnormal brain development often experience a cascade of problems. For instance, cognitive difficulties may lead to poor school performance which may drive poor self-esteem, mixing with other uses, dropping out of school, multi-drug problems and so it goes.
Moreover, Jade’s raging paranoia may have been heightened by the increased potency of cannabis. Unlike the pot smoked by 60s hippies, today’s plants have been selectively bred to increase the amount of the active ingredient of euphoria and mood alteration, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. In a gardening twist, the rise in THC has been accompanied by a reduction of another cannabis ingredient, cannabidiol. Lubman says cannabidiol reduces anxiety and has been trialled as an anti-psychotic drug for conditions such as schizophrenia.
Little wonder that Jade found herself going from “giggling on the floor for hours” at 13 to full-blown psychosis at 20. As she escalated her intake of cannabis from light use to “a gram or two per day shared between friends”, her brain and behaviour went haywire. It’s quite possible that people close to Jade noticed that she had a problem. It’s also likely that they didn’t want to get involved, wished to keep the matter quiet or simply believed, incorrectly, it was a matter of morality. “A problem is the notion of hedonism, that users should be punished. They brought it on themselves and they don’t deserve help,” Lubman says. Hence, “Helping Someone with problem Cannabis Use: Mental Health First Aid Guidelines”. As well as simple information about cannabis abuse problems, the guidelines provide practical advice about issues such as approaching a person about their cannabis use, what to do if the person does not want professional help, how to find professional help and where to go for support.
Critically, every bit of information was identified and scrutinised for effectiveness and accuracy by 87 participants, divided into three panels: clinicians, carers of users and former users. Co-ordinated by Lubman’s group, the experts came from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the US and Britain. Copeland claims this extensive process was necessary as much of the advice online and in books and other literature is inaccurate, useless or in some cases downright dangerous. While many suggestions are very specific — stay calm, don’t criticise the persons’ cannabis use, don’t bully or nag, ask about the person’s use instead of making assumptions, offer to help find professional help and the like — there are key things to keep in mind, claim both Lubman and Copeland. The key one being that many good treatments are available, from counselling to self-help groups.
Lubman ticks off important basics: “Be realistic about the outcomes. It may be the first time a person has been approached or thought about a problem. Be aware of local options. “Be prepared that the person may not want help and decide how you’ll respond, and understand what you will and won’t do to support the person.” Do the guidelines make sense? “Absolutely,” says Jade. In fact, right now she’s doing a placement with Orygen, working as a peer-support person. “When you’ve got somebody who’s been through it it’s good. They know what’s in your head. That’s why I’m here at Orygen. I’m trying to give back and be here for anyone else going through it.”
Source www.ncpic.org.au, www.mhfa.com.au 19 June 2009

Unlike their larger mainland cousins, the wallabies of Tasmania appear to be more trippy than Skippy. No lesser an authority than the island’s attorney general has discovered that hungry marsupials and thousands of acres of legal opium poppy fields do not mix.
“We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” Lara Giddings told a budget hearing on Wednesday. Nor does the problem end there. Even drugged-up marsupials, it seems, cannot break free of the physical law that demands that what goes up must come down. “Then they crash,” said Giddings. “We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.”
Tasmania is the world’s biggest producer of legally grown opium for the pharmaceutical market. About 500 farmers grow the crop on 49,420 acres (20,000 hectares) of land, producing around half the raw opium for morphine and other opiates. Giddings was answering questions about the security of the island’s poppy stocks, which are estimated to be among the safest in the world. However, the attorney general noted that 2280 poppy heads had been stolen over the last financial year.
Rick Rockliff, field operations manager for Tasmanian Alkaloids – one of the two Tasmanian companies licensed to take medicinal products from poppy straw – said that deer and sheep that munched the poppies had been known to “act weird” afterwards.
“There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles,” Rockliff told the Mercury newspaper. He said growers did their best to stop the local lifestock invading the fields as there were worries over the contamination of meat from animals that ate the drug crops.
“There is also the risk to our poppy stocks, so growers take this very seriously but there has been a steady increase in the number of wild animals and that is where we are having difficulty keeping them off our land,” he said.
British animals appear to be more conservative in their choice of intoxicants. Last October, a drunk pony called Fat Boy had to be rescued from a Cornish swimming pool after gorging himself on fermented apples and falling into the water.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk 25 June 2009

3668 Bonita View Drive., Bonita, Ca. 91902 (619) 475 9941/475 9942 email rogermorgan339@sbcglobal.net

4/18/2009
To: President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, D.C. 20500

CC: Vice President Joe Biden
Director of The Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske

Dear Mr. President:

We, an international coalition of drug prevention professionals and organizations throughout the world, many with over thirty years of experience, believe that the nation’s problems of health, academic achievement, crime, welfare and resultant impacts on the federal and state budgets cannot be resolved without focusing on the root cause of all of these problems ….. alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (hereinafter ATOD). We therefore call upon the President of the United States to reduce the demand for ATOD as follows:

WHEREAS …..

• Almost all of our nation’s problems, are caused by or made worse by alcohol, tobacco
and illicit drugs. (hereinafter ATOD).

• In your first term of four years, unless there is a radical shift to prevent the disease of addiction, the nation will incur $2.4 TRILLION in cost and an estimated 2.8 MILLION AMERICANS WILL DIE from tobacco, alcohol, illicit drugs and misuse of legal drugs.

• Addiction to ATOD is a “pediatric onset disease” (Dr. Barthwell, former Deputy Director of ONDCP). Almost all addiction begins with adolescents, aged 11 to 18 years old.

• If a young person reaches age 21 prior to first significant use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs, they should virtually never have a problem. (Joseph Califano Jr., Chairman of CASA)

• Just as we inoculate for measles, small pox, polio and other diseases, if we universally employ the best known prevention methods we can significantly reduce the level of death, destruction and economic cost of health care, and increase academic achievement and productivity.

• America has 5% of the world’s population, yet we consume 65% of illicit drugs. Over 2000 young people start smoking tobacco daily, 50% of whom will die from it, and in the process of dying will inflict enormous costs on society for health care. 50% of adolescents use drugs and alcohol, 25% frequently.

• Demand for drugs fuels the drug cartels which in turn financially underwrite terrorism and corruption in Mexico and throughout the world. Reducing demand is of equal importance to interdicting supply, and no longer an option if the nation is to effectively win the war on drugs.

• The High School Drop Out Rate – UC Santa Barbara recently concluded a study showing the average drop out rate in California is 24.2%. Each class of drop outs (127,000 students) cost California taxpayers $46.4 billion …. $365,000 PER DROP OUT, as two thirds will end up on welfare, in prison, and/or burdening public health care. Nationally there are 1.2 million high school drop outs (www.edweek.org). If the same cost figure applies as in California, the ANNUAL NATIONAL COST FOR HIGH SCHOOL DROP OUTS IS $438 BILLION.

• The Cost of Substance Abuse – NIDA reported in 2006 that the annual cost of illicit drugs to the nation was $181 billion, and when combined with alcohol they exceed $500 billion, which includes costs for healthcare, criminal justice and lost productivity. Add tobacco, and the figure is over $700 billion a year … SOON TO BE ONE TRILLION DOLLARS A YEAR.

• Criminal Activity/Prison Overcrowding – Drugs and alcohol are implicated in roughly 85% of all crime. 80% of prison inmates are high school drop outs. Unless corrective measures are taken to improve the high school drop out rate, the social and economic costs to society will increase as the employment, crime, welfare and health care costs increase.

• Death Rate – According to The Center for Disease Control, overdose deaths in 2006 amounted to 3,042 deaths a month. In 1998, the last year total drug deaths were quantified, overdose deaths were only 27% of the total and drug related deaths comprised the balance. If that holds true today, 2,620 Americans die weekly from drugs….. almost the equivalent of 9/11, every week. But tobacco trumps them all, with 1200 deaths a day.

• Treatment vs Prevention – NIDA reported in 2006 23.6 million persons aged 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol (9.6% of persons aged 12 or older), and only 2.5 million actually got treatment. Every dollar spent on addiction treatment returned $4 to $7 dollars in reduction of drug-related crimes. While treatment is economically sound, and necessary, the savings in human lives, misery and costs from PREVENTING the problem to begin with could save HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS ANNUALLY.

• States (and we think the federal government) spend 113 times as much to clean up the devastation that substance abuse visits on children as they do to prevent and treat it.” (Joseph Califano; 2001 Study called Shoveling Up: The Impact of Substance Abuse on State Budgets). This is appalling economic and social policy.

• “The primary responsibility for the protection of its people does lie with the state itself …. and, prevention is the single most important dimension of the responsibility to protect. “(George Soros, The Bubble of American Supremacy)

• Parents are considered to be the number one factor in determining a child’s at-risk behavior. However, parents are unable to protect all children without federal help. 56% of kids in American children are at moderate to high risk of substance abuse (CASA) and the only plausible way to ensure that all children are protected is with federally mandated and approved school-based drug prevention programs in all schools combined with improved education for students and their parents on the pharmacology of drugs.

• We cannot rely on persuasion to get 17,000 school boards in America to make the right choices to defer the onset of ATOD and protect kids. A federal mandate is required to direct schools to protect all kids using the best known prevention techniques starting with non-punitive random drug testing.

• ATOD is a national problem, that inflicts more death, destruction and economic cost on this nation than all other forms of terrorism combined. It makes no sense to focus on terrorism alone, or a war in Iraq that claimed 3,000 soldiers in four years, when 3,000 Americans die monthly just from drug overdose, not to mention a cost of $200 billion a year just for drugs ( $600 billion if one adds alcohol and tobacco.)

• Two of the most important responsibilities of all elected officials are to protect the people, and manage tax dollars intelligently.

• Schools, by virtue of the fact they house 98.5% of adolescents, are critical in terms of shoring up the shortfalls in parenting. A federal mandate for schools to implement the best known prevention practices is an absolute necessity to protect all kids.

• In large part due to drugs and alcohol, there are 6.1 million children in America being raised by grandparents or foster parents; 1.6 million of those are in foster homes.

• China has more children getting straight A’s in school than all of the kids in the school system in America combined, and 1.2 million kids in America don’t even graduate from high school. (Capt Len Kaine, Retired) We cannot retain our competitive position in the world if this is not corrected.

THEREFORE we request President Obama and the Administration to take the following actions to reduce the demand for alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs:

1) Implement a Demand Reduction Program in all schools for grades 6 through 12 to include:

A) A requirement for non-punitive random drug testing for ALL STUDENTS aged 11 to
17 years old. This is the best known tool for deterring the onset of ATOD use. It keeps kids in the system, gives them a reason to say no to peer pressure, takes the burden off teachers and the administration to play drug cop, identifies problems early so kids can get help if needed, keeps law enforcement out of the equation, gets parents involved when problems arise, decreases juvenile problems, and enhances academic achievement and graduation rates.

B) Use the best known practices to keep alcohol, tobacco and other drugs off campus.
According to CASA research, the propensity to use is 5 times greater if ATOD is readily available on campuses.

C) Strive to get Student Assistant Programs (SAP) and effective counselors on each campus, to
fill the void in many young people’s lives caused by the lack of effective parenting.

D) Continue with educational programs that convey an effective no-use message from grades
K – 12 for young people and adults in communicating the pharmacology of ATOD, and their effect on individuals and society in general.

E) Create activities during and after school that enhance physical fitness and healthy
lifestyles.

2) As a condition for receiving federal aid for welfare, health care or child/family assistance, require all
recipients to subject to random drug testing.

3) As a means of expanding knowledge on the pharmacology of drugs by parents and the general public, have ONDCP and/or the Department of Health and Human services provide materials and information to all major employers in the United States so they in turn can provide the information to their employees; and extend incentives such as tax credits for employees who pass an exam. Smaller employers should be allowed to piggy back on larger employers.

SUMMARY

The health of our nation, and the individuals in it, requires a coordinated effort by the Departments of Health and Human Service, Education and ONDCP, but most importantly, leadership from the President of the United States.

The magnitude of the problem suggests that DEMAND REDUCTION for alcohol, tobacco and other drugs is no longer an option, but a necessity, if America is to reduce the cost of health care, enhance education, productivity and retain its competitive position among nations. We pray that you will have the wisdom, courage and conviction to stand in the face of opposition and mandate a policy that will protect our young people, and in turn the future of our nation.

ENDORSED BY:

• Roger Morgan, Californians For Drug Free Schools
• Carla D. Lowe, Californians For Drug Free Schools
• Sandra Bennett, Northwest Center for Health & Safety
• Dee Rathbone, National Institute of Citizen Anti-Drug Policy
• Joyce Nalepka, Drug Free Kids, Americas Challenge
• Dr. Eric Voth, Consultant to the White House
• Ron Cuff, Partnership for Responsible Parenting
• Aurora Williams, Partnership for Responsible Parenting
• Dr. Arlene Seal, Founder & President, Positive Moves/CWD International, Inc.
• Dr. Eric Voth, Chairman of the Institute of Global Drug Policy
• Alex Romero, Founder, Arizonans for Drug Free Youth & Communities
• Mina Seinfeld de Carakushanksy, President of BRAHA, Brazilian Humanitarians in Action
• Brenda Chabot – The Inland Valley Drug Free Community Coalition
• Dr. Paul Chabot, Coalition for Drug Free California
• Lori Green, Yucca Valley Anti-Marijuana/drug Activist
• Cap Beyer, Chairman of the National Student Drug Testing Coalition
• Jeanette McDougall – MM, CCDP. Director – National Alliance for Health & Safety
• Katalin Szomor – Hungarian Parliament’s Drug Committee. Drug Czar 1991-1997
• Stephanie Haynes – SOS – Save our Society from Drugs
• Fabio Bernaber – President of Associazione Osservatorio Droga – Rome Italy
• Linda Taylor – Ex Director Repeal Prop 36 Fund. Anti Drug Activist
• Yvonne Gelpi, Former Head Mistress and Principle of De La Salle High School, New Orleans
• Geraldine Silverman – New Jersey Federation for Drug Free Communities
• Wayne Rogues – Retired DEA. Rogues Group
• Theresa Costello, Port Richmond Community Group, Philadephia
• Ruby Schaaf, R.N. The Chemical People of Erie County, Pa.
• Nancy Starr, The Chemcial People of Erie County, Pa.
• Kate Patten, The Kelley McEnery Baker Foundation. “Forever Kelley;s Mom”
• Susie Dugan, Drugwatch, Omaha, Nebraska

The rapidly changing HIV subepidemic at the border of the United States and Mexico, likely caused by population mobility and the drug and sex trades, may be rapidly affecting the overall HIV epidemic in Mexico. In a recent editorial, NIDA-funded researchers discussed studies of HIV infection at the United States–Mexico border in an effort to better understand factors shaping individual and network-level risks for acquiring HIV. Two different studies in the Mexican border cities of Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez showed a high prevalence of HIV infection among sex workers who were also injection drug users: 6 percent and 12 percent, respectively. Considerable population mobility exists at the Tijuana–San Diego (United States) border in both directions, with one study showing that one-fifth of injection drug users in Tijuana had traveled to the United States in the previous year. This mobility also occurs in other high-risk populations—for example, “nearly half of men having sex with men (MSM) in Tijuana and three-quarters of MSM in San Diego report having male sex partners from across the border,” explain the authors. The populations of border cities such as Tijuana largely come from other states in Mexico, and HIV-positive people can carry the infection back to their home states. Mexico now faces several challenges at the national level, including integrating treatment for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections that are risk factors for HIV infection, and increasing the availability of antiretroviral therapy. The authors conclude that due to the high level of migration in all directions, bordering countries must be involved for HIV prevention, diagnosis, and treatment in Mexico to be effective.

Source: Strathdee SA, Magis-Rodriguez C. Mexico’s evolving HIV epidemic. JAMA. 2008;300(5):571–573.

Men diagnosed with cancer are less likely to survive the disease if they were smokers or heavy drinkers, Reuters reported Nov. 7.
Smoking and drinking are well-known risk factors for cancer, but researchers have begun looking into how these addictions affect survivability, as well. Researcher Young Ho Yun and colleagues at the National Cancer Center in Goyang, South Korea tracked 14,578 cancer patients for about nine years and compared mortality data to patients’ history of smoking and alcohol use.
The researchers found that former smokers were more likely to die from any kind of cancer than non-smoking cancer patients, possibly because smoking causes tumors to grow more aggressively. Smokers also may be less likely to get cancer screening tests, the authors noted, so their disease is often further advanced when treatment begins.
Among patients with head, neck, or liver cancer, heavy drinkers were more likely to die than non-drinkers, with risk increasing with consumption levels.
“Our findings suggest that groups at high risk of cancer need to be educated continually to improve their health behaviors — not only to prevent cancer, but also to improve prognosis,” the study authors noted.
The research appears in the Nov. 1, 2006 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Limit the sale of cannabis to local users, reconsider the distinction between hard and soft drugs, raise the legal age for drinking alcohol from 16 to 18 and appoint a drug czar to overlook policies. These are the most striking recommendations published on Thursday by a committee chaired by Christian democrat Wim van de Donk.
The Dutch government had asked the committee to lay the groundwork for a new memorandum on Dutch drug policies to be drafted this fall. The report is in line with repressive measures already taken in recent years, but the committee explicitly says it does not want to end the so-called ‘gedoogbeleid’ (tolerance policy), nor does it want to legalise the cannabis trade completely.
The three parties in the Dutch coalition government – Christian democrats, Labour and ChristenUnie (orthodox Christian) – agree that the present drugs policy needs to be revised. The country has seen a dramatic increase in drug tourism and exports of Dutch-grown cannabis have soared. That is not just causing problems at home, it also gives offence to other EU member states unhappy with the Dutch policy.
But the coalition parties don’t see eye to eye on which direction to take.
The current drugs policy is ambiguous at best: cannabis users are not prosecuted and coffee shops are licensed, but the cultivation and wholesale of cannabis are still prohibited. The Labour party has advocated including the production and wholesale of cannabis in the tolerance policy, but the Christian democrats favour complete prohibition.
Original purpose
Despite its international reputation as a Mecca for legal drugs, the use or possession of weed or hash is in fact still a misdemeanour in the Netherlands. But since a 1976 revision of the Opium Law separated hard drugs (e.g. cocaine, xtc) and soft drugs (cannabis), personal use of the latter is no longer prosecuted and the cafes that sell them are tolerated as well.
Dutch tolerance
# The use, possession or sale of cannabis have never been legalised in the Netherlands. Possession and production for personal use are considered misdeameanours. However, possesion of cannabis for personal use is not prosecuted up to five grammes or five cannabis plants.
# Coffee shops are allowed to stock a maximum of 500 grammes of cannabis.
# Large-scale production, export or import of cannabis are illegal, and should always prosecuted.
# In other words: coffee shop owners can legally sell cannabis but they cannot legally buy it.
The Van de Donk committee now wants the coffee shops to go back to their original purpose: they should be limited in number and size and cater to registered local users rather than the “large-scale facilities that supply consumers from neighbouring countries” they have become. This should reduce the nuisance caused by tourists who cross the German and Belgian borders to buy drugs.
Part of the motivation for the Dutch tolerance policy was to take soft drugs out of the criminal sphere by separating them from hard drugs. But as law professor Cyrille Fijnaut, a member of the Van de Donk committee, noted in an article published last March, this has never happened. Even if coffeeshops are legal, the production and trade are still in the hands of criminals, if only because supplying the coffeeshops is by definition illegal.
Experiment
The Van de Donk committee doesn’t propose changing that equation. It does suggest a limited experiment with regulating the supply line for coffee shops. It also wants to raise the maximum amount of cannabis a coffee shop owner can legally have in stock; it is currently capped at 500 grammes.The committee also questions the wisdom of the distinction between soft and drugs, and suggest that more research needs to be done on the subject.
The criminal character of a large part of the cannabis trade and the high values of the psychiactive ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) found in Dutch weed, could be reasons to revise the distinction, the committee said. However, experts have said that THC levels have gone down again in the past four years and research suggest that users adjust the amounts they smoke to the strength of the weed.
Committee suggestions
# limit the sale of cannabis to local users
# experiment with legal production and supply of members-only coffee shops
# order more research, possibly rethink distinction between soft and hard drugs
# appoint a drug czar to coordinate all initiatives
A substantial part of the report is dedicated to young people and how to protect them from the harmful effects of drugs and alcohol . Van de Donk wants to raise the legal age for drinking alcohol from 16 to 18, which is also the legal age for smoking cannabis.
Statistics actually show a decline in the number of Dutch teenagers using soft drugs, from 14 percent in 1996 to 10 percent today. Of the Dutch population between 15 and 64 less than 5 percent smokes drugs on a regular basis.
Drug czar
It is unclear if this is a result of the tougher approach recently taken to soft drugs. Although no drastic measures have been taken at the national level – apart from a ban on hallucinogenic ‘magic’ mushrooms last year – local authorities have clamped down on the cultivation, sale and use of soft drugs.
In Amsterdam and Rotterdam, coffee shops are banned within a 250 meters radius of high schools. Border towns Bergen op Zoom and Roosendaal closed all their eight coffee shops to put a stop to the flood of Belgian drug tourists crossing the border to buy supplies. The largest coffee shop in the country, in the town of Terneuzen, was shut down in 2008 because it exceeded the allowed amounts of marijuana bought and sold. Its owner is being prosecuted for running a criminal organisation. The southern city of Maastricht is transforming its coffee shops in to members-only clubs.
Between 1997 and 2007 the number of coffee shops went down from 846 to 702.
The diversity of local initiatives calls for a clear national direction, the Van de Donk report says. Too many authorities are currently involved in developing and enforcing policies, which are related to issues of justice, health care, public safety, education and even foreign policy. The report calls for one drug czar to overlook all these areas. “The problem justifies a more binding ambition, based on political leadership, which also extends to connect us with our neighbours and the US”, according to Van de Donk.
Source: DailyDose. July 16th 2009

EMERGENCY departments in Queensland public hospitals are being strained by hundreds of thousands of drunken and violent patients.
Almost one person a minute is thought to be attending the state’s emergency departments for alcohol-related reasons, but experts fear that could be a conservative estimate. Australasian College for Emergency Medicine chairman David Rosengren said studies showed alcohol was a factor in 25-30 per cent of presentations at emergency departments.
The latest figures produced by Queensland Health showed that 373,000 people presented at its emergency departments in three months.
“Alcohol is such an insidious undercurrent in a lot of other presentations,” Dr Rosengren said. “It can be one of three things – the cause of that presentation, someone intoxicated or on the receiving end of intoxication. The vast majority of what we see in an emergency departments from the violence of alcohol is people who have been in fights punched up.”
Dr Rosengren said the true extent of the problem was unknown because alcohol was not recorded in emergency data. “It’s a very big issue, but we can’t actually record that because there’s no system in place,” he said. So any figure that we’re going to see is going to be a gross underestimate of the actual true incidents of alcohol-related problems. All we can do is correlate from other data sets that exist but we work on specific studies that are published, which indicate 25-30 per cent of all ED presentations have alcohol as a factor in some manner – either the primary or secondary cause.”
Dr Rosengren, a staff specialist at Royal Brisbane Hospital, said Friday and Saturday nights were the busiest times for the hospital. “A hospital such as Royal Brisbane, which is close to the nightclub spots in the Fortitude Valley, just fills up,” he said.
Since October last year, RBH, Gold Coast and Cairns hospitals have been part of a Queensland Health trial targeting people presenting for alcohol and drug problems. Addiction Psychiatry director Mark Daglish said it saw up to 480 people a month and 80 per cent of those cases were because of alcohol.
“We know we’re missing a significant proportion because there are those ones who come in, particularly on a Friday and Saturday night, who have been discharged,” he said. “We reckon it’s usually about a third of all inpatients usually have drug and alcohol problems – so it’s big numbers. The common ones we see in the morning are losers of fights.”
Dr Daglish said three-quarters of people presenting in emergency for alcohol or drugs were males and almost all were under 45. “If you’re talking about alcohol and violence, you’re generally talking about men unless they’re taking it out on women,” he said.
“Alcohol and testosterone is a dangerous mix – it really is. On the Gold Coast, they’re seeing a younger population than we’re seeing, which would be in keeping with their demographic on the Gold Coast.”
Dr Daglish said people needed to be made more aware of the acute impacts of binge drinking, and recommended rolling the intervention program across all Queensland hospitals. “The impetus for the service came from this realisation that a lot of the problems from alcohol and drugs come from the early users who are often not yet dependent or not yet in treatment but are still causing themselves and other people a lot of damage,” he said.
“A lot of them were young and not in treatment, but one place they did go was the emergency department, usually on a Friday and Saturday night, usually intoxicated at the time, and there’s a fair few frequent attendees. If you intervene in their drug and alcohol use early, you can shorten the duration of their admission, which means they’re spending less time in the hospital and they’re in treatment towards their substance abuse as well as the trauma.
“Once they’re dependent, you need a lot more.”
Source www.couriermail.com.au 21st July 2009

A new ordinance in Milan bans alcohol for those under 16 in an effort to curb drinking problems among youth. The ordinance calls for fines of up to €500 for younger teens caught drinking and for those who give or sell them alcohol. Italy has no minimum drinking age – only a rarely enforced ban on serving alcohol in public to those under 16. According to the article, “In Milan, 34 per cent of 11-year-olds have had problems with alcohol…. Overall, 22.4 per cent of boys aged 11-18 and 13 per cent of girls in Italy have drinking habits that pose a health risk, according to the National Observatory for Alcohol.”
Source: Associated Press 20 July 2009 published in New Zealand Herald

Arnold Schwarzenegger believes it could solve California’s spiralling financial crisis and supporters rave about its positive effects, so could marijuana be coming to a shop near you? Shane Dunphy reportsChanging attitudes: Legalising cannabis may be on the horizon in California, thanks to a softened stance from Arnold Schwarzenegger

The drug of choice for the free-love counterculture, marijuana has probably received more mixed press than any other recreational drug. Regular users speak of its positive effects: relaxation, warm, friendly feelings towards others and an expanded world-view.

Medical research, however, suggests that marijuana smoke actually contains more toxic substances than tobacco smoke. A study commissioned by the Canadian government, for example, determined that marijuana smoke contained 20 times more ammonia, and five times more hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxides than its legal counterpart, making it potentially much more harmful.

Yet the debate as to whether marijuana and its various related substances ( hashish, kief, and hash oil ) should be decriminalised continues, and the latest place to consider the ramifications of such a move is the US state of California.

Supporters of legalised marijuana claim that the drug can solve California’s spiralling financial crisis. A series of television ads was launched last week supporting a bill by Democratic assemblyman Tom Ammiano that would regulate and tax the sale of marijuana in the Golden State, where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration is in a $26bn ( €18.7bn ) black hole.

One of the 30-second films features an “actual marijuana user”. She is a retired, 58-year-old civil servant called Nadine Herndon, shown in front of her family portraits at home in Sacramento County, where she began using the drug after suffering a series of strokes three years ago. She speaks of the huge cuts to police, schools and healthcare that are imminent due to California’s budget crisis. She points out that Schwarzenegger and his legislature are ignoring millions of Californians who want to contribute by paying taxes on their marijuana usage.

The series of advertisements seem to have achieved their goal, as even the arch-conservative ‘Governator’ has softened his stance, and publicly stated that it is time to open the debate on fully legalising the weed, medical use of which was introduced in California by a majority vote in a 1996 referendum.

Commentators propose that there is a huge demographic in California who will support legalisation — children of the participants of the Summer of Love, who were raised within a hippy ethos, believing that smoking the occasional joint is perfectly normal.

The logical extension to this argument is obvious: if legalising marijuana can solve bankrupt California, then why not Ireland? A recent survey by the HSE showed that as many as 15pc of the Irish population use marijuana regularly ( at least once a year ), while 2pc use it daily. The highest using group, the study found, was 15–34 year olds.

Marijuana, as most people encounter it, is a dry, shredded green and brown mix of flowers, stems, seeds, and leaves derived from the hemp plant Cannabis sativa. The main active chemical in marijuana is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol; THC for short.

The average user will buy marijuana by the quarter ounce, the average price of which is around €100. This will make approximately 20 average sized joints, putting the price of a joint at around a fiver, making it a reasonably competitive alternative to alcohol. Whether legalisation and an added tax would increase this price is open to conjecture. Perhaps a government sanctioned hash farmer, growing in bulk and without the need to hide from the law, would be able to produce a crop more cheaply than the current black market gardeners. And think of all the green jobs.

The campaign for legalisation in Ireland has been ongoing for many years, making a minor celebrity out of its most outspoken and flamboyant spokesperson, Luke “Ming the Merciless” Flanagan, currently a county councillor in Roscommon. Occasionally a TD ( usually in need of some cheap publicity ) will attempt to reopen the legalisation debate, but Ireland has never taken the argument really seriously — a fact that might change if California bites the hemp bullet.

Legalisation has been tried in other countries, with varying degrees of success. Some countries, Belgium, for instance, while not overtly legalising cannabis, tolerate its usage, and so long as the amount in your possession could be reasonably defined as for personal usage, the authorities will turn a blind eye. Canada legally permits small amounts of the drug to be held for personal usage, although marijuana is still grown and traded on the black market and is not yet centrally controlled.

Holland has become synonymous with the legalisation of marijuana, where it can be purchased legally through specially designated coffee shops, in the form of marijuana cigarettes, in teas and in cakes and biscuits. Interestingly, Holland does not condone the purchase of marijuana wholesale or in bulk, and this has, apparently, led to continued problems with the black market sale of the drug, and what the Dutch describe as “nuisance drug users”.

Recent studies of schools in Amsterdam show that the incidence of young people using marijuana regularly is slightly higher than Ireland, at 15.8pc. These studies have also commented on the growing levels of THC, the active ingredient, in Dutch cannabis, suggesting that long-term exposure has created an appetite for stronger and stronger crops, which private growers are doing their best to engineer.

New findings which link regular use of the drug to depression and lethargy have also brought the Dutch government under fire, and earlier this year 27 coffee shops were closed, all within 200 metres of schools. The traditional Dutch stance that marijuana is a harmless and relatively innocent soft drug seems to be under revision.

So while California is considering broadening its laws, Holland, with many years’ experience of selling marijuana openly, is tightening its legislation.

It would seem that this is a debate we will be hearing much more about as the international recession continues.
Source: Irish Independent 25th July 2009

For years, Germany has been famous for its tolerant stance toward public drinking. Now many communities are finding that drunken youths are a public nuisance and a danger both to others and themselves. Although several approaches have been taken to solve the problem, few have worked.
The teenager should be home by now but, instead, he’s lying here passed out on the grass next to a pool of his own vomit. His friend says the boy is 15 — and that he actually laid off things a bit tonight. He only had a couple of beers and a few swigs from a bottle — “something sweet with vodka” — being passed around. And then he suddenly just fell down.
German municipalities are battling an epidemic of youths whose drunken rowdiness is upsetting local residents and spawning a number of tough legal countermeasures.
For Ingrid Friedrich and Dirk Geist, both public safety officials in the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, this is the first completely intoxicated teenager they will have to attend to tonight — but he certainly won’t be the last. The weather is good, it’s summer, and it’s just past 10 p.m. Hundreds of drinking youths have taken their usual places in Heidelberg’s Neckarwiese Park.
It’s Geist and Friedrich’s job to patrol the area until 2 a.m. and make sure things don’t get too far out of hand. They’ll hand out fines to people who urinate on trees or in house entryways. They’ll summon an ambulance for those who collapse, like the boy here on the grass. And they’ll call in the police if drunk people start fighting or jumping into the Neckar River.
Battling the Boozing
Scenes like this have become commonplace throughout Germany. All over the country, police, public safety officials and private citizens have been complaining about excessive drinking in public. Their complaints stem from garbage left in parks, the stench of urine and techno music blaring until late at night. But they’re also about the rioting and violence that drinking unleashes in these young people.
The state can’t make these teens grow up. But it can try to bring their drinking under control through laws and new regulations. Or it can use another strategy — offering them healthier and less disruptive leisure-time activities, such as beach volleyball instead of sunset boozing, or youth clubs instead city bus stops, where they party, make out and fight.
The past few weeks have shown that blanket bans are hard to enforce. For example, an administrative court in the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg recently decided in favor of a law student from Freiburg who felt that the nighttime ban imposed early last year on alcohol consumption in that city’s old town was an unacceptable restriction on the freedom of people who don’t necessarily destroy park benches after enjoying a beer or two in the evening sun. The court’s reasoning drew parallels with how swimming bans aren’t imposed on lakes just because someone has drowned in them.
Nevertheless, Germany’s towns and states are still trying to find ways — including some that are used in the United States — to effectively prevent public beer and liquor consumption in certain squares, streets and parks. Following the ruling related to Freiburg, Heribert Rech, Baden-Württemberg’s interior minister, announced that he now wants to amend relevant police laws. “I won’t leave the towns in the lurch,” he says.
Berlin has already imposed an alcohol ban in its famous Alexanderplatz, where “Friday get-togethers” used to draw around 500 young people a week. The gatherings frightened tourists away, annoyed local residents and put a strain on the city’s garbage-disposal service, which had to cart off truckloads of bottles and cans each week after the party was over.
What particularly upsets the residents is the mountain of waste left behind by careless revelers. In 2008 alone, Berlin’s poison control hotline recorded 260 cases of small children who swallowed cigarette butts they had found in parks or playgrounds. And in Berlin’s hip, young district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, a recent citizens’ clean-up day collected 3,100 bottle caps left in grassy areas and bushes. Resentment toward young drinkers in the neighborhood has gotten so strong that some people have even thrown water balloons on them from several flights up.
Priggish Party Poopers?
City officials and residents in Hamburg are also losing patience with the level of chaos there in Europe’s most famous nightlife district, the Reeperbahn. The behavior exhibited by some drinking teens has “changed dramatically,” says Ulrich Wagner, head of the local Davidwache police station. The proportion of crimes committed under the influence of alcohol in the St. Pauli area, which encompasses the Reeperbahn, lies at 42 percent — or three times the citywide average for Hamburg. Since drunks have been known to strike passersby with bottles, the city’s senate has now banned glasses and bottles from the Reeperbahn at night.
Rainer Thomasius, a physician specializing in addiction research at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, considers it an “absolutely reasonable approach” to make the area surrounding the Reeperbahn at least partially dry. Germany makes it much too easy, he says, for minors to get drunk any time and anywhere. Thomasius also thinks that it is “utterly wrong” that a six-pack of beer sometimes costs less than €2 ($2.90). He says these give-away prices are partly responsible for the fact that more and more young people are finding wild drinking binges that ultimately bring them to his clinic.
Throughout Germany’s cities and states, there is a wide range of ideas being bandied about, but they all relate to the same thing: how to spoil the fun for these pedestrian-zone partiers. Baden-Württemberg wants to cut off their access to more supplies by forbidding gas stations and newsstands from selling alcohol between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Police there also started conducting checks last week on teenagers carrying soft drink bottles to see if they had spiked them with vodka.
The state of Lower Saxony, on the other hand, has started sending young mystery shoppers to sniff out supermarkets that sell beer and liquor to 13-, 14- and 15-year-olds. And Sabine Bätzing, the federal government’s chief anti-drug official, is using a two-pronged positive approach of using “attractive leisure-time activities and informational campaigns” to lure minors away from drinking.
Moving Targets
Wolf-Egbert Rosenzweig is the mayor of Neu Wulmstorf, a town of 20,000 just outside Hamburg. He has already tried just such a positive approach. He hired social workers to counsel teens on the streets, and he gave the local youth center more funding. But even after months of funding and counseling, no one succeeded in winning the teens’ trust. Unimpressed by the government’s efforts, the first young drinkers still turned up in the town’s marketplace in the early afternoon to get plastered on cheap beer bought at a nearby discount shop.
Still, word had already gotten out that Neu Wulmstorf was a happening place, and more teens started showing up on its streets. Pedestrians felt threatened by the young drinkers, sales at retail shops and restaurants took a nosedive, and residents of a nearby retirement home complained about garbage and dirty benches.
The town decided to take a tougher approach, but it’s been hard to implement. There simply aren’t enough police officers and public safety officials to constantly keep their eyes on what’s happening and pinpoint individual wrongdoers each time while staying within their legal boundaries.
Ultimately, after a 15-year-old girl was found unconscious and covered in vomit on the edge of the marketplace, Rosenzweig and the town council threw all caution to the wind — and imposed an alcohol ban. Now drinking is only allowed in the town’s marketplace under one set of circumstances — when newlywed couples want to have a champagne toast after their marriage ceremony.
In the beginning, local teens demonstrated against the ban and demanded that it be at least partly lifted. But Rosenzweig didn’t budge.
The teens eventually gave up their protests, but the mayor still hasn’t gotten rid of the real problem. The owner of a local gas station recently complained to him that the drunken youths were back, only this time they were on his property.
Source: Spiegel Online International 3rd August 2009

Drug treatment programmes are only successful for around half of the drug addicts who enrol on them, figures have shown.

Health minister, Dawn Primarolo, said just 35,441 patients out of 69,612 were given “successful discharges” from structured treatment programmes in 2007-08. This works out at about 51%.

That left 34,171 patients who failed to complete their treatment for drug misuse, figures released in a written parliamentary answer to shadow home secretary Dominic Grieve showed.

This included 19,591 – or 28% – who simply dropped out or left, with a 2,169 turning down the treatment and 2,078 having treatment withdrawn. A total of 4,240 (6%) failed to complete their course due to be admitted to prison.

Of the successful cases, only 11% were considered to be “completely free of using illegal drugs”. This totalled about 7,324 ex-users. The remainder were either using drugs in a “non-dependent way” or were referred on to other services.

Source: Nursing in Practice 15th Jan 2009

The United Nations’ crime and drug watchdog has indications that money made in illicit drug trade has been used to keep banks afloat in the global financial crisis, its head was quoted as saying on Sunday.
Vienna-based UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa said in an interview released by Austrian weekly Profil that drug money often became the only available capital when the crisis spiralled out of control last year.
“In many instances, drug money is currently the only liquid investment capital,” Costa was quoted as saying by Profil. “In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor.”
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime had found evidence that “interbank loans were funded by money that originated from drug trade and other illegal activities,” Costa was quoted as saying. There were “signs that some banks were rescued in that way.”
Profil said Costa declined to identify countries or banks which may have received drug money and gave no indication how much cash might be involved. He only said Austria was not on top of his list, Profil said. (Reporting by Boris Groendahl; Editing by Charles Dick)
Source: Reuters 25th Jan. 2009

Last month this blog highlighted an article by Times columnist Libby Purves about late night policing in Ipswich and pointed out the lack of formal sanctions she saw being used while spending a shift with officers dealing mainly with pub and club goers. In particular, the following passage demonstrated the light touch policing method employed:
I question PC Rafferty about his interpretation of “drunk and disorderly”, since one in five of those around us is now, in my view, disorderly. If there were any peace they would be breaching it. He laughs: “Drunk and hopeless.” There aren’t enough cells, or time for the paperwork. The police merely contain the bingers, keep them friendly. By and large it works.
I then asked whether this did in fact ‘work’, and questioned if merely managing or containing drunken and disorderly behaviour was preferable to a more comprehensive solution.Another Times article a few days later by Anjana Ahuja outlined evidence from experiments which help confirm the ‘broken windows’ theory – that tolerating minor wrongdoing results in more serious crime and disorder. One of the experiments conducted was outlined thus:
Dr Keizer’s team left an envelope hanging out of a postbox; the stamped and addressed envelope had a window through which could clearly be seen a five-euro note. How would passers-by, or those posting a letter, react when they saw it? The vast majority (87 per cent) either left it alone, or pushed it into the postbox. Only 13 per cent took it away (this was regarded as stealing).

But roughing up the environment had a dramatic effect. When the postbox was tagged with graffiti, 27 per cent of people stole the letter. When the postbox was surrounded by rubbish (but not graffitied), 25 per cent pocketed the cash.

The academics, who reported their startling results last month in Science, suggest that disorder does indeed beget disorder; when one social or legal norm is obviously violated, we are tempted to loosen our grip on others.
The broken windows theory forms the basis for zero tolerance policing. But, as the experience of policing in Ipswich demonstrates, the reality on the ground is arguably nearer to zero enforcement than the more robust approach required by the science, which in turn perhaps provides some insight into why the UK has such a self-evident law and order problem.

Another important facet of this debate is how out of touch the powers that be – desk-bound senior police officers, politicians, councillors and public servants – are with what happens at the sharp end of policing, and the implications this has for policy-making. Yet another recent Times article provides some evidence relating to this. In a piece about drugs legislation and enforcement, Andy Hayman, an ex-assistant commissioner at Scotland Yard, argues that the reclassification of cannabis and ecstasy will make little difference to policing on the ground. In relation to the bureaucracy he says:
I used to serve on the [Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs] in my capacity as the leading police officer on drugs policy. By the end of my stint I felt that its detachment from grassroots reality had eroded its credibility. Its purpose seemed to be to generate endless rounds of meetings and glossy reports to send to ministers.

Up to 70 members – made up of representatives from all sorts of government and voluntary bodies – attended the unwieldy full meetings, which were supported by a plethora of smaller working groups and sub-committees. I was always struck by how the experience of those living in the thick of the drugs problem got lost among the grey suits having highbrow technical and medical discussions.
As regards enforcement and prosecution:
The council would be horrified to learn that its recommendations on drugs classification are not taken seriously. But that is the case. The public either don’t understand the process or are not interested in it. For the police, the advisory council is a sideshow; officers prefer to apply their professional discretion on whether to caution or arrest suspects.

Put bluntly, how a drug is classified doesn’t help police officers in their day-to-day duties. The first thought of an officer confronted by a user of an illegal drug is to weigh up whether the possession warrants anything more than a caution. To make an arrest and charge doesn’t guarantee a prosecution so it may be simpler to deal with it on the street. That decision is made regardless of the classification of the drug involved.

For the courts, categorising a drug does help to provide a tariff for punishment. But even that idea has become dated as the Crown Prosecution Service now tends to apply its own prosecution guidelines. In practice, the classification of a drug does not significantly change how the courts or police deal with drug offenders.
Of course, these examples are a mere microcosm of the bigger problem, but extrapolate them to policing and crime generally – not to mention the even bigger picture of government and the public services – and the implications are surely self-evident.
About this site
Planet Politics is about disillusionment with the political process.
Planet Politics has absolutely no links to any political party, pressure group or the press, and is best described as anti-politics rather than non-aligned.

Source: planet–politics.blogspot.com Feb 2009

Should cannabis be decriminalised or not? Should it be classifed as a class B or C drug? Debates are irrelevant while they are entrenched in misinformation and disinformation
This article by Deirdre Boyd appeared in Addiction Today, November 2000 – before the ACMD advised then Home Secretary David Blunkett to reclassify it downwards to a class C drug. On the urging of prime minister Gordon Brown, the ACMD is again hearing evidence this February. The facts here have not dated – in fact, more recent research validates them further.
The most noticeable factor in ongoing debates about cannabis is the vast foundation of ignorance on which people are basing the most emotive, entrenched arguments. The fewer facts people have, the more heated they seem to be. This country needs a strategy of health information about cannabis which is as available and comprehensive as that eventually offered by anti-tobacco campaigners.
Cigarette smoking started to reduce because people were – after a battle spanning decades – given the facts about its risks. Cannabis smokers also deserve the truth so that they can make informed decisions about their own health and that of their families.
For example, are the people – including government ministers – who argue that they took pot in the 1960s and 1970s without any harm aware that the pot/marijuana/cannabis of today is not the same substance they took back then? Like every other profitable product, cannabis has been refined over the decades so that it is now four to 12 times more potent than it was 20 years ago.
So, for the moment, let’s put to one side the legal and criminal ramifications and look at what studies show about the effects of cannabis on health.
IDENTIFIABLE SYMPTOMS
When asked by a teacher suspicious of wide swings in academic performance in some of his students what symptoms could help to identify a pupil using cannabis, Dr James West of the Betty Ford Center gave the following answer.
“Cannabis affects the cerebral, cardiovascular, pulmonary and neuroregulatory systems. Acute or chronic use leads to: euphoria, decreased mental functioning, faster pulse, decreased pulmonary function, exacerbation of asthma, conjunctival injection (red eyes), pharyngitis (sore throat), bronchitis, stuff nose, dry mouth, sinusitis, perceptual delusions, paranoia, mood shifts, sleepiness, sexual arousal, anxiety/panic, lethargy and lack of ambition, plus angina in a pre-existing heart disease.
“The symptoms of overdose are very rapid pulse, very high blood pressure, delusions, hallucinations, seizures in epileptics and acute mental changes including psychosis. There are also withdrawal signs for regular users who quit abruptly: irritability, restlessness, insomnia, mild tremors/ bouts of chills and sometimes a low-grade fever.”
CANCER
A report by the British Medical Association found that smoking a cannabis cigarette leads to three times more tar inhalation than from a tobacco cigarette – and long-term use can lead to lung cancer. Dr West states that cannabis contaiins four to five times the lung-cancer-producing hydrocarbons as does tobacco.
BRONCHITIS AND OTHER RESPIRATORY DISORDERS
Such disorders linked with smoking can also be caused by long-term use. It is unclear if there is more risk of these disorders than with tobacco. But cannabis users tend to inhale more deeply and the drug does contain more tar. “Cannabis irritates the respiratory system and obstructs smaller airways with a form of bronchitis-emphysema,” explains Dr West.
HEART PROBLEMS
The heart responds to cannabis with an increased heart rate proportional to the dose of the drug. Usually, after smoking pot, the heart rate increased by 20-40 beats per minute, and rapid rates of 140 beats per minute are not unusual. Chronic use can lead to angina in people with pre-existing heart problems.
ADDICTION
Although infamous for recommending the decriminalisation of cannabis, the Runciman Report states that “the number of people seeking help from drug agencies for problems with cannabis use has doubled from 1,400 in 1993 to 3,300 in 1998 (10% of the total seeking help). This is only the people who identified cannabis as their “main drug”.
Cannabis is addictive, concludes a survey by the US National Institute of Drug Abuse. It found that 75% of people who gave up cannabis had cravings for it, and 70% switched to tobacco in an attempt to stay off. Almost 50% said they became irritable and many were bored after giving up the drug.
And in more recent experiments with monkeys, a NIDA team warned that cannabis might be as addictive as heroin and cocaine.
A 1994 report from the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University found that 60% of children who smoked pot before the age of 15 years moved on to cocaine, and 20% of those who first smoked pot after age 16 then used cocaine.
RELAXING QUALITIES versus DEMOTIVATION & DEPRESSION
Cannabis is best known as a relaxant. This can lead to lower blood pressure, increased appetite, feelings of relaxation, mild intoxication and increased sociability. Smokers usually feel its effects in minutes and they can last up to three hours. The effect is delayed when eating or drinking, so that it lasts longer and can be harder to control. And the relaxing effect can go too far. Research shows that cannabis affects almost ever bodily system, slowing down reaction times, causing drowsiness and confusion.
MEMORY LOSS
Because cannabis is absorbed into the brain cell wall, it is considered more destructive to brain tissue than opioids. Heavy use impairs general intellectual functioning such as memory and comprehension. Even in small doses, dope smoking is known to cause short-term memory loss.
ACCIDENTS
Even “casual use” of cannabis impairs psychomotor skills like those needed to drive a car. It increases the chance of a traffic accident or accidents while operating machinery.
LEARNING IMPAIRMENT
Studies sow that regular heavy use can cause nerve damage and affect learning.
HALLUCINATIONS, PARANOID DELUSIONS
These can result from even small doses. Anxiety and panic are common.
COORDINATION
This, too, is affected by cannabis.
COMA
High doses can cause coma. But we are not aware of any records of fatal overdose.
PSYCHOTIC ILLNESS
“It can have adverse psychic effects ranging from temporary distress, through transient psychosis, to the exacerbation of pre-existing mental illness,” the Runciman Report states about cannabis.
Dr Andrew Silski, consultant psychiatrist and medical director at Pembury Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, backs this. “I estimate taht 75% of the young people I see suffering psychotic illness have a history of cannabis abuse,” he revealed.
The drug contains hundreds of active ingredients, most importantly cannabinoids, which interfere with the chemical functioning of the brain. Its most serious effect seems to be depleting neurotransmitters – such as dopamine, which is linked with pleasure – and hindering electrical currents vital for brain function.
People with personality disorders can succumb to amotivational syndrome. They lose motivation, drive and willpower, leading to depression. This can damage education, work prospects and relationships.
“There is also an unknown number of people with a mental or chemical predisposition for psychotic illness,” states Wilski. “In them, cannabis can trigger altered moods, confusion, delusions or hallucinations. Cannabis also has a profoundly worrying effect on people with unspecific brain impairment or weakness, such as dyslexia. And it is no coincidence that some ethnic communities, in which cannabis use is endemic, suffer hugely increased levels of psychosis: six to 20 times greater than the norm.”
FALL IN FERTILITY
Abnormalities can occur in the reproductive systems of men and women. Cannabis can cause irregularities in the menstrual cycle. And studies of males have shown reduced sperm count and mobility as well as sperm of abnormal appearance. Sterility and infertility have occurred in users.
LEUKAEMIA IN CHILDREN OF USERS
Smoking pot in pregnancy has been found to be linked to a form of leukaemia in infants.
The facts are here. The choice is yours.
Source: Addiction Today, November 2000

In Britain, Europe’s biggest consumer of narcotics, the Home Office reckons that drugs are brought in by about 300 major importers, who pass them to 30,000 wholesalers and then to 70,000 street dealers. Cocaine, meaning both the sniffable powder and smokable “rocks” of crack cocaine (which can be made using a simple microwave), accounts for about half the value of this industry, being less widely taken than cannabis but much pricier.
Some rare light was shed on the business by a Home Office study in 2007, in which 222 drug-dealers were interviewed in prison by analysts from Matrix Knowledge Group, a consultancy, and the London School of Economics. One dealing partnership, based in London and Spain, bought cocaine from a Colombian importer in 10kg bundles, which they sold to retailers using an employee whom they paid £500 ($703) per transaction. A second employee, paid £250 a day, would collect money from the buyers and pass it to a third member of staff, who would count it (processing up to £220,000 each day). Other employees would pay the Colombians and smuggle the rest of the cash, on their bodies, back to Spain.
Most drug businesses are forced to stay small and simple to evade the police. Only one dealer claimed to be part of an organisation of more than 100 people, and a fifth were classified by researchers as sole traders. Fear of being uncovered also hampers recruitment: most dealers stuck to family and friends, and people from the same ethnic group, when hiring associates. Just like other businessmen, they carried out criminal-record background checks on potential employees—except that, in this case, a record was a good thing.
Kevin Marsh, an economist at Matrix Knowledge, argues that most players in the drug business have a poor knowledge of the market. “Shopping around for new wholesale suppliers is risky, so many retailers stick to the same one and pay over the odds,” he says. Most of the dealers interviewed knew little about the purity of what they were buying, and money laundering was usually fairly shambolic. Managing cashflow is one of dealers’ biggest weaknesses, according to one drug specialist at the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA): “Supply of powder is the most resilient thing. To destroy the business, you have to go after the money.” That, and extradite foreign dealers, as America has long done. Britain is believed to be negotiating its first-ever extradition of a Colombian, on drug charges, at the moment.
Times may at last be getting harder for cocaine-dealers. Shortly before Christmas, the wholesale price in Britain shot up to £40,000 per kilo, the highest in years. Better policing was one cause; another was the slump of sterling. European retailers’ margins have been chipped away. To protect their profits, dealers are diluting what they sell. A decade ago, average street-level purity was about 60%; police say it is now nearer 30%. “People think there is a lot of cocaine around, but two thirds of it isn’t cocaine at all,” says one SOCA officer.
That would be fine if the remainder were talcum powder. But in the past few years dealers have turned to pharmaceutical cutting agents such as benzocaine, a topical anaesthetic, which mimic the effects of cocaine and may be more harmful. Dealers call such agents “magic” because of their effect on profits. “Grey traders”, who knowingly sell such chemicals to dealers, are starting to be convicted.
Educating drug-takers about what is getting up their noses may lower demand. But cutting raises bigger questions for drug policy. “We may have to say at some stage that taking heavily adulterated cocaine is more physically harmful to the user than taking cocaine that’s less adulterated,” a senior SOCA official says. “That is not the case at the moment. But we’ve got to keep asking the question. I’m aware that the health equation could one day say: Stop trying to stop cocaine coming in.”
Source: Economist.com 5 March 2009

Notwithstanding research carried out by the National Treatment Agency (NTA) which clearly established that the majority of those who have developed dependence, wish to become drug free; here in the UK, the focus for the past 10 years has been on ‘harm reduction’, rather than seeking to engage users into abstinence focused recovery. The outcome of this disastrous and misguided policy has been an escalation in drug related deaths which are at their highest for 5 years, 325 of which are attributed to methadone, the flagship of the harm reductionists, together with a devastating increase in the spread of blood born disease among Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) The statistics provided by the Health Protection Agency for England and Wales are as follows:

• The level of HIV infection among Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) in England and Wales is higher now than at the start of the decade.

• In London where the prevalence of HIV in IDUs is higher than elsewhere in England and Wales, 1 in 20 IDUs is infected.

• In the remainder of England and Wales HIV among IDUs has increased from approximately 1 in 400 in 2002 to around 1 in 150 in 2006.

• The prevalence of Hepatitis C among IDUs has increased from 33 percent in 2000 to 42 per cent in 2006.

• Approximately 1 in 5 IDUs has Hepatitis B infection, which extrapolates as an increase approaching 200 per cent since 1997.

The escalating increase in blood born disease has occurred despite the plethora of needle exchange facilities throughout England and Wales, and the growth of supervised drug consumption rooms

It is self evident from the foregoing that here in the UK at least, it is not the lack of harm reduction measures which is contributing to avoidable deaths and the epidemic of blood born disease being wreaked on our society, but the use of toxic psycho active substances.

It is not so called prohibition which has failed, but the encouragement by way of the tacit permission, and in many instances, the not so tacit encouraging of continued use, inherent in the harm reduction ideology, which has failed users and society so abysmally.

The supporters of Harm Reduction, under their various guises have never allowed the truth to interfere with their propaganda, or indeed their more covert agenda, to legalise drug use; the main beneficiaries of which would be the pharmaceutical industry. Such a move would be to inflict further incalculable harm on society, since it would result in a growth of use and addiction, similar, if not more widespread, to that seen in the late 1800’s when most of the drugs which are controlled today, were in fact legal.

The growth of drug use during that period was the direct result of concerted efforts by leading members of the medical profession in promoting drug use, many of whom were influenced by Sigmund Freud, who was so unethical in his dealings that he accepted separate commissions from two competeing, large pharmaceutical companies, both of whom are still in business today, to write papers extolling the benefits of that destructive substance, cocaine, not only as the ‘elixir of life’, but also as a cure for alcohol and morphine addiction. The rest as they say is history

One has to ask is it a coincidence that many of the bodies, who are pressing for an end to what they term as prohibition, receive ‘research grants’ from the pharmaceutical industry?
Source: Daily Dose; posted by Peter O’Loughlin on 13 Mar 2009 at 6:23 am

Nine people accounted for 2,678 of the emergency room visits in the Austin, Texas, area during the past six years at a cost of $3 million to taxpayers and others, according to a report by the nonprofit Integrated Care Collaboration, a group of health care providers who care for low-income and uninsured patients. The average emergency room visit costs $1,000. Hospitals and taxpayers paid the bill through government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. Eight of the nine patients have drug abuse problems, seven were diagnosed with mental health issues and three were homeless.
Source: St.Petersburg Times. 4th April 2009

By Seth Freedman – Guardian columnist – 5th June 2009.

A simplistic advertising campaign masks the corrosive, corrupting nature of narcotics
Yesterday afternoon, I met Release’s spokeswoman Claudia Rubin outside Old Street station in London. In a perfect piece of vehicular choreography, the first bus to veer past us at the roundabout bore the slogan “Nice People Take Drugs”, the phrase Rubin coined for Release’s latest campaign to kickstart a drug-policy debate.
The advert’s minimalist design was, she told me, inspired by the atheist bus campaign which caused such a stir last year. Release’s version dispenses with pictures or logos, relying instead on bold, orange lettering to convey the four-word mantra to street level. As marketing strategies go, it is a stroke of genius – guaranteed to achieve maximum impact, and luring viewers towards Release’s website to pique their curiosity.
However, the brilliance of the way the message is marketed does not automatically render brilliant the message itself. The intention behind the campaign is to attempt to break the societal taboo on drugs. According to Release, “the public is tired of the artificial representation of drugs in society” – informing passers-by that “nice people take drugs” will help “de-stigmatise drug use”, says Rubin.
Which is all well and good, but the fact that “nice” people have their faults doesn’t mean that their failings should be decriminalised and tolerated by everyone else. Nice people also break the speed limit, download pirated music, and commit any number of apparently minor misdemeanours, but the law isn’t meant to bend to accommodate such immoral behaviour just because a critical mass of people partake in a certain activity.
Defining what makes a nice person is, of course, an utterly subjective matter – as Release knows full well – as is determining at what point a person’s misdeeds turn them from nice to nasty. On one level Release is right: Rubin and I have been friends since we were 12, and the circles in which we mixed would definitely have passed the “nice” test, despite the vast majority of us having done drugs throughout our teenage years.
That we all came, saw and conquered our own mini-addictions and vices without turning to crime or violence is testament to our triumph over temptation, but to pass off our drug use as simply part and parcel of life is to gloss over the darker side of our experiences. Using drugs as an escape route, or a quick fix to our problems, was not a “nice” way to behave. Implying that drug abuse is socially acceptable, as Release are doing via their adverts, is not a noble message to hurl at impressionable children and teenagers who are unable to spot the nuance and meaning behind the stark sloganeering.
To claim, simplistically, that “nice people take drugs” masks the corrosive, corrupting nature of narcotics, as well as the underlying void they fill in users’ lives. The desire to get wasted – to blot out reality and allow substances to numb one’s senses to the present – is a desperate urge, and one which has held vast swaths of society in a vice-like grip since time immemorial. Ridding people of that impulse would do wonders for both their mental and physical health; bowing to so-called public demand and sugar-coating the truth about the dangers of drugs simply passes off as acceptable a wholly insidious behavioural streak.
Release believes that “the current [proscriptive] system has brought us powerful drugs like crack cocaine, skunk, and methamphetamine”, suggesting that the ban on the underlying narcotics has prompted cartels to invent stronger and deadlier variants of the original product. Such a theory is backwards: the demand for more potent strains is what spurs suppliers into action, not the other way round. I smoked skunk with my friends to achieve a deeper and darker haze: the legal status of cannabis was neither here nor there, just as those addicted to high-grade whisky or vodka couldn’t care less whether or not 3% lager is authorised for sale or not.
Addiction is a disease that affects tens of thousands of people in every generation. Allowing greater access to drugs will, as with alcohol and tobacco, only put more vulnerable citizens in temptation’s way – which neither Release nor anyone else should want to happen. Just as speeding laws shouldn’t be changed despite their impact on those drivers able to safely handle a car at 100mph, so too must drugs remain illegal to prevent risking the lives of the majority of the population.
Of the four words in Release’s advert, two leave too much open to interpretation: “nice” and “drugs”. “Good people smoke crack” would be a far more blunt and direct way to make the same point, but whether their message would be so blithely tolerated by the advertising authorities or the public is another matter – highlighting the essential error of drugs campaigning in the first place.
Source: Guardian.co.uk 5th June 2009Seth Freedman is a writer living in Jerusalem. He grew up in Hampstead Garden Suburb and worked as a stockbroker in the City for six years, before moving to Israel. Seth Freedman has written articles published in The Guardian and The Times – 81 articles published in 14 news websites since April 2008. No email address known for Seth Freedman.

Comment by NDPA:

The publicity provoked by the ‘Bus Slogan’ campaign by Release talks of ‘opening the drug debate’. This debate has been on-going for at least thirty years – and every time those who want to legalise drugs, or change the existing laws, lose the argument. They lie low for a few months. Then up they rise like a phoenix and declare ‘we must have a debate about drugs’. What they actually mean is ‘we must keep on debating about drugs until we get the answer we want’. Release and others of that ilk persistently turn a blind eye to the fact that the vast majority of the public (in the UK and worldwide) do not use illegal drugs themselves and they do not want their families impacted by the use of drugs by others. Drugs are unhealthy, unlawful, antisocial and unnecessary. Nice policies don’t accept drugs.

No one wants others to suffer. That’s the “Chink in the Armor” that Serra talks of. There may be some maladies that can be helped by marijuana, even if it is only psychologically. Those who are ill have been catapulted into the middle of the debate … a war, by a heartless and cruel group of people who want to get high and those who will not go speechless to watch our loved ones become like them. There seems to be no middle ground for those on our side understand all too well what the wrong message and role-modeling wrong behavior means.
These days, people on both sides of an issue are so polarized they won’t talk to each other, much less listen. Our side, with some willing to listen and talk, allowed the legalizer’s side to take ground that didn’t belong to them and more of the youth and those ill, (the vulnerable) are being hurt because they are now addicted.
Talking with and listening is an important issue with me – one is often surprised where one finds truth.
A friend suggested I read Sun Tzu’s book for the perspective of “know your enemy”. Understanding this, plus at the prodding of those I work with against drug use, I began to learn about the legalizers – an interesting study.
And then tonight; it’s ironic sometimes what one stumbles upon, poking around on the net! I happened onto a site that offered schooling toward a Criminal Justice Degree. I paused as I perused it; something wasn’t right, but as I looked it over, I couldn’t figure out what it was. I was thinking their ad, offering a salary of $40,000 as a DEA agent, wasn’t much of a motivation – not much to put one’s life on the line for! Still, I couldn’t quite leave that site. That “something’s wrong feeling” was stronger every moment; maybe I was seeing it, but I couldn’t recognize it. As I decided to search for it, I found it, printed lightly – almost as if it were not meant to be noticed.
What I’d noticed was the logo of one of the five schools offering the degree, one I’d seen before, many times now in my study. Evidently this time, for me it had been subliminal . . . . the link probably won’t mean anything to someone who hasn’t studied the players in the legalization movement – “it’s near impossible to keep up on even most issues in this ‘age of information’. I wonder if the DEA knows about this?”, I thought as I shook my head and began to laugh. “I wonder if my prohibitionist friends know about this? Gotta be someone’s idea of a bad joke – a legalizer’s school teaching future DEA agents”, I told myself. “I’ll bet users have noticed, … some of them”.
The school offering the degree? It’s the University of Phoenix. The university’s founder is John Sperling – one of the three men in what I call the “Daddy Warbucks Cartel”, the three men most responsible for funding the ballot measures all across the nation for the legalization of marijuana. (no; they’re not local grass-roots [pun intended] campaigns.)
Another is Peter B. Lewis, of Progressive Insurance. Wouldn’t it seem fitting that the government require all the “medical marijuana users” who drive, to sign with Progressive for their auto insurance? Could be real revealing, couldn’t it? The third man, is George Soros – all three radical politicos.
Another interesting thing I found that ties in as well – on an OSI, Open Society Institute’s site, (one of Soros’ numerous non-profits), I listened to a panel discussion over the net – about how nations like Iran have been successful at shutting down communications and the internet – what works and what doesn’t in totalitarian nations.
I found it interesting that it’s just exactly how the government of Iran recently reacted, attempting to shut down the ability of the people to talk with each other after this fraudulent election. Does anyone else find it ironic that proponents of drug legalization are in bed with a man who (I believe) essentially plans to take away others’ freedom?
If all three groups won’t talk, won’t listen, won’t give, it’s a loose / loose / loose, for everyone! Again, our side gave up or lost too much ground here and all sides are willing to fight to the end.
Source: examiner.com June 18th 2009

THE United Kingdom is the cocaine capital of Europe, with more than a million regular users taking the drug, according to a new report.
And one of Scotland’s top drug experts said yesterday that given the biggest per capita consumption was north of the Border, the country was probably Europe’s capital of the class A substance.The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said the UK was Europe’s largest cocaine market. But its report said the quality of the drug had declined dramatically in recent years. The report said a crackdown on traffickers had pushed cocaine prices up and led to dealers diluting the drug even more.

Some seizures by police revealed that substances being passed off as cocaine that were only 5 per cent pure. The UN found dealers mixing their product with cutting agents such as dental and veterinary anaesthetics, which mimic the effects of cocaine but are much cheaper.

There are estimated to be 860,000 cocaine users in England and Wales and about 140,000 in Northern Ireland and Scotland combined. The World Drug Report 2009 revealed that cocaine use had increased dramatically in the UK from the mid-1990s, but remained stable over the past two years.

Data given to the UN by the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency shows that wholesale prices have risen to record levels. The cost of a kilogram of cocaine has increased by 50 per cent – from £30,000 to £45,000 – since 2007. The report says: “The UK thus continues to be – in absolute numbers – Europe’s largest cocaine market, with its second highest cocaine use prevalence rate.”

Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, said he was not surprised at the UN’s conclusions. “A few years ago I said that in due course cocaine would overtake heroin, and I think that’s what we’re going to see. Heroin use may have plateaued at quite a high level, but cocaine use has been rising quite dramatically.” He added: “Scotland typically is the highest centre of drug consumption in the UK anyway, so it could well be that it is the cocaine capital of Europe.”

Source: The Scotsman 25th June 2009

The breakdown shows health boards and councils forked out £77 million on drug services in 2007 and just under £26 million on alcohol services.
Drug and alcohol abuse is costing Scotland nearly £5billion a year, according a report by the watchdog Audit Scotland. The breakdown shows health boards and councils forked out £77million on drug services in 2007 and just under £26million on alcohol services.
The report said spending patterns did not always reflect national priorities or need, and funding arrangements are often “complex and fragmented”.
Death rates for alcohol and drug abuse in Scotland are amongst the highest in Europe and have doubled in the last 15 years. This is while rates decrase in other parts of Europe. The number of alcohol-related deaths in 2007 was 1,399 – compared to 455 drugs-related deaths.
The report has called for a more co-ordinated approach to services.
Auditor General Robert Black said: “The range of services for people in need of help can depend on where they live and there is not enough information about the effectiveness of these services.”
Scottish ministers have not set out minimum national standards that victims and their families can expect from drug and alcohol services. The report says ministers need to work with the NHS, councils and others to ensure they all know their responsibilities. While recent Scottish Government strategies have a focus on prevention, only 6 per cent of direct spending was on preventive activities.
Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie said: “This report came about as a result of Scottish Conservative pressure in the 2008 budget. We suspected there was chaos in how funding streams were directed towards addressing addiction. The horrific truth has now been exposed and I am shocked at the sheer scale of the drugs and alcohol problem in Scotland.”
Labour’s Cathy Jamieson added: “I am particularly concerned that Audit Scotland’s report states that the Scottish Government is not funding services in the most effective way as they have no way of measuring performance. This is completely unacceptable and must change.”
A Scottish Government spokesman said the Government had asked for the report and welcomed its findings. He added: “It details the system we inherited from the previous administration.” The spokesman also said spending on drug and alcohol services had increased.

Source: www.stv.tv 26 March 2009

The cost of providing methadone to drug addicts has almost doubled in the past five years to nearly £17million.
The total bill for dispensing the heroin substitute north of the Border rose by 84% – from £9,049,792 in 2003/4 to £16,637,636 in 2009.
Annabel Goldie, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said the figures were evidence that current drug treatment methods are failing. Drug misuse experts believe addicts should have a maximum of two years on methadone, which is prescribed to an estimated 22,000 people as an alternative to heroin.
Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drugs Misuse Research at Glasgow University, said millions of pounds were being wasted on methadone prescriptions.
The Scottish Government announced a new drugs strategy in 2008. The document promised a change in treatment methods but failed to set targets for cutting methadone use.
Reacting to the latest revelations, Ms Goldie said: “Even in the past year alone the cost of prescribing methadone has risen by over 10 per cent. Under eight years of Labour and the Lib Dems, Scotland’s drug dependency became a methadone dependency.
“The SNP must not make the same mistake. “Methadone must stop being the treatment of first resort. A new political will and a new national strategy were the first steps but now it’s time for action.”
There are an estimated 50,000 “problem” drug users in Scotland. A United Nations report last week showed Scots had the second-highest rate of heroin use in Europe.
Prof McKeganey added: “We have got to move away from it and politicians have to be determined and show leadership, because otherwise the costs of the methadone programme will rise and they will strangle the development of alternative treatments. “You can’t spend that much money on a single treatment and not make other possible treatments suffer as a result.”
However, a Scottish government spokesman insisted its drugs strategy would open up access to alternative treatment methods. He continued: “We want a much wider range of services to be available for drug users. We are transforming the delivery of drug services to ensure that help is available when people need it most. The new target to reduce waiting times will help ensure this happens.”
Source: http://www.stv.tv. 05 July 2009

One of Scotland’s leading drugs experts says there is a big question mark over the size of the country’s methadone programme. Professor Neil McKeganey’s research found many people on the heroin substitute were still taking heroin as well.
22,000 adults in Scotland are on methadone, and that costs at least £25 million a year.
The report from Glasgow university’s centre for drug misuse research says the programme is “gargantuan in size and scale.”
The study, which looked at the behaviour of 400 drug users, found there was no significant difference between those on methadone and others when it came to not using heroin. It also found no significant difference between the groups in terms of committing crimes to pay for drugs.
The Scottish Government says there is evidence methadone can help stabilise those with chaotic lifestyles. It says the drugs strategy launched earlier this year recognises the need to move people on from methadone, but adds the challenge is to make sure the right support is available rather than promoting one type of treatment over others.
Source: www.stv.tv 14 December 2008

More than 11,000 children under 16 years old were treated last year for addictions to alcohol and drugs, including heroin, according to new figures released this week.
The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse puts the total figure of children treated at 11,294. This includes 6,075 under-16s addicted to cannabis, of which 102 are under 12 years old.
More than 4,000 children received help for alcoholism, including 57 under-12s.
The children addicted to class A drugs included ten under-12s who were dependent on heroin, out of 93 under-16s. A further 323 children were treated for cocaine misuse, 165 for ecstasy, and 36 for crack.
Conservative Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said the government is neglecting a ‘forgotten generation’ of children. “It’s a sad indictment of our broken society that so many are turning to things like drug and alcohol abuse at such a young age” he said.
The Department of Health said the high figures were due to an increase in spending on treatment, a rise of £10million, from £15million to £25million in the past five years,
Funding for the government’s national anti-drug campaign which is aimed at teenagers has been cut by 41 per cent from £9.05million in 2006-7 to £5.35million today.
Charity Drugscope offered an optimistic approach to the figures, saying the overall numbers of young people using illegal drugs has fallen in recent years, especially cannabis.
Source: www.askamum.co.uk 8th July 2009

Resolutions agreed by the Executive Council will obviously be subject to change and augmentation as NDPA itself grows. Full listing of Resolutions is available on request, but this brief synopsis gives a good measure of NDPA’s current strategy:
• NDPA will campaign for Prevention’s potential to be fulfilled, especially for the very young: a rational and ‘seamless’ set of policies across all age ranges is the aim; these should ideally combine to form a ‘Systems Approach’ which unites and empowers all sections of society.
• Policies and programmes should have the aim of healthy lifestyles free of drug misuse. Policies that condone or encourage drug use based on ‘Harm Reduction’ are not acceptable. Treatment interventions seeking to limit damage with known individual drug users have their place, but must be accompanied by an unequivocal health-promoting message. (As National Strategy indicates).
• NDPA supports laws and justice systems which reinforce drug-free and wholly healthy lifestyles, and endorses efforts to maintain and improve this situation. NDPA seeks improved, more accurate public information and far more accuracy and balance in the media. NDPA supports adherence to scientific research standards and ethics prescribed by the world scientific community.

“What do we mean by recovery? We mean a process through which an individual is enabled to move on from their problem drug use, towards a drug-free life as an active and contributing member of society.
Furthermore, it incorporates the principle that recovery is most effective when service users’ needs and aspirations are placed at the centre of their care and treatment. In short, an aspirational, person-centred process.”
This has recovery as a process, not an event. It has the concept of moving on, sets a drug free life as the goal and has the issue of becoming a contributing member of society at its heart.
Measurement:
How many people achieve the recovery goals on their care plan?
How many people move into education, training and employment?
How many report positive developments in their lives rather than just the absence of pathology?
How many achieve full citizenship? How many drug free?
How many move on to manage their own recoveries?
The government in Scotland have taken a courageous view. When we aim this high and believe it can happen, many more people will get there.

The use of the most dangerous Class A drugs has hit a 12 year-high as more people take cocaine, new figures show.
Drug misuse figures show that one in six of people of working age – 15.6 per cent – expect to have taken a Class A drug in their lifetimes. This compares with 9.6 per cent in 1996.
The document revealed, for the first time, an official acceptance that use of Class A drugs is on the increase. Analysis of the figures showed a “slight underlying upward trend” which is “significant over the long term” between 1996 and 2008, Home Office statisticians wrote.
The figures also revealed a sharp rise in cocaine use. The survey found that 9.4 per cent of adult expect to take the Class A drug in their lifetime – compared with just 3.1 per cent in 1996.
Three per cent of all adults admitted taking cocaine in the previous 12 months, up from 2.4 per cent – meaning that there are an estimated 974,000 users.
Figures from the British Crime Survey showed cocaine use by 16-24 year-olds went from 5.1 per cent to 6.6 per cent between 2007/8 and 2008/9.
Drug experts said the increases, particularly in the case of cocaine, were of “significant concern” and blamed falls in price and increased supply.
Martin Barnes, chief executive of charity DrugScope, said: “These figures show a marked and worrying increase in the use of cocaine powder, in the adult population as a whole and among 16 to 24-year-olds. While this is not necessarily a surprise given the drug’s decrease in price and increase in availability over recent years, it is of significant concern, particularly the rise in use among younger people.”
The figures also showed that a third of people – 31.1 per cent – now expect to have taken cannabis in their lifetimes, up from 23.5 per cent in 1996.
Chris Grayling, shadow Home Secretary, said: “Hardly a day goes by without yet another depressing set of statistics about the scale of Britain’s social problems under this Government. Drug addiction causes family breakdown, is linked to a substantial proportion of crime and causes long-term damage to people’s health. We have to turn this round.”
Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said: “We are not complacent. We are taking comprehensive action to tackle cocaine use, from increased enforcement to reduce the supply, along with effective treatment, education and early intervention for those most at risk.
“Police and their partner agencies are seizing record numbers of drugs and cocaine purity is recorded at an all-time low. When people think they are taking cocaine, in some instances the actual purity is as low as 4 per cent.”
Source: www.Telegraph.co.uk 23rd July 2009

History has valuable lessons to teach policy makers but it reveals its lessons only grudgingly. Close analyses of the facts and their relevance is required lest policy makers fall victim to the persuasive power of false analogies and are misled into imprudent judgments.¬ Just such a danger is posed by those who casually invoke “The lessons¬ of Prohibition” to argue for the legalization of drugs.What everyone “knows” about Prohibition is that it was a failure. It did not eliminate drinking; it did create a black market. That in turn spawned criminal syndicates and random violence. Corruption and widespread disrespect for law were incubated and, most tellingly, Prohibition was repealed only 14 years after it was enshrined in the Constitution.

The lesson drawn by commentators is that it is fruitless to allow moralists to use criminal law to control intoxicating substances. Many now say it is equally unwise to rely on the law to solve the nation’s drug problem.

But the conventional view of Prohibition is not supported by the facts.

First, the regime created in 1919 by the Volstead Act, which charged the Treasury Department with enforcement of the new restrictions, was far from all-embracing. The amendment prohibited the commercial manufacture and distribution of alcoholic beverages: it did not prohibit use, nor production for one’s own consumption. Moreover, the provisions did not take effect until a year after passage ¬– plenty of time for people to stockpile supplies.

Second, alcohol consumption de¬clined dramatically during Prohibition. Cirrhosis death rates for men were 29.5 per 100,000 in 1911 and 10.7 in 1929. Admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholic psychosis declined from 10.1 per 100,000 in 1919 to 4.7 in 1928.

Arrests for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30 percent to 50 percent.

Third, violent crime did not increase dramatically during Prohibition. Homicide rates rose dramatically from 1900 to 1910 but remained roughly constant during Prohibition’s 14 year rule. Organized crime may have become more visible and lurid during Prohibition, but it existed before and after.

Fourth, following the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol consumption increased. Today, alcohol is estimated to be the cause of more than 23,000 motor vehicle deaths and is implicated in more than half of the nation’s 20,000 homicides.

In contrast, drugs have not yet been persuasively linked to highway fatalities and are believed to account for 10 percent, and 10- 20 percent of homicides.

Prohibition did not end alcohol use. What is remarkable, however, Is that a relatively narrow political movement, relying on a relatively weak set of statutes, succeeded in reducing, by one-third, the consumption of a drug that had wide historical and popular sanction.

This is not to say that society was wrong to repeal Prohibition. A. democratic society may decide that recre¬ational drinking is worth the price¬ — traffic fatalities and other consequences. But the common claim that laws backed by morally motivated political movements cannot reduce drug use is wrong.

Not only are the facts of Prohibition misunderstood, but the lessons are ¬misapplied to the current situation.

The U.S. is in the early to middle stages of a potentially widespread cocaine epidemic. If the line is held now, we can prevent new users and increasing casualties. So this is exactly not the time to be considering a Liberalization of our laws on cocaine. We need a firm stand by society against cocaine use to extend and reinforce the messages that are being learned through painful personal experience and testimony.

The real lesson of Prohibition is that the society can, indeed, make a dent in the consumption of drugs through laws.

There is a price to be paid for such restrictions, of course. But for drugs such as heroin and cocaine, which are dangerous but currently largely unpopular, that price is small relative to the benefits.

Source: Mark H. Moore New York Times, October 16, 1989

Instead of fighting drug-related crime, we need to stop people taking drugs, says Iain Duncan SmithYesterday, the UK Drug Policy Commission recommended that the fight against drugs should focus on dealing with the criminal and anti-social elements that surround their sale. In other words, as long as drug dealers don’t start shooting each other, the police should turn a blind eye to their activities.

Yet the irony is that this plan has been followed all too often – with devastating consequences. In a notorious experiment in Brixton, dealers were left alone to sell cannabis, forcing local people to dodge them as they wandered up and down the streets, and to worry that their children would get caught up in the trade and the police would do nothing about it.

In Balsall Heath in Birmingham, the police also decided to leave the dealers to get on with their trade, preferring to monitor their activities. Residents saw front gardens became littered with needles, and prostitutes moved in. Thanks to the leadership of the sociologist Dick Atkinson, the community drove the dealers and the prostitutes out, and forced the police to treat them normally.

The truth is that the sort of communities where the police are being encouraged to adopt this approach are poor, with high deprivation, high crime and high levels of addiction – in other words, places that have already been written off, and which no one seems to care about. Just imagine the outrage if they suggested doing this to a middle-class suburb.

Yes, we have had a decade of failed drugs policy. But instead of more of the same, we should accept that the present policy has failed because it is centred on the wrong premise: that the purpose of our drugs strategy should be simply to minimise the harm that they do.

This approach is not only defeatist, but dangerous. It is a policy which seems to believe that so long as an addict doesn’t mug someone, kill them or rob their house, then that’s fine. It is a policy that parks addicts on methadone, entrenching addiction and ensuring that many of their children follow suit. It fails to address the problems of drugs and alcohol in terms of breaking the cycle of addiction, or in terms of recovery – which is why a significantly higher percentage of Britons are addicts than is the case with any of our neighbours. Rehabilitation treatment has been marginalised, with only a tiny number of addicts helped to get off drugs. The problem is made worse by the authorities’ failure to recognise that high levels of alcohol consumption among young people have a strong connection to the rise in the drugs culture.

Contrast this with Sweden, or even Holland. There, they understand that a successful drugs strategy needs to have a strong emphasis on clear laws, with the expectation they be policed. People are clear about what will happen if they are caught in possession of illegal drugs. In Holland, they spend three quarters of identifiable funding on law enforcement. Typically, this includes interdicting local production and trafficking. In the UK, the corresponding figure is far less, and there is little clarity about enforcement.

Second, these countries use the justice system to divert criminal drug users to care programmes, the purpose of which is to reduce reoffending and break the cycle of addiction. In Sweden, they tie successful involvement in such programmes to the expunging of the criminal record. Unlike in Britain, rehabilitation is seen as an integral part of the approach – and, unsurprisingly enough, the number of addicts as a proportion of the population is considerably lower than here.

What we need is not more rhetoric about a “war on drugs”, which is political nonsense. Instead, we must start a sustained process that aims to reduce drug-taking behaviour rather than containing it, and thus improves the quality of life for addicts, their families, and their communities.

Iain Duncan Smith is chairman of the Centre for Social Justice

Source: Telegraph UK. 30 July 2009

UK Advocates threatens legal action against health authorities providing drug-based treatments over rehabilitation. Alcohol dependency affects 1.1 million people
NHS authorities that offer alcoholics controlled drinking treatments relying on medication rather than total abstinence could face legal action from a patients’ organisation. UK Advocates, a pressure group campaigning for the wider availability of rehabilitation courses for addicts, is preparing to file claims against the Department of Health and local health services.
The charity maintains it has found evidence of thousands of patients with severe alcohol problems being given “psycho-active drugs” while they are still drinking. The combination, it is alleged, can be “potentially lethal” and is at odds with the manufacturer’s prescription advice and guidelines. “In many cases,” UK Advocates claims, “drugs and controlled drinking programmes are administered to sufferers without the doctor or clinicians involved having performed effective liver function tests to establish the extent of liver damage from excessive drinking.
“Treating alcoholics with drugs and on a basis of ‘moderation’ is similar to advising someone with lung cancer to cut down their smoking,” says Bob Beckett, founder of UK Advocates. “Controlled drinking programmes … hark back to the 1960s and 70s when we believed pharmaceuticals would cure everything, including addiction to alcohol. They simply have not worked.
“There are nearly one million people with alcohol problems taking up NHS beds. If we are serious about dealing with alcohol addiction then we have to look at cessation programmes, not drug-based detox, not hypnotherapy, but properly defined, intensive abstinence treatment.”
UK Advocates says its insistence on abstinence programmes follows guidelines adopted by the World Health Organisation (WHO). The organisation is now assessing whether programmes offered by primary care trusts (PCTs) meet “these statutory requirements as adopted by the European Union in accordance with WHO recommendations”. It says it will take “legal action against those it believes have been negligent by failing to offer day and residential abstinence treatments where clearly required”.
In May, the all-party parliamentary group on alcohol criticised “a general lack of capacity and variety in alcohol treatment services, due to poor levels of funding and, in some cases, a harm reduction agenda driven largely by crime and disorder rather than health considerations”. The committee found that although as many as 1.1 million people are classified as alcohol dependent nationally, only 1 in 18 enter any sort of specialist treatment each year. Spending on drug addiction outweighs that on alcohol dependency. UK Advocates says that it will issue proceedings in the administrative division of the high court “against PCTs and clinicians who may be proven to have acted negligently”.
Tom Gard, a spokesman for the group, said: “We have heard of someone who has been drinking two bottles of wine a day and has [only] been told to cut down to one and a half.” The charity claims that an audit of PCTs across the East Midlands and Yorkshire has revealed a picture, reflected nationwide, of many trusts offering no residential or intensive day abstinence treatment at all.
“In many areas those suffering from alcohol dependence are instead offered only ‘controlled drinking’ programmes, often without appropriate prior tests to establish whether or not the person needs to stop drinking completely to avoid developing serious physical and mental health problems.”
A Department of Health spokesperson said: “We have a comprehensive strategy to tackle health-related alcohol harm. The number of structured alcohol treatment places is increasing. Around 104,000 people were recorded as receiving treatment in 2007-08, against an estimated number of 63,000 in 2004.
“We have launched the alcohol improvement programme which assists PCTs in understanding local need and planning commissioning decisions. Most specialist alcohol services aim to help people reduce the harm associated with drinking. For those with moderate and severe dependence, this will usually involve advice and support to become abstinent, whether in the community or in-patient settings.
“Where a clinician considers medication would be the most appropriate treatment it is normal practice to discuss the effects and potential side-effects of the medication with the patient.”
Source: guardian.co.uk, Monday 3 August 2009

by Kathy Gyngell on Tuesday, 04 August 2009 09:51 Last week brought a new twist to the myth that law enforcement – hyperbolically designated as ‘prohibition’ by the pro drugs lobby – rather than drug use itself is the root of the country’s drug problem.

Tom Feiling, an advocate of legitimising of cocaine, a drug which pretty much he alone rates as neither dangerous nor addictive, started off the week’s drug debate. Plugging his new book, the equally hyperbolically titled, ‘The Candy Machine: how cocaine took over the world’, he pushed the view that pro drugs activists want us to buy – that you can’t stop people using drugs so don’t try. Conveniently bypassed was the fact that cocaine has only ‘taken over’ those countries where enforcement is weak and penalties and asset stripping are rarely or ineffectively imposed. He did not point out that the UK, far from being draconian in anything other than its imposition of methadone, is one such country – hence its rates of cocaine use 2 to 3 times higher than nearly every other country in Europe.

Not everyone bought into Tom’s take on the subject, Stuart Holmes, a medical student, for one. Expressing his horror at the impact of cocaine ‘on swathes of the population to whom the NHS directs so many of its resources’ he found ‘Tom Feiling’s tirade against the illegality of cocaine and other hard drugs a little galling.’ Instead of the balanced exposition of cocaine use in this country, discussion of the source of cocaine and the legal framework surrounding the drug here that he had expected, he found ‘a thinly veiled manifesto for the legalisation of hard drugs.’

Nor, did former Police Commander, Brian Paddick, he who infamously instigated the Brixton experiment of warning rather than arresting people found with cannabis (and many of the negative consequences that followed). Forcefully dissociating himself from Feiling on Sky News he stressed the total unacceptability of both cocaine and crack cocaine, outlining the violence and destruction of lives its use has led and does lead to, quite apart from that involved in its trafficking. He should know.

Nor, clearly, did he think much of the UK Drug Policy Commission’s (UKDPC) contribution to the debate also published this week disingenuously titled “Moving towards Real Impact Drug Enforcement”. When confronted with their innovatory contribution that some drug dealers but not others – the less violent ones – should officially be tolerated because (according to the UKDPC) arresting them ‘can increase violent crime’, he made clear this approach was both impracticable and wrong. His scepticism and his call for nothing less that a total change of social attitudes to a non acceptance of drug use – something singularly missing from any of the UKDPC reports – was an unexpected breath of fresh air. If we can change attitudes to smoking in a generation we can change them to drug use, he declared.

So where have the UKDPC’s ideas come from? They are premised on a variant of the discredited policy idea that only some drug use is harmful which, in this wishful two world view of drug use, can be isolated. That this lobby should make the tactical switch of applying their ideas to enforcement now their preferred but ethically dubious policy of applying liquid handcuffs to so called HHCU’s (high harm causing users) to stop their acquisitive crime has so categorically failed, is perhaps not surprising. After all if you believe that most drug use is non harmful then you are bound to have to think that most dealing is not harmful either – or only if the strong arm of the law comes down on it.

Unbelievably this is the gist of the UKDPC’s Alice in Wonderland view of the illicit drug trade – that the violence that ensues is a function of police actions/enforcement not of the trade – so good dealers can be tolerated while only bad (i.e. violent) dealers will be targeted. Well that’s all right then – all dealers can no doubt be ‘good’ if no one gets in their way. But heaven protect the children, families and communities exposed to the plying of a sanction less trade on their doorsteps with no police to support or protect them. To say nothing of how such a policy would make the UK an even softer target, turn us into an even larger market and encourage more use and incremental damage.

This is political correctness or liberalism taken too far. Will we be blaming the police action as opposed to inaction for murder and robbery next?

Yet startlingly in all the prime time coverage respectfully devoted by the BBC’s Today programme to the report – summaries thoughout the morning each with Home Affairs Editor Mark Easton’s imprimatur – none of these points were raised. The premise of the report was uncritically accepted. Yet as well as being numbingly illogical the report is nothing less than a formula for the backdoor legalisation of drugs’ trafficking – ‘a harm reduction stepping stone to legalisation’, as drugs policy expert, Professor Neil McKeganey, has called it.

According to McKeganey, “the form of policing UKDPC are advocating would in reality give rise to the creation of areas of our cities and our rural communities in which drug use had effectively become legalised. Such a policy raises the frankly idiotic scenario in which we are punishing drug users in some areas and accepting them in others (hardly a sound basis for English law).”

For my own part I would like to see Roger Howard (CEO of the UKDPC) or Dame Ruth Runciman (its Chairman) going to those communities they would designate as suffering minimal harm from drug dealing and which, as a result of their counsel, would be forced to accept the existence of local drug markets. My guess is that these are unlikely be the ones in which they themselves reside.

To judge by the reported comments of Bill Hughes, the agency director of SOCA, following the report’s publication, the thinking of some of those currently involved in senior drug enforcement positions may be equally muddled. He, it would seem, accepts the idea that the report asserts that we focus too much on seizures and arrests, has abdicated the idea of vigorous enforcement and is misguidedly advocating this implausible approach. The UK’s already declining drug seizures and arrests, seen in this context, are even more revealing (see my report, The Phoney War on Drugs) not least by contrast with Holland’s rising cocaine seizures and drug arrests.

The need for smarter enforcement is undeniable. But not of the UKDPC’s interpretation of the concept. Nothing less than a top to bottom rethink – a new, committed and well resourced national strategy with local action to protect our borders, to hit middle and local markets, keeping operations flexible, adaptable and most importantly ongoing – is called for.

This, not the UKDPC’s policy of quasi legalisation, will protect Antonia Senior’s daughter as she grows up; and not her mother’s appallingly ill thought ideas in the Times second ‘legalising’ article in 5 days; the one which brought this particular week’s drug debate offerings to an exhausting end.
Category: prisons and addiction
Comments
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Backdoor legalisation
John J. Coleman, PhD, presiden 2009-08-04 13:22:17
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An excellent commentary that exposes the illogical premise that more of a bad thing is good for us. It is not the poor of the world who beg for the legalisation of drugs but the elite who can afford to destroy the lives of the poor to preserve their own self-indulgent mandarinic lifestyle. Have they no shame in calling up the hallowed symbols of liberty and compassion to justify their drug lust? The tyrant always seeks to convince the innocent that the effect is causal and not the other way around. To understand this, one only needs to look at the level of violence wherever weak, corrupt, or non-existent government intervention in the drugs trade has produced de facto legalization.
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Professor
Neil McKegney 2009-08-04 15:24:29
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The UKDPC have called for enforcement resources to be targetted at those areas within which the drugs trade has caused greatest harm. This is a variant of the current drug policy that is focussed on the most harmful drugs (heroin and cocaine) and which by implication increasingly accepts other forms of drug use. However enforcement needs to tackle the fledgling drug markets with as much vigour as it tackles the well developed drug markets if it is to offer an effective deterrent to drug use and drug dealing. The idea that enforcement agencies increasingly desert those communities where drug use is occurring but not yet reaching the level of harm of other communities is simply a recipe for enforcement failure. What one wonders would the UKDPC say to any community that was seeking enforcement protection but which did not yet reach the bar of high harm that the UKDPC envisages? Communities need protection from the drugs trade and that more than anything else is what enforcement needs to provide. The idea of triaging enforcement resources and concentrating on the most harmed areas may sound attractive on paper but in reality may amount to no more than an abrogation of our responsibility to protect all of the communities affected by the drugs trade.
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UKDPC-Alice in Wonderland policies
David Raynes 2009-08-04 17:18:23
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If the ideas of UKDPC on allowing drug dealing/trafficking in some places but not others were to be followed (and Bill Hughes of SOCA apparently & allegedly gave it some positive consideration!)-the limited current system of control would be further undermined. Is that what UKDPC want? Actually this idea and the adverse consequences were demonstrated in several recent episodes of “The Wire”. Of course it is necessary to prioritise, THAT is a different thing from what is being suggested.

Give some dealers/traffickers (even relatively) safe passage in some areas
of activity by location or by methods and experienced law enforcers KNOW, dealers will gravitate there and expand their activity there and grow operations through that ignored system/location/method.
The objective of enforcement policy should be to make dealing and
trafficking a risky business and UK Plc a hard target rather than a soft target for external traffickers, most especially for those who are not British based. Internally to the UK, the objective of enforcement policy should be to make dealing/traficking a risky and unpredictable
business-everywhere. A clear secondary objective is to deter new entrants to the business. To suggest otherwise, as is simply nonesense. It is very much against the experience and evidence of the last 35 years of enforcement and of course would further undermine the current very weak overall UK Plc efforts. Seizures & arrests are not always the answer but they certainly help. Attrition and deterrence without those measures eg by seizing cash & assets can be undertaken but it has not been wonderfully effective so far. Local addict dealers can be persuaded into treatment by making their efforts non viable. Police need to work in partnership with other agencies to achieve this. Of course there has to BE some treatment available!

Containment of traficking IS possible, especially for an island nation. It needs, in the UK, much better coordination of effort between the Border Agency/Customs, SOCA & Constabularies. Does the Home Office understand why this has not happenned? Who was tasked to lead this? Was anyone? If not, why not?
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Drugs & Law Enforcement
Terry Byrne 2009-08-04 21:39:07
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UKDPC is right – but only so far as it calls for smarter law enforcement and says that law enforcement cannot eradicate drugs markets. Beyond that, UKDPC shows a low understanding and no sensible ideas about focusing law enforcement effort that is only matched by Bill Hughes of SOCA it would seem. Law enforcement can, at best, only provide a framework of deterrence and prevention so that other vital factors – parents, families and communities, schools, public figures, employers and health agencies – can secure and maintain our UK society’s rejection of drug misuse.
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correcting a number of errors and misconceptions
Steve Rolles 2009-08-04 22:03:50
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“the myth that law enforcement – hyperbolically designated as ‘prohibition’ by the pro drugs lobby – rather than drug use itself is the root of the country’s drug problem.”

- ‘prohibition’ is a term in wide use to describe the current approach to drug control – in contrast to regulated markets or free markets. There is no controversy over this and nothing ‘hyperbolic’ about it; it is a purely descriptive term – one used by the UK Government in drug strategies, and by the UNODC.

- ‘The pro-drugs lobby’ is an deliberately derogatory term based on the absurd premise that because you determine your views as anti-drug, those who disagree with you must be ‘pro-drug’. This is a classic example of a false binary, ignoring the obvious reality of many people who are passionately anti-drug but also support reform of ineffective and unjust policy and law – including a debate on legal regulation. Transform’ supporters include bereaved parents, religious leaders and public health professionals. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is made up of over 10,000 serving and enforcement professionals – are they ALL pro drug? Please stop using this offensive and childish slur.

- finally, the central point of your opening sentence is wrong. Reform advocates such as Transform make a clear distinction between harms created by drug use – for which we advocate a public health response (treatment, education, prevention) and harms created or exacerbated by prohibition/ illicit markets – for which we advocate a rational exploration of regulated market alternatives. You should be aware of this from our meetings, and our publications in which it is clearly stated and which you have referenced.

Regarding Tom Feiling’s piece – it was clearly an opinion piece, and he is entitled to his opinion, just as you are . The reality of cocaine use/demand is a fact – it is the idea that an enforcement response can eradicate it that is delusional, as evidenced by the past 40 or so years. You, again, provide no evidence that increased enforcement is a key variable in decreased use (there is little/none as the WHO found in a massive global research project published last year to which I have directed you previously), beyond your cherry picked examples. Interesting that you again bypass the US experience again re cocaine use and enforcement spend / punitiveness.

Paddick’s views, like Cameron’s, seem to have shifted since he moved into the political mainstream, but clash with those of another met commander you have failed to mention, who responded in the Times this week: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/a rticle6736613.ece
likewise Eddie Ellison former head of the met drug squad, and numerous other police (www.LEAP.cc’ etc).

I don’t have time to deconstruct your analysis of the UKDPC report, beyond highlighting that you have confused legalisation (legal regulation of markets and supply) with de-facto decriminlisation through tolerant policing of certain activities (use or low level dealing). The two are entirely different propositions, the UKDPC having made great efforts to distance itself from the former, whatever conspiratorial silliness you appear to be implying.

Again you provide no evidence that increased enforcement reduces use or more importantly (as a pragamatist) reduces harms, and fail to engage with the overwhelming evidence that enforcement has been largely counterproductive.
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Drug Free Scotland
Bill Cameron 2009-08-04 22:47:13
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As a parent for whom the jargon and politics of the battling “pro” and “anti” lobbies is confusing, the latest suggestion from UKDPC to allow drug dealing in certain areas and not in others, merely adds to our confusion. Surely some member of UKDPC can imagine the scenario from a parent’s point of view and conclude that the dealers will expand their activity in the areas relatively ignored by law enforcement. Current drug policy does not, as it seems to have been accepted, focus on only the most harmful drugs and dismisses any other form of drug misuse. UKDPC would be hard pressed to single out one area in Scotland where the uncontested violence and corruption due to drug abuse does not exist.
Why are parents lulled into a false sense of “ your kids are going to use drugs anyway, so just let’s stop trying to stop them”? Rubbish! – not in my home – and anyway who told you that? And are we also to ignore the effects of drugs: stealing; violence; corruption; family breakdown; illness’ death? Certainly not – sorry boys, the two go together.
No one wishes legalisation but currently the state exists where at one side of the street a young person can be lifted for possession of Cannabis (even perhaps for his parent’s M.S.) and at the other side of the street there are lines of young addicts waiting to collect their kit from a needle exchange (no exchange of needles ever evident) after which the go home to use Cocaine or Heroin – legally?
Smarter enforcement? Cooler catching? There is no argument that we require countrywide change across the board, adequately resourced to squash local drug markets. In my own unhappy and tiresome experience that has ever happened.
I am told it was Antonia Senior who quoted “Drugs are evil. Legalise them now” and who went on to protest her fear that her daughter would join the “addict” club. I would advise her to speak to a parent whose child is already a paid up member of that elite club.
Harm reduction, legalisation – call it what you like – is a paraphrase or extension of what the snake said to Eve. “You will surely NOT die……………..(implied) for I will teach you how to sin safely!”
So let’s get smart and expose such things so that social thinking people are able to promote their human rights in their own society. Everything else has not failed. It has not happened yet!
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The effect of increased enforcement
David Raynes 2009-08-04 23:08:18
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Steve Rolles you say:
“no evidence that increased enforcement is a key variable in decreased use”.

There is plenty of evidence & well founded suspicion that REDUCED enforcement in the UK has been a variable in increased use of drugs and pecifically certain drugs.

Some recent examples:-

Post 1999, Customs stopped targetting the main importers of cannabis, (though still acting aginst it when found), the market became flooded and in the words of one academic analyst “mature”. That led on to-may indeed have influenced- the unwise declassifying of cannabis, the weird “Lambeth experiment” (wider drug dealing effects conveniently forgotten by UKDPC?) and also the ubiquity of supply and use that we experienced around 2003/4. (Though just maybe I agree, use is falling a little now in older, better educated age groups as a result of increased publicity about harms and reclassification upwards). Even that conclusion is uncertain, cannabis may just have become unfashionable, in favour of cocaine, crack and other drugs.

At the end of the 1990s Customs to a certain extent, ignored or were by what was considered THEN, as pragmatic prioritisation choice, under-active against the organisers of cocaine courier traffic targetted into black communities. This was done in favour of targetting larger bulk consignments. It was significant in effect because the courier traffic was quite suddenly, in mid to late 90s, feeding a crack explosion. This crack explosion-forcast at the end of the 80s by Bob Stutman had been succesfully held off for nearly ten years.

More recently SOCA has focussed on “upstream disruption” and been noticeably unsuccsessful against both heroin and cocaine, direct, UK imports. SOCA has also often neglected to service Customs/Border Agency cold finds (having taken in the resources that previously did that work). They may have learned from that major error though by now and are changing their approach. SOCA is to date, much less successful against serious drugs traficking into the UK than the agencies that operated before it was formed. Cocaine is now ubiquitous in a way it was not, even five years ago. Seizures are down, arrests are down, interdiction of direct smuggling by boat is ata 15 year low.

I do not expect you to know about these things, they are not within your experience nor are they easy to understand from published sources but if you leap in to defend the silliness of UKDPC you ought to make a better effort to understand the history.

There is no defence for the utter garbage of what UKDPC are trying to suggest. Nature abhors a vacuum, so self-evidently does crime. Without a reasonable level of enforcement against any type of organised & profitable criminality it is highly likely to increase. For your evidence look at societies where the power of the state breaks down or the writ of the limited authority that exists, does not run.

It is not just the experience in the examples I have given you, I could give you many more.

Are you supporting UKDPC because legalisation of drugs is what you campaign for and because, having failed to persuade the public and the two relevant dominant political parties, you see causing a creeping breakdown of the present system as your best way forward?

Observers are entitled to be suspicious of both your motives and those of UKDPC. Neither of you in my opinion, are likely to be part of any solution to the UKs worsening drug problems. You have been part of the paid advocacy for liberalisation/legalisation, about which I so often complain and which I suggest has been part of the mixed messages about drugs which has so worsened the UK position in comparison with some neighbours.
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Steve Rolles 2009-08-05 09:41:11
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David – none of the examples you cite demonstrate that enforcement has a major impact on overall use, misuse or harm. Its impacts – when they do occur – will largely be displacement – between regions, or criminal networks(or occasionally between drugs) – this is true from producer country activity through to domestic street dealing. I think you identify the real issue re cannabis when you note that the fall in use was probably due to a shift in fashion. Determinants of drug use are largely social, cultural and economic, not enforcement/punishment related.

The fact that there is no international correlation between levels of enforcement and levels of availability and use is an inconvenient reality that you and Kathy both choose to avoid, instead cherry picking examples that support a link (eg sweden)and ignoring those that don’t (eg the US). Neither of you has ever cited or responded to the WHO study I have repeatedly flagged up.

Re UKDPC – we support their call for better evidence and I have personally been impressed with some of the research and analysis they have commissioned and published. We have, however, been publicly critical of much of their analysis (I had a critique of a previous report published in the Guardian – and a recent blog critiqued their new crime report – search the blog for UKDPC), where we disagree with it or feel it misses the point. This is as it should be and is no different from our engagement with Kathy’s work or anyone else’s.
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to enforce or not…
simon aalders 2009-08-05 10:05:44
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For the UKDPC to arrive at the conclusion that we should hand over communities to drug dealing, to avoid conflict between gangs was what i heard in the report, is astounding.
As has been stated, if the UKDPC think this is a good idea perhaps they should live in an area blighted by drug dealing and gang culture, or talk to the families trying to bring up children and live fulfilling lives in those areas before making such crass public statements.

There are numerous failed examples of apeasement to criminal gangs across the globe we do not need another failed experiment in the UK. The victims would not be shown on TV, nor gain the headlines as they struggle through the consequences of increased criminal activity. Those that propagate such policies will be long gone and deffinitely nowhere near any of those areas.

In my local area the community praise the Police for sustained enforcement activity, they want the public services to act vigourously to deal with drug/gang culture, and they want drug addicts treated properly – by that I mean taken off drugs to give them the best opportunity to turn their lives around.

They don’t want society to throw up it’s hands and say we give up, it’s too hard.

If the UKDPC have run out of steam and this idea tells me they have, there are plenty of others out here actually making a difference for communities.

Legalisation is no solution.
Decriminalistaion is not a solution.

Proper treatment, enforcement and community involement are.
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Displacement of criminal activity
David Raynes 2009-08-05 10:10:06
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Steve Rolles you say :
“Its impacts – when they do occur – will largely be displacement – between regions, or criminal networks(or occasionally between drugs) – this is true from producer country activity through to domestic street dealing”.

Well exactly. You make my very point. THAT is why UKDPC are fundamentally not just misguided, they are categorically wrong. They demonstrate no understanding of how crime operates. What they suggest is intellectually unsound. Displacement quite obviously operates in both directions. It was once said, I think by Da Costa, that countries get the drug problems they deserve. The UK has one of the worst drug problems in Europe now, it was not always thus (my historical view on high level traficking extends back 40 years) and it has got worse at an accelerating rate in the last 15 years compared to some of our neighbours. Precisely the period during which those at the top of UKDPC (Ruth Runciman & Roger Howard) have been most influential on policy and most active proselytising. Correlation is not causality but it is certainly a starting place for analysis. It should cause policy makers in the Home Office to think more clearly about why we are where we are and the history. They should do that and you should not ignore it.
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Good and bad drug dealers
Derek 2009-08-05 10:31:34
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Kathy wrote:

“Unbelievably this is the gist of the UKDPC’s Alice in Wonderland view of the illicit drug trade – that the violence that ensues is a function of police actions/enforcement not of the trade…”

So the likes of Al Capone were not a function of alcohol prohibition then? How come the off licence down the road here in Norwich isn’t run by the mob? It is, after all, the same drug being sold and only the regime it’s sold under is different.

Likewise whilst we’re discussing drug harms was not the existence of moonshine or bathtub gin down to the prohibition laws? Quite clearly they were Kathy. Quite clearly the prohibition law creates problems all of its own and these are in addition to any harms drugs can cause.

To deny any connection between the violence and other harms of the illegal drugs supply side with the application of prohibition is surely to deny reality and worse, to ignore the lessons of history.

Almost worse is to write that “law enforcement – hyperbolically designated as ‘prohibition’ by the pro drugs lobby”. Please Kathy, call a spade a spade. What we have is prohibition and is correctly called prohibition. Defend it by all means, but please don’t pretend it’s something else.

It’s interesting also that you claim cocaine use has become established in countries with liberal regimes whilst ignoring the situation in the USA, the leader of the war on drugs and hardly a “liberal” regime. Actually the most compelling reason for the growth of the Euro zone cocaine market is probably the Euro with its usefully high denominations.

It’s very telling though that after all this time the issue of drug law reform not only hasn’t gone away but is again gaining ground. The fact that it’s gaining ground not only here, but in the home of prohibition the USA is most illuminating.
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Corrigendum
ukdpc 2009-08-05 11:13:07
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We would like to correct some of the misreading of the UKDPC review on enforcement which Kathy and others have made.

In fact the review is all about making the best use of enforcement resources. It is thus about targeting supply side interventions more effectively, not giving up on enforcement as some have suggested. The thrust of our approach is about using a focus on the wide range of harms that individuals and communites experience from drug markets to stimulate innovation and to encourage assessment of impact to ensure that the maximum benefit is achieved.

We would urge people to read the reports themselves rather than assume that all that is written about them in the media or on blogs is accurate. The full reports can be found on our website at

http://www.ukdpc.org.uk/publications.shtml

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Drug enforcement and Drug Prevalence
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-05 11:56:15
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It is puzzling that UKDPC having authored the report on enforcement have not contributed to its blog discussions. However taking up the point made by Steve Rolles that there is no evidence of a link between enforcement and drug consumption. Quite the reverse is indeed the case since none of the currently illegal drugs are consumed at the same level as the legal drugs (tobacco and alcohol). The experience with these two legalised drugs is powerful evidence of the potential level of consumption of the illegal drugs were they to be legalised. As I have pointed out to Steve Rolles before in China at the time of the opium wars an estimated 20% of the population were thought to be addicted to opium. This shows us that there is nothing in the drugs themselves that necessarily limits their appeal to only a tiny minority of the population. If organisations like Transform truly believe that enforcement has no evident impact on level of use one wonders why they spend so much time lobbying for a change in drug laws and enforcement practices.
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Prohibition
Alison Hughes 2009-08-05 11:58:00
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If prohibition is so good – why isn’t Kathy Gyngell campaigning for the prohibition of the two most dangerous drugs in th UK – alcohol and nicotine? Instead she focuses her attention on an emotional and ill-informed attack on methadone, which is a useful treatment in helping people come off street drugs and changing their lives around. This does happen and a lot of people do eventually come off methadone but it takes a long time.
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legalisation and drug prevalence
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-05 12:00:18
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Taking up the point made by Steve Rolles that there is no evidence of a link between enforcement and drug consumption. Quite the reverse is indeed the case since none of the currently illegal drugs are consumed at the same level as the legal drugs (tobacco and alcohol). The experience with these two legalised drugs is powerful evidence of the potential level of consumption of the illegal drugs were they to be legalised. As I have pointed out to Steve Rolles before in China at the time of the opium wars an estimated 20% of the population were thought to be addicted to opium. This shows us that there is nothing in the drugs themselves that necessarily limits their appeal to only a tiny minority of the population. If organisations like Transform truly believe that enforcement has no evident impact on level of use one wonders why they spend so much time lobbying for a change in drug laws and enforcement practices
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legalisation and drug prevalence
Derek Williams 2009-08-05 13:04:16
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Neil McKeganey wrote: “none of the currently illegal drugs are consumed at the same level as the legal drugs (tobacco and alcohol)”.

Whilst this may be true, illegal drugs aren’t (or haven’t been) advertised and promoted. This is especially true for alcohol of course which is marketed ruthless at young people with designer drinks and drug speak advertising. Tobacco use in recent years has dropped considerably partly due to advertising bans and suchlike.

Regarding illegal drugs, we don’t really know how many people take them of course. The number of people who use cannabis is of a comparable order to the number who smoke tobacco and no-one would pretend the estimates for that number are anything better than an underestimate.

If the law was so effective, how are the high levels of use in the US explained? Or come to that the success of the Portuguese regime?

And please, we are all agreed that despite what Kathy might think, what we have out there is prohibition, isn’t it?
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Your Times letter 30/07/09
John Watson 2009-08-05 15:00:28
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Kathy,

In your letter to The Times 30/07/09, you say: “As cannabis use rises so, too, does psychosis.”

I have been looking for statistics that show this, as it would be almost certain proof that cannabis causes psychosis. However, I have been unable to do so.

I have found “Assessing the impact of cannabis use on trends in diagnosed schizophrenia in the United Kingdom from 1996 to 2005.” (PubMed: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19560900 ), “Between 1996 and 2005 the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining. [...] In conclusion, this study did not find any evidence of increasing schizophrenia or psychoses in the general population from 1996 to 2005.”

Which seems to contradict your statement.

Where did your statistics come from, please?
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Director Crew 2000
John Arthur 2009-08-05 17:18:05
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‘If we were starting with a blank canvas which drugs would be legal and which illegal’ is a well practiced tool in substance use training (attitudes to substance use) which we have used with professionals, young people and community groups for many years now. It is amazing how many would put alcohol in the illegal bracket and allow many of the currently illegal drugs to be sold ‘under regulation’. This is not people who are ‘pro drugs’ or indeed soley people who have suffered alcohol or other drug probems themselves or in their family, but a wide range of professionals across health, social work, police and the justice system. Kathy, as someone who has lost a lot of family & friends through addiction and dependency and who thinks that there are serious flaws in our present system I am saddened by your Bush-esque like pronouncement that everyone who is not happy with the present drug laws and think there may be other solutions must be ‘pro drugs’. Nothing could be further from the truth and I’d like you to at least take that comment back and consider your rhetoric in the future. Of course you are entitled to your opinion as we all are, how else are we to achieve consensus as a society, however your remarks are at best often ill considered and increasingly appear to be deliberately provocative and insulting. To what ends I can only imagine.
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Steve Rolles 2009-08-05 18:52:32
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I await – from Kathy, David, Neil, or anyone, some evidence showing a statistically significant link between enforcement spend or punitiveness of enforcement and levels of use or drug harm between states (or regions), or some comment on the WHO (not pro-drug crazies) study last year the headline conclusion of which was;

“Globally, drug use is not distributed evenly and is not simply related to drug
policy, since countries with stringent user-level illegal drug policies did not have lower levels of use than countries with liberal ones.”

Degenhard et al, World Health Organisation, 2008 ‘Toward a Global View of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Cannabis, and Cocaine Use: Findings from the WHO World Mental Health Surveys’

Available in full online
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Drug harm and enforcement
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-06 06:24:28
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Steve an absolutely fundamental assumption of the legalisation position adopted by Transform and other organisations is that the greatest harm associated with drug use arises from the enforcement and what you call punitive drug policies. It is that assumption which in essence underpins your arguments for legalisation as being the most effective means of reducing drug harm. But where is the quantitative evidence that shows enforcement is a greater source of drug harm than drug use itself?
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drug harms vs policy harms
Steve Rolles 2009-08-06 10:47:47
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Its more complicated than that Neil. The nature of the drugs used, the way in which they are used and the environments in which they are used – are all negatively impacted by prohibition and the illicit anarchic underground culture controlled by criminal entrepreneurs it has created. So drug use itself becomes more harmful under prohibition than it would under a regulated system controlled by the appropriate state authorities, one in which a regulatory environment could progressively encourage a shift in culture towards safer products, behaviours (including abstinence), and using environments.

This is quite aside from the secondary harms created by prohibition in terms of crime, corruption, destabilisation of producer countries, conflict, environmental damage, human rights abuses, erosion of respect for authority and so on. I have made this argument very clearly in a number of publications comparing a user of illicit heroin to one on a heroin prescription.

Which causes more harm is impossible to gleam in this context – its the wrong question. More important is that harm is greater under the current regime than it would be under alternative approaches – which is the core of our argument – (something that in no way makes us ‘pro-drug’ as Kathy, Costa, David and others -but not you Im pleased to say- continue to childishly parrot). We also argue that the political nature of prohibition interferes with the development of evidence based responses, by immunizing the policy from scrutiny and diverting resources away from proven public health interventions into demonstrably counterproductive enforcement ones.

I’m wary of blaming enforcement per se, as that appears to put the blame on the police/army, when in fact they are merely the expression of a political program or ideology – ie prohibition; which is punitive by its very nature (it establishes a set of rules and punishements for breaking them) and place within the criminal justice system (not something I have determined). Would you say prohibition was non punitive, and if so how would you describe it?

And meanwhile, how about an answer to my other questions?

Kathy – why do you never get involved in the blog discussions that follow your comment pieces? I think you are possibly missing the point of blogs – which are supposed to be about dialogue.
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Drug Harm and Enforcement
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-06 17:54:24
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Steve I take your point that the ways in which drug use may be harmful are many and varied but in essence you must surely be operating with some notion of the amount of harm associated with the legal position of certain drugs relative to the quantity of harm associated with the consumption of those drugs in whatever legal context. If you are not then the prospect arises that you may well be arguing for the legalisation of substances that are substantially harmful in their own right and where the quantity of harm associated with their use may be only minimaly reduced by a change in their legal status. My sense is that the legalisation position has to assume that harm would be very substantially rather than minimally reduced by a change in the legal status of the drugs concerned. But the question remains as to what you base that assumption on. In the combined article you wrote with Danny K you said that:

The question is not whether human rights or public health comes first. Rather it is whether we collude with a policy that invariably degrades and sometimes destroys our clients and the communities in which they live, or whether we speak out against it, both as individuals and organisationally…More importan(t) is the question of how organisations can most effectively challenge the status quo, terminate prohibition and replace it with an effective system that is effective, just and humane (Kushlick and Rolles 2004:245).

That extract rather assumes that the health harms associated with drug use come a long way second to what you regard as the harms arising from the illegal status of the drugs concerned. If that is indeed you view then surely you need to make clear what your assessment of relative harm is actually based upon.
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Steve Rolles 2009-08-06 19:00:43
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We assume that harms to individual users would diminish (as argued above and in the CBA paper we discussed recently), and that harms associated with illegal markets would diminish (for obvious reasons). I don’t think even the UK government or UNODC would disagree with this.
I understand your argument (and theirs) that these gains would be more than outweighed by an increase in health harms associated with an increase in use were drug markets legally regulated – but I don’t agree with your assumptions that underpin this argument – and i also dont think you understand the sort of regulation we are calling for. I find the Chinese peasant opium use in the 19th century a particularly non-useful parallel for modern drug culture in urban Britain, and also do not agree that the experience with alcohol and tobacco supports your contention. Not only are alcohol (which is a deeply culturally embedded food and beverage, as well as drug)and tobacco (which does not intoxicate like most drugs – so does not seem to raise the same degree of moral indignation, despite its awful public health impacts)qualitatively different from most drugs we are concerned about (particularly problematic use of heroin and cocaine), they have also been subject to decades, even centuries, of aggressive marketing (something that would be forbidden under the regulatory models we advocate for other drugs), and had few of the other controls over product, price, vendors, outlets, users etc that we are calling for. Where such have been begun to belatedly implemented use has fallen without resorting to blanket prohibitions – e.g. tobacco in the UK – use of which continues to fall whilst cocaine (7 years in prison for possession, billions spent annually on interdiction) continues to rise.

We have, from the outset, called for better, indeed stricter, regulation of alcohol and tobacco as well – something entirely consistent with finding the optimum regulatory models, re outcomes, for all drugs. The reason we do not focus on these issues more is because there are plenty of agencies (Alcohol concern, ASH, the royal colleges etc) who already do it very well.
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Legalisation and Drug Harm
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-06 20:14:51
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Steve where is the template (evidence) for successfully regulated drug markets that Transform clearly aspire to extend to other currently illegal substances? I can see why you do not want to accept the Chinese opium situation fostered by the UK against the expressed wishes of the Chinese government because it does indeed indicate a level of opium consumption that Transform would rather discount as an impossibility within a developed “regulated”heroin market. But of course these awkward historical events are not se easily dismissed simply because they do not mesh with ones preferred view of hisotry and future drug policy and in that sense the examples do have to be considered for their possible relevance to current discussions.
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Quote
Steve rolles 2009-08-06 21:30:42
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surely a more relevant ‘awkward historical event’ (than opium use in peasant china 150 years ago) for you to respond to would be the steady increase in drug availability, use, misuse, crime, and overall harms (by any measure) under prohibition in the modern world – despite ever increasing resources being thrown at its enforcement. Wheres *your* evidence base for the policy we have now, and how much failure do you think is required before alternatives are regulatory are meaningfully explored. its fine to keep throwing questions at me but what about answering a few of mine?

I obviously cant produce an evidence base for the regulation we are advocating as it has not happened yet – beyond limited and often flawed/problematic models (coffee shops, heroin prescribing etc) or equally problematic – although useful paralell examples (e.g. regulation of gambling, and sex work), so you will always win on that front – I cant provide evidence from the future. I can only speculate with the evidence we have, whilst pushing for more to be gathered.

The problem is that, perhaps uniquely in health and social policy, an entire avenue of policy options has been closed down in perpetuity, on ideological grounds not evidential ones, not just re implementation – but even experimentation and research. This is particularly peverse and anomalous given that regulating risky commodities and and activities is absolutely the social policy norm, indeed it is one of the primary functions of Governments.

To be able to have flexible policy options in almost all aspects, except one; legal regulation of production and supply – is intellectually offensive and profoundly anti-science. Are archaic drug laws create an arbitrary line in the sand that should be an affront to everyone in public health or social policy. By all means make the evidential case for prohibition (and ill argue with you), but not on the basis of preventing others from exploring the alternatives. For ever.
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Drugs and Enforcement
Neil McKeganey 2009-08-07 09:32:20
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Steve although you cite the continuing use of illegal drugs as a failure of existing drug laws surely the fact that the level of use of those drugs is not comparable in any country to the level of use of the legal drugs in all countries is the clearest evidence there could ever be that existing drug laws have indeed succeeded in limiting the use of certain substances. I don’t know of any scientific study that could in any way provide evidence on a par with the consistent international pattern of illegal drug use consumption falling a long way short of the level of consumption of the legal drugs. However to argue for a change in our existing drug laws surely has to be based on something more than an ill-defined belief that in some vague ways things would be better under a legalised or regulated regime- better for whom, by how much and for how long? and with what unintended consequences? The standard response that organisations arguing for legalisation provide is to ask for the evidence of success of our current drug laws and then to claim that the failure of drug laws to entirely cease such drug use is a sign of their inevitable failure. This of course is a deeply ironic position for a legalisation group to adopt since illegal drug consumption is not something that they themselves wish to cease anyway. However your point that there is some kind of international policy conspiracy stopping the experimentation with different types of drug laws including legally regulated markets seems a bit strong to be honest since there are many countries that could be cast as having experimented with widely different drug laws including those that have adopted heroin prescribing safe injecting centres lower level penalties for drug possession etc.

Our debate started with the UKDPC publication of their report on evidence and Kathy Gyngell’s blog on that report I still think that it is strange that an organisation such as UKDPC that is clearly wanting to make a contribution to public and policy debate on the drugs issue is so reticent at contributing to this debate leaving you largely on your own as it were to argue for the position they have set out in their paper on harm reduction focussed drug enforcement.
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Quote
steve rolles 2009-08-07 13:49:06
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(im not arguing for the UKDPC position – which, I repeat, is distinctly NOT legalisation / regulation – this debate took a different turn)

I think you ignore the fact that there are plenty of legal drugs that are not so widely used (inhalants for example), and that amongst illegal drugs some are used far more than others – cocaine use is about ten times that of heroin for example, but it is equally illegal. This – along with the fact that trends in drugs go up and down apparently independtly of legal changes and even price, suggests that people’s drug choices are primarily determined by factors other than legality/punitive sanctions and related deterrence. The evidence base for a deterrent effect is incredibly poor – and just repeating alcohol and tobacco does not fill this yawing evidential abyss at the heart of entire prohibitionist paradigm.

There is no conspiracy against experimenting with legal regulatory options for supply – there are 3 UN conventions that that specifically prevent it, the single convention in particular (much of which was drafted in the 40s) tying states into a system that is no longer relevant to the world today. Challenging the conventions would raise unacceptable political and diplomatic costs (largely in terms of US pressure – but also potentially undermining the valuable aspects of the drug treaty system, and indeed the wider treaty system). Countries can experiment with decrim of possession and medical prescription models but decrim does not involve supply and prescription only covers a tiny proportion of users and the illicit market. Wider exploration of regulated legal supply remains undeniably off limits. The brief experiment with BZP in New Zealand is the only one I am aware of anywhere in the world; whilst not a total disaster, the regulation was inadequate and it has been reversed when the political pressure got too hot (and BZP is also not covered by the Conventions).

Trying to establish a link in international comparisons between levels of enforcement/punitiveness and levels of use is reasonable if done with appropriate methodological caveats (indeed it is something that many people, including Kathy and Costa, like to do – albeit in a cherry picked methodologically laughable fashion -in comparing UK and Sweden – the whole thing about ‘getting the drug problem you deserve’). The WHO did it more systematically and found no link (still waiting for a comment on this).

Significant correlations have, however, been found between levels of use/misuse and income inequality (Wilkinson/Pickett) . I doubt Kathy would want to push on that fascinating finding and see where it leads, but for me it once again highlights the key role in social, economic and cultural factors in determining the contours of drug culture, and relative marginal nature of enforcement policy.

The critique of prohibition’s failure on its own terms (reducing availability,use) is surely legitimate, as is highlighting the unintended consequences. Long term failure of this policy is not the only reason to explore alternatives but it is a perfectly rational and reasonable catalyst. We want to see reduced overall harm (to users and the wider community) and maximised health and wellbeing (rather than obsessing over reduced use). This obviously does not preclude reduced demand, but pragmatically focuses on reducing problematic use (which the UNODC interestingly acknowledges says is only 5% of total illicit use). Reducing non-problematic use is not the priority because it is, well, not problematic (unless one sees it as a issue of personal morality in which case it is a different debate to the pragmatic public health policy and law one).

11/17/2004

News Feature
By Erika Miles Edwards

South Boston is a close-knit community of 3 square miles and 30,000 people. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows everyone else, and gossip, good or bad, spreads like wildfire.

South Boston also is a community with a significant heroin problem. In the past three years alone, 125 young people from South Boston aged 17-24 have died from using heroin. An estimated five to ten times as many have overdosed — some several times — but lived. The community is on the front lines of an epidemic of heroin use among young adults in the greater Boston area, where the drug is $4 a bag and so potent that it can be snorted instead of injected. Heroin overdoses are one of the leading causes of death among young adults in the region.

People in communities that lose children to tragic circumstances tend to bond together, and South Boston is no exception. In response to the crisis, a group of 10 mothers with children addicted to heroin formed the South Boston Family Resource Center and started a 24-hour hotline for families who need help. The group finds treatment for those who want it, even driving people to their first appointment. For many young adults, they are a lifeline.

Strange Remedy

Sometimes crises bear solutions that, under any other circumstance, would seem strange. In the case of the mothers of the South Boston Family Resource Center, that solution came in the form of the Dorchester Drug Court, founded by Judge Robert Ziemian, presiding justice of the South Boston District Court, with help from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

The drug court is a collaborative process designed to help addicted individuals facing criminal charges get through treatment, a process that can take 15 months or more. Participants start out in detox, and then go to residential treatment for a minimum of six months. When they’re ready, they move to outpatient treatment, then relapse prevention, before being left unsupervised. Then, they are on their own, their criminal charges erased.

Drug-court participants are motivated through the system with sanctions, drug testing, encouragement, and support. Most adult drug-court clients are severely addicted, with long histories in the criminal-justice and social-service systems.

“If you think someone should be in jail, that’s who we want in drug court, because we know drug court keeps people in treatment,” said Ziemian. “Most people have setbacks, but from our experience, we know when those are going to occur. We’re watching them, and we’re encouraging them to succeed.”

After Ziemian started his drug court in 1995, word spread quickly of this place where people with criminal records were getting treatment and leaving clean and sober. He soon was approached by a mother in South Boston, asking him what he could do to help stem the tide of heroin overdoses.

“We normally work with hardened addicts,” said Ziemian. “They’re older, and have had a longer history with substance abuse. It’s easier to convince them that they need treatment. But we had to do something to help these kids. We needed to stop the overdosing before another death occurred.”

Mothers of children at risk of overdoses received letters from the probation office, inviting them to discuss solutions. The result: The women decided to apply for restraining orders against their heroin-addicted kids. Since a child breaking a restraining order is subject to criminal charges, the parents reasoned, these young adults would get connected to the criminal-justice system and be supervised in the South Boston Drug Court, receiving life-saving treatment in the process.

Not surprisingly, word of the solution spread like wildfire throughout South Boston. Even with a shortage of resources, the court has produced dramatic results. “One of the things we’ve learned about drug court is that you can usually coerce someone into treatment with the threat of jail or brief incarceration,” Ziemian said. “We and the parents have a chance to get through to them.” Notably, not a single person under active supervision of the drug court has died of a drug overdose.

Building on History

For years, America has fought an expensive war against drugs, using tactics ranging from extensive eradication efforts to lengthy periods of incarceration. In 1989, a judge in Miami dared to try something different, offering people with criminal cases treatment instead of incarceration and, in doing so, created the nation’s first drug court.

Around the same time, Ziemian returned to Massachusetts from Operation Desert Storm. Assigned to the Dorchester District Court in South Boston, he processed cases involving guns and drugs, and gained a reputation for sentencing criminal defendants to lengthy periods of incarceration.

Ziemian’s first impressions of drug courts were less than positive. “I went to a workshop about it at a bar association meeting, and I thought the guy was out of his mind,” he recalled. But Ziemian was urged by the Boston Coalition Against Drugs and Violence and by Join Together to look into the concept. A turning point was when Ziemian went to Miami to see the first drug court in action.

“For those familiar with court proceedings, drug courts are very different,” said Ziemian. “You really have to go, watch what happens, talk about it afterwards. But once you’ve seen it in action, it all makes sense.”

Today, Ziemian is the driving force behind the development of more than 30 drug courts in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. His Dorchester drug court is a model recognized by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals.

Each drug court develops differently, but in Massachusetts and throughout New England, many follow Ziemian’s model — with his assistance. The process starts with the support of a district’s presiding judge, who brings the other justices on board. Ziemian then meets with the justices and the clerks, probation officers, lawyers, treatment providers, and public-health officials who need to work together to make the drug court succeed.

Over objections heard from every drug court he has ever established, Ziemian sets the first drug-court date for as soon after the initial meeting as possible; the only way to learn is to do, he believes. Cases stay in their courts of origin, which forces teams in those regions to work together to come up with solutions. Every probation officer, for example, has to learn how to work with serious drug offenders and treat substance use disorders holistically, coach people through treatment, even find them treatment slots.

Strong Results, But a Struggle for Funding

But do drug courts work? Research shows that addiction treatment significantly reduces drug use, crime, and additional medical problems. Drug courts specifically reduce recidivism, or re-entry into the criminal-justice system, which saves states significant amounts of money. Nationally, incarceration costs at least $20,000 annually per person, whereas drug court costs about $4,000. Additionally, one study found that the Lackawanna Drug Court in upstate New York State saved over $2.1 million annually in public assistance, foster care, substance-free births, and child support.

Despite widespread support within the criminal-justice system, however, Ziemian and his drug-court colleagues struggle for financial stability. The Massachusetts state legislature has never provided line-item funding for drug courts, so the state’s drug courts run on skeleton crews of committed lawyers, justices, and probation officers. Ziemian has received federal grant funding to hire a coordinator that he shares with other regional courts, but worries about what he will do when that support runs out.

“Drug courts have a lot of moving pieces — many more than regular courts,” said Ziemian. “People are with us for much longer than people with other types of sentences. We build relationships with them. They count on us. We don’t want to give up on it because of lack of resources.”

“We want to do everything we can to help these kids,” added Ziemian. “We need to institutionalize this system. We need data to show that it works. We need an alumni network that could mentor the kids in the system. We can’t do that without help.”

Despite such funding worries, Judge Ziemian hopes that all judicial districts in New England will soon have drug courts. “The only thing I don’t have to do is convince people that their communities have problems with drugs. Drugs are everywhere,” he says. “With drug courts, we can do something about it.”

The directors offer specific steps for planning and instigating the changes, provide real-life examples from diverse communities across the nation, and provide a road map for communities to adopt the six-step model all at once or one step at a time.

The report recommends screening each teen for drug and alcohol problems, assessing the severity of his/her drug and alcohol use, providing prompt access to a treatment plan coordinated by a service team; and connecting the teen with employers, mentors, and volunteer service projects.

The report describes how judges, probation officers, treatment specialists, families and community members can take steps right now to improve the future of these youth.

Upon completion of a brief survey, the full report is available as a PDF to download at no cost.

http://www.reclaimingfutures.org/?q=judicial_report_survey&reportname=ProjectDirectors

Publication Year: 2007

Publisher

Reclaiming Futures
Portland State University
527 SW Hall, Suite 400
Portland, or 97201
Phone: 503.725.8911
Website: http://www.reclaimingfutures.org/

2. Injecting into the groin and the injection of crack cocaine, which are associated with higher levels of
infection and risky injecting, have become more common.

3. Injecting site infections are common, with around one third of injecting drug users reporting having had an
abscess, sore or open wound at an injecting site in the last year.

4. Transmission of HIV and HCV infection through injecting drug use remains higher than in the late 1990s, with a fifth of recent initiates having hepatitis C and around one in 100 having HIV. Overall almost half of injecting drug users are now infected with hepatitis C and about one in 90 with HIV.

5. There has been a marked increase in the number of injecting drug users receiving the hepatitis B vaccine,
with two-thirds now reporting vaccination.

6. Services to reduce injecting related harms and support for those who want to stop injecting should continue to be developed in line with published guidance.

Key Findings
Behaviours: Levels of reported needle and syringe (direct) sharing have declined in recent years, following an increase in the late 1990s. In 2007, around a quarter of injecting drug users (IDUs) reported direct sharing in the previous month; this level remains higher than in the mid-1990s when about a sixth reported this. The sharing of other injecting equipment remains even more common. There are also indications that
two other factors associated with a greater risk of infection have become more common, with almost one in three IDUs now reporting injecting into the groin (femoral vein) and athird reporting the injection of crack-cocaine.

Hepatitis C: Overall, almost half of IDUs in the UK have been infected with hepatitis C. However, there are marked variations in hepatitis C prevalence within the UK, with low prevalences found in some areas. The overall prevalence of hepatitis C infection among IDUs has probably increased in recent years. Current levels of hepatitis C transmission remain higher than in the late 1990s with a fifth of IDUs becoming
infected within three years of starting to inject.

HIV: The incidence of HIV among IDUs is higher than in the late 1990s with around one in 100 now becoming infected within three years of starting to inject. The overall prevalence of HIV infection among IDUs however remains low compared to many other countries. In England & Wales, the overall HIV
prevalence among IDUs is currently around one in 90. Within England and Wales prevalence has increased amongst IDUs outside London: where it has risen from around one in 400 in 2002 to about one in 150 in 2007. However, the prevalence is higher in London, with around one in 20 HIVinfected. In Scotland, the prevalence of HIV among IDUs was around one in 350 in 2007, which is the lowest level reported
since this was first measured in 1989.

Voluntary confidential diagnostic testing: Uptake of testing for hepatitis C among IDUs in contact with drug services, after increasing markedly, now appears to be levelling off with around three-quarters having ever had a test. It is estimated that around half of IDUs with hepatitis C in contact with these services remain unaware of their infection, and that this proportion has not changed in recent years. There are also likely to be many current and former IDUs not in contact with services that will be unaware they have hepatitis C. Whilst most IDUs in contact with services report having had a test for HIV at some point, only two thirds
of those with HIV are aware of their infection.

Vaccination: The proportion of IDUs reporting uptake of hepatitis B vaccination has increased in recent years, with around two-thirds now reporting accepting at least one vaccine dose. However, the transmission of hepatitis B continues among IDUs.

Bacterial infections: Injecting site infections, which may cost the NHS as much as £47 million per annum, remain common with around one-third of IDUs reporting having had an abscess, sore or open wound at an injecting site in the last year. There are continuing problems ranging from localised injection site infection through to invasive disease associated with meticillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus and severe
group A streptococcal infection. The ongoing occurrence of wound botulism and tetanus cases also remains a concern.

Professor Susan GreenfieldIt is folly to legalise a drug that is known to leave users with permanent damage to their ability to reason, argues Susan Greenfield, the distinguished expert on brain processes (Sunday August 18 2002, The Observer) now that those anxious to look cool can puff cannabis freely in without fear of arrest, perhaps those of us who have argued that
relaxing the laws on cannabis is irresponsible and dangerous should
retreat gracefully behind our chintz curtains. Yet the downgrading of
the classification of cannabis perpetuates the same tired old myths
and the same serious problems.

Take the myth that cannabis is ‘just the same as’ alcohol. A glib yet logical riposte might be that if the drugs are truly identical why not just stick with the booze? What is the distinct appeal of cannabis that can be ignored in equating the two drugs? Such sophistry is inappropriate because alcohol and cannabis work on the brain and body in very different ways. Alcohol has a range of non-specific actions that affect the tiny electrical signals between one brain cell and another; cannabis has its own specialised chemical targets, so far less has a more potent effect.
Moreover, although drinking in excess can lead to terrible
consequences, there are guidelines for the amount of alcohol that
constitutes a ’safe’ intake. Such a calculation is possible because we
know alcohol is eliminated relatively quickly from the body.

With cannabis, it is a different story. The drug will accumulate in
your body for days, if not weeks, so, as you roll your next spliff,
you never know how much is already working away inside you. I
challenge any advocate of cannabis to state what a ’safe’ dose is.
Until they do, surely it is irresponsible to send out positive
signals, however muted? Another notion is that cannabis is less
harmful than cigarettes. I’m not sure how this idea came about,
certainly not as the results of any scientific papers. We do know
cannabis smoke contains the same constituents as that of tobacco:
however, it is now thought that three to four cannabis cigarettes a
day are equivalent to 20 or more tobacco cigarettes, regarding damage
to the lining of the bronchus, while the concentration of carcinogens
in cannabis smoke is actually higher than in cigarettes. And if
cannabis were ‘just the same’ as alcohol and cigarettes, why are
people not taking those already legal drugs for the much-lauded
pain-relief effects? After all, another case for the relaxation of the
laws on cannabis is the ‘medical’ one that it is an effective
analgesic. But there is a world of difference between medication
prescribed in a hospital, where the cost-benefit balance tips in
favour of pain relief, compared to a healthy person endangering their
brain and body needlessly. Even the most loony of liberals has not
suggested tolerance for morphine or heroin abuse, because they
are prescribed clinically as potent painkillers. And think about it:
if cannabis brings effective relief from pain, then how does it do so?
Clearly by a large-scale action on the central nervous system.
Further wishful thinking is that, because cannabis doesn’t
actually kill you, it is OK to send out less negative legal signals,
even though the Home Secretary admits that the drug is dangerous.
Leaving aside the issue that cannabis could indeed be lethal, in that
the impaired driving it can trigger could well kill, there is more to
life than death. It is widely accepted that there is a link between
cannabis and schizophrenia: as many as 50 per cent of young people
attending psychiatric clinics may be regular or occasional cannabis
users. The drug can also precipitate psychotic attacks, even in those
with no previous psychiatric history. Moreover, there appears to be a
severe impairment in attention span and cognitive performance in
regular cannabis users, even after the habit has been relinquished.
All these observations testify to a strong, long-lasting action on the
brain. Some attempts have been made in laboratories to work out
what cannabis could actually be doing to brain cells. So far,
some data have suggested that there can be damage to neurons, and at doses comparable to those taken on the street.

None the less, others argue that the experimental scenario of isolated neurons growing in a lab dish are hardly a natural situation, and that such data have to be interpreted with caution. But absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The effects on the brain in real life are most probably
subtle and therefore hard to monitor: it’s not so much that cannabis
will create great holes in your brain, or deplete you wholesale of all
your best neurons. Instead, by acting on its own special little
chemical targets (and because it will therefore work as an impostor to
a naturally occurring transmitter), the drug is likely to modify the
configuration of the networks of brain cell connections. These
configurations of connections make you the unique person you are, since they usually reflect your particular experiences. So a change
will be hard to register from one person to another, and certainly
from one slice of rat brain to another: but still, it will make you
see the world in a different way – characteristically one depleted of
motivation.

It is hard for me, as a neuroscientist, to accept that a
drug that has the biochemical actions that it does, that hangs
around in the brain and body, and that has dramatic effects on brain
function and dysfunction, could not be leaving its mark, literally, on
how our neurons are wired up and work together. It is argued that
we will never stamp out cannabis use, and therefore we should
give up trying. But we will not stamp out murder or house break-ins or mugging, yet I’ve never heard an argument for freeing up police time
by liberalising the law on these acts. Laws, it is said, are
only enforceable when the majority wants them enforced, yet the
arguments used for easing up on cannabis apply equally to promoting
ecstasy or other mind-bending substances.
Do we really want a drug-culture lifestyle in the UK? Cynically, one could argue that it is politically expedient to court the youth vote, to open up the
inevitable prospect of revenue from a new source of taxes and to help
the ailing tobacco industry prosper from a great new product of
readymade packets of spliffs. The condoning of chemical consolation
also distracts from other problems. We have failed our young
people in providing homes and jobs and, by giving them an easy route into a chilled-out oblivion, have turned our backs on the far more challenging prospect of initiating policies to help them realise their
potential and live better and more fulfilling lives. They are paying a
high price for cool.

Source: www.guardian.co.uk/science Aug.2002

The high prevalence of co-morbidity between drug use disorders and other mental illnesses does not mean that one caused the other, even if it appeared first. In fact, establishing causality or directionality is difficult for several reasons. Some symptoms of a mental disorder may not be recognized until the illness has substantially progressed, and imperfect recollections of when drug use/abuse started can also present timing issues. Still, three scenarios deserve consideration:
1. Drugs of abuse can cause abusers to experience one or more symptoms of another mental illness. The increased risk of psychosis in some marijuana abusers has been offered as evidence for this possibility.
2. Mental illnesses can lead to drug abuse. Individuals with overt, mild, or even subclinical mental disorders may abuse drugs as a form of self-medication. For example, the use of tobacco products by patients with schizophrenia is believed to lessen the symptoms of the disease and improve cognition (“Smoking and Schizophrenia: Self-Medication or Shared Brain Circuitry?”).
3. Both drug use disorders and other mental illnesses are caused by overlapping factors such as underlying brain deficits, genetic vulnerabilities, and/or early exposure to stress or trauma.
All three scenarios probably contribute, in varying degrees, to how and whether specific comorbidities manifest themselves.
Overlapping Conditions– Shared Vulnerability
High Prevalence of Drug Abuse and Dependence Among Individuals With Mood and Anxiety DisordersHigh Prevalence of Mental Disorders Among Patients With Drug Use Disorders

Higher Prevalence Smoking Among Patients With Mental Disorders

Because mood disorders increase vulnerability to drug abuse and addiction, the diagnosis and treatment of the mood disorder can reduce the risk of subsequent drug use. Because the inverse may also be true, the diagnosis and treatment of drug use disorders may reduce the risk of developing other mental illnesses and, if they do occur, lessen their severity or make them more amenable to effective treatment. Finally, because more than 40 percent of the cigarettes smoked in this country are smoked by individuals with a psychiatric disorder, such as major depressive disorder; alcoholism; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); schizophrenia; or bipolar disorder, smoking by patients with mental illness contributes greatly to their increased morbidity and mortality.
Data in top two graphs reprinted from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (Conway et al., 2006).
Data in bottom graph from the 1989 U.S. National Health Interview Survey (Lasser et al., 2000).
Common Factors
Overlapping Genetic Vulnerabilities. A particularly active area of comorbidity research involves the search for genes that might predispose individuals to develop both addiction and other mental illnesses, or to have a greater risk of a second disorder occurring after the first appears. It is estimated that 40-60 percent of an individual’s vulnerability to addiction is attributable to genetics; most of this vulnerability arises from complex interactions among multiple genes and from genetic interactions with environmental influences. In some instances, a gene product may act directly, as when a protein influences how a person responds to a drug (e.g., whether the drug experience is pleasurable or not) or how long a drug remains in the body. But genes can also act indirectly by altering how an individual responds to stress or by increasing the likelihood of risk-taking and novelty-seeking behaviors, which could influence the development of both drug use disorders and other mental illnesses. Several regions of the human genome have been linked to increased risk of both, including associations with greater vulnerability to adolescent drug dependence and conduct disorders. The rate of smoking in patients with schizophrenia has ranged as high as 90 percent.
Involvement of Similar Brain Regions.
Some areas of the brain are affected by both drug use disorders and other mental illnesses. For example, the circuits in the brain that use the neurotransmitter dopamine–a chemical that carries messages from one neuron to another– are typically affected by addictive substances and may also be involved in depression, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders.
Indeed, some antidepressants and essentially all antipsychotic medications target the regulation of dopamine in this system directly, whereas others may have indirect effects. Importantly, dopamine pathways have also been implicated in the way in which stress can increase vulnerability to drug addiction. Stress is also a known risk factor for a range of mental disorders and therefore provides one likely common neurobiological link between the disease processes of addiction and those of other mental disorders.
The overlap of brain areas involved in both drug use disorders and other mental illnesses suggests that brain changes stemming from one may affect the other. For example, drug abuse that precedes the first symptoms of a mental illness may produce changes in brain structure and function that kindle an underlying propensity to develop that mental illness. If the mental disorder develops first, associated changes in brain activity may increase the vulnerability to abusing substances by enhancing their positive effects, reducing awareness of their negative effects, or alleviating the unpleasant effects associated with the mental disorder or the medication used to treat it.
Smoking and Schizophrenia: Self- Medication or Shared Brain Circuitry?
Patients with schizophrenia have higher rates of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug abuse than the general population. Based on nationally representative survey data, 41 percent of respondents with past-month mental illnesses are current smokers, which is about double the rate of those with no mental illness. In clinical samples, the rate of smoking in patients with schizophrenia has ranged as high as 90 percent.
Various self-medication hypotheses have been proposed to explain the strong association between schizophrenia and smoking, although none have yet been confirmed. Most of these relate to the nicotine contained in tobacco products: Nicotine may help compensate for some of the cognitive impairments produced by the disorder and may counteract psychotic symptoms or alleviate unpleasant side effects of antipsychotic medications. Nicotine or smoking behavior may also help people with schizophrenia deal with the anxiety and social stigma of their disease.
Research on how both nicotine and schizophrenia affect the brain has generated other possible explanations for the high rate of smoking among people with schizophrenia: The presence of abnormalities in particular circuits of the brain may predispose individuals to schizophrenia; increase the rewarding effects of drugs like nicotine; or reduce an individual’s ability to quit smoking. The involvement of common mechanisms is consistent with the observation that both nicotine and the medication clozapine (which also acts at nicotine receptors) can improve attention and working memory in an animal model of schizophrenia. Clozapine is effective in treating individuals with schizophrenia. It also reduces their smoking levels. Understanding how and why patients with schizophrenia use nicotine is likely to help us develop new treatments for both schizophrenia and nicotine dependence.
The Influence of Developmental Stage
Adolescence–A Vulnerable Time. Although drug abuse and addiction can happen at any time during a person’s life, drug use typically starts in adolescence, a period when the first signs of mental illness commonly appear. It is therefore not surprising that co-morbid disorders can already be seen among youth. Significant changes in the brain occur during adolescence, which may enhance vulnerability to drug use and the development of addiction and other mental disorders. Drugs of abuse affect brain circuits involved in reward, decision making, learning and memory, and behavioral control, all of which are still maturing into early adulthood. Thus, understanding the long-term impact of early drug exposure is a critical area of co-morbidity research.
The brain continues to develop into adulthood and undergoes dramatic changes during adolescence. One of the brain areas still maturing during adolescence is the prefrontal cortex– the part of the brain that enables us to assess situations, make sound decisions, and keep our emotions and desires under control. The fact that this critical part of an adolescent’s brain is still a work in progress puts them at increased risk for poor decisions (such as trying drugs or continuing abuse). Thus, introducing drugs while the brain is still developing may have profound and long-lasting consequences.
The high rate of co-morbidity between drug abuse and addiction and other mental disorders argues for a comprehensive approach to intervention that identifies, evaluates, and treats each disorder concurrently.
Early Occurrence Increases Later Risk. Strong evidence has emerged showing early drug use to be a risk factor for later substance abuse problems; additional findings suggest that it may also be a risk factor for the later occurrence of other mental illnesses. However, this link is not necessarily a simple one and may hinge upon genetic vulnerability, psychosocial experiences, and/or general environmental influences. A recent study highlights this complexity, with the finding that frequent marijuana use during adolescence can increase the risk of psychosis in adulthood, but only in individuals who carry a particular gene variant (see sidebar, “The Influence of Adolescent Marijuana Use on Adult Psychosis Is Affected by Genetic Variables”).
The Influence of Adolescent Marijuana Use on Adult Psychosis Is Affected by Genetic Variables

Percentage of Individuals Meeting Diagnostic Criteria for Schizophreniform Disorder at Age 26

Source: Caspi A, Moffitt TE, Cannon M, et al., 2005.
The above figure shows that variations in a gene can affect the likelihood of developing psychosis in adulthood following exposure to cannabis. The Catechol-O-Methyltransferase gene regulates an enzyme that breaks down dopamine, a brain chemical involved in schizophrenia. It comes in two forms: Met and Val. Individuals with one or two copies of the Val variant have a higher risk of developing schizophrenic-type disorders if they used cannabis during adolescence (dark bars). Those with only the Met variant were unaffected by cannabis use. These findings hint at the complexity of factors that contribute to co-morbid conditions; however, more research is needed.
Source: NIDA Jan.2009

Though unable to securely document outcomes, three projects have shown that British communities can generate the kind of coordinated action which new reports from the USA and Sweden have shown curtail alcohol-related violence and injury, creating substantial cost-savings for society.
FINDINGS Rather than targeting risky drinkers, all the projects targeted high-risk neighbourhoods, aiming to modify features of the social and physical environment which generate alcohol-related violence and disorder.
UK From 2004, parallel projects Jointly known as the UK Community Alcohol Prevention Programme. in Glasgow, Cardiff and Birmingham sought to generate action locally to promote responsible service of alcohol in bars and shops, enforce licensing and allied laws, limit alcohol outlets, and to modify the environment and transport services to improve safety. Awareness-raising initiatives aimed to stimulate support from residents, politicians, licensees and local services. The projects were among only five in the UK found to meet international criteria1 for ‘multi-component’ programmes which simultaneously bring a range of influences to bear on alcohol problems.
The featured report2 documented how all three were able to generate activity of the kind they sought. In the absence of a systematic evaluation, official statistics and data gathered by the projects themselves was used to assess whether this activity had reduced alcohol-related problems – problematic, because the projects’ effects could not easily be isolated and the figures fluctuated due to factors other than the real levels of crime or injury.
Perhaps clearest was the impact in Birmingham, where in the targeted area (a transport corridor crossing three suburbs) the project started with a clean slate in terms of existing community organisation. Birmingham too seems to have had the strongest enforcement component, shown by research ( In context) to be the greatest single influence. Trading standards staff visited all the area’s alcohol outlets, alerting staff to their responsibilities and warning of future ’sting’ operations to test whether outlets would sell to underage youngsters. Police recorded reports of licensing infringements, followed up with an advice visit, and mounted highly visible operations similar to those used in relation to illicit drugs.
Possibly as a result, offences such as vehicle crime, domestic burglary and robbery in the area fell by over a third compared to just 9% in a neighbouring area, and public place wounding fell by 30% compared to 17%, though the numbers involved were small. Unlike elsewhere, after the project was established few premises sold to underage test purchasers and most asked for proof of age.
USA The US project targeted two poor neighbourhoods relatively crowded with alcohol outlets and blighted by crime and alcohol-related problems. A robust Staggered implementation at the two sites and before and after measures benchmarked against the rest of the city offered multiple checks on whether the interventions were responsible for any improvements.evaluation3 documented reductions in violent crime and injuries, among the priorities for UK projects.
Local community organisations prioritised control of alcohol outlets to tackle underage drinking and alcohol-related violence. Training in responsible beverage service was taken up by 40–70% of outlets after personal and persistent approaches by project staff and police. Shop managers were warned that police would mount test purchases by underage youngsters. An accompanying officer immediately initiated proceedings against offending outlets. Given this backing, there was a clear reduction in sales, prompting replication city-wide. Similar operations were not undertaken in bars where, without enforcement backing, staff training on its own did not lead more premises to refuse service to drunk patrons. The bottom-line finding was that across both sites, the interventions were followed by significantly greater falls than in the rest of the city in assaults According to both police and medical records. and injuries Before the waters were muddied by city-wide implementation, there was also a greater reduction in injuries specifically related to drinking or drug use. due to traffic accidents. Some of the relative reductions were substantial – over a third for assaults and traffic accidents. Given the social costs imposed by such incidents, the project was likely to have been cost-beneficial.
SWEDEN The Swedish report4 showed that such programmes can indeed save society money. It attached monetary values to an earlier finding5 that a city-centre programme targeting licensed premises reduced violence Represented by reports to the police. by 29%. The resulting estimate was that it saved society 39 times more than it cost, primarily due to reduced criminal justice expenditures. The calculations were subject to potential error but even when savings were limited to police work, the most securely estimated element, they were seven times greater than costs. A dip in quality of life after being the victim of a crime meant that the interventions also gained one quality adjusted life year (QALY) for each 3000 Euros spent, well within the Swedish yardstick of 54,000 Euros.
After an upsurge in violence when on-licence outlets expanded, Stockholm County Council initiated the programme to curb serving of drunk patrons in the central district. Test purchases by apparently drunk actors generated support for responsible beverage service training, later made a condition of licence renewal for late-night venues. Liquor law enforcement (especially the ban on serving drunk patrons) was stepped up by police and the licensing board, largely in the form of warning letters rather than formal proceedings. Resulting reductions Inevitably the calculations incorporated arguable assumptions, but the magnitude of the gains were such that substantial benefits seem certain. in violence were estimated on the basis of before and after trends in the intervention district compared to the next most similar area. Benefits grew in line with the unfolding of the programme, reinforcing the case that this was an active ingredient. Once again, enforcement was thought to have been the main influence. Even in the comparison area, underage sales fell after activists organised test purchases and notified offenders to the police, who banned some from selling alcohol.
IN CONTEXT Reviewers6 have concluded that the ‘environmental’ approach7 (controlling the geographic, retailing and social environments in which alcohol is distributed, sold or consumed, and stepping up enforcement) tested in these studies can be more effective than trying to affect individuals through education or persuasion. However, impacts sometimes remain modest, partly because the scope for local action is limited by national or regional laws.
Police or licensing authority action backed by ultimate legal sanctions can on its own have a major impact, but requires other components to amplify and sustain its effects. Publicity makes authorities aware of the need for action and licensees aware of the potential consequences of failing to comply, while local lobbying helps gain support for the required intensity and persistence of effort.8 9 Possibly enforcement works because it stimulates defensive management actions10 such as firm and clear policies on adhering to regulations and a system for monitoring staff compliance. Commercial considerations often mitigate against such policies, but can also generate them if otherwise the business faces closure or costly restrictions.
British research includes a landmark study11 based on test purchases by underage youngsters which suggested that many vendors’ primary concern was not to avoid underage selling as such, but to avoid successful prosecution for selling to children who were clearly underage. In Cardiff,12 the main lessons of a programme to curb alcohol-related city-centre violence and disorder seemed to be that intensive implementation is needed to have a major impact. Planning and licensing decisions which increase the density of drinking outlets, and competitive and financial pressures driving the policies of large club or pub chains, can counter the benefits. However, benefits remained and were probably enough to create substantial cost-savings for society. Though not formally evaluated, similar enforcement-led programmes13 stimulated by the 2004 English national alcohol strategy have encouraged licensee compliance and appear to have reduced alcohol-related crime and disorder. Sales to underage youngsters have also been curbed by recent test purchase14 operations15 allied with trading standards and/or police follow-up.
PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS The UK report argued for environmentally-based community projects on the grounds that these probably represent the best chance for minimising harm in the face of national deregulation and promotion of alcohol consumption. Yet the leverage local projects can exert depends partly on the tools made available by national laws and policies to the projects and to the authorities they seek to influence, tools abolished or weakened or by deregulation. Given adequate powers, local lobbying and coordination can maximise their potential and tackle factors beyond the reach of the law.
So a crucial issue is how far national UK frameworks provide the required support and legislative tools. New British alcohol strategies and laws and attendant funding do provide a basis for projects similar to those featured, particularly the powerful tool of test purchases to expose underage service. But at the same time (less so in Scotland) they limit the scope for licensing authorities to respond to community concerns. Click here for summaries of the situations in England, Wales and Scotland.
Flexibility is essential because the impacts of commonly used tactics depend on the environment with which they interact; a different mix works best in different situations.1 10 The ideal16 is when national support and regulations afford localities the required tools within an accountability framework which motivates effective action, but which also gives localities discretion on what to target and how.
There are however some general principles. Regardless of the interventions built upon them, test purchasing and the construction of a database linking untoward incidents to particular premises are important in motivating and targeting action and assessing its impact. The visible and credible possibility of enforcement action against alcohol outlets must be persistently maintained if it is to have anything but a fleeting impact. Attention should be paid both to alcohol consumption and the factors17 (such as crowding, transport problems, divorcing alcohol from food, poorly kept or managed premises, glasses easily transformed in to weapons, inadequate training and monitoring of staff) which potentiate violence and disorder.
In the UK guidance on local strategies18 is available and a new database19 features examples. International lessons on community alcohol interventions have also been usefully encapsulated.20 These include: devolve decision-making to the community while supplying research-based knowledge; rapid feedback of results motivates participants and keeps projects on track; recruit influential and respected local leaders; considerable lead-in time is needed to build the social and organisational infrastructure for community action, and projects need a few years to fully deliver; project staff must expect and permit adaptation not just of methods but also aims in response to the community’s strengths and self-perceived needs; success comes easier in communities where the project’s aims are already high on the agenda; community norms and alcohol availability restrictions have their greatest impacts in self-contained, stable communities whose residents and businesses cannot easily escape their impact; a key element is the surer detection and sanctioning of transgressors brought about by the more intensive use of existing legal powers; however, these legal powers must in the first place have the potential to be effective.
Source: address http://findings.org.uk Feb.2009

In good faith, the Substance Misuse Management in General Practice issued guidance now proven to be based on unfounded figures – they were taken at face value from the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. Peter O’Loughlin puts the record straight.
Many – perhaps most of us – have become accustomed, even weary, of the plethora of self-congratulatory announcements issued by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse. Most of the spin aims to persuade us that protocols and implementations of the current drug treatment strategy are succcessful. Indeed, such is the glut of these proclamations of success, that there is a temptation, at least by this writer, to skip them in favour of more factual and unbiased reading.
On the other hand, when a responsible and professional network such as the Substance Misuse Management In General Practice chooses to re-issue verbatim one of the more misleading documents emanating from the NTA, and endorse it as an “important report”, this writer sits up and pays attention.
The document in question is Good Practice in Harm Reduction (NTA report, October 2008).
While acknowledging that government targets for reducing drug-related deaths have not been met, it makes the following claim: “Drug related deaths have gone down in recent years”.
It then purports to show how harm reduction “combines work aimed directly at reducing the number of drug-related deaths and blood-borne virus infections, with wider goals of preventing drug misuse and of encouraging stabilisation in treatment and support for abstinence”.
It is the intention of this article, with the aid of statistical evidence from the National Audit Office and the Health Protection Agency, to show that the claim relating to drug deaths is palpably misleading – and that the current emphasis on harm reduction is failing not only in reducing drug deaths, but that they are actually increasing. This is alongside the abysmal failure of inappropriately named “harm reduction” methods to contain the escalation of blood-borne diseases.
NATIONAL AUDIT OFFICE FIGURES.
The following facts for drug deaths arising from misuse were published by the NAO in its April 2007 and autumn 2008 reports.
• Drug deaths from heroin and morphine are increasing year on year
• In 2003-4 there was a marked increase in drug-related deaths which were largely attributed to heroin, methadone and morphine.
• Drug-related deaths are the highest in five years.
• The total number of drug-poisoning deaths arising from drug misuse in 2007 increased by 16% from 2006, to 2,640.
• In 2007, 196 deaths involving cocaine occurred, the highest number of deaths involving cocaine since records by the Office of National Statistics began in 1993.
•
Deaths attributed to methadone are at their highest since 1999. In 2007, methadone-related deaths increased by 35% over 2006 to 325.
HEALTH PROTECTION AGENCY FACTS.
The following facts were published by the Health Protection Agency.
• The level of HIV infection among injecting drug users (IDUs) in England and Wales is higher now than at the start of the decade.
• In London, where the prevalence of HIV in IDUs is higher than elsewhere in England and Wales, one in 20 IDUs is infected.
• In the remainder of England and Wales, HIV among IDUs has risen from about one in 400 in 2002 to about one in 150 in 2006.
• The prevalence of hepatitis C among IDUs has risen from 33% in 2000 to 42% in 2006.
• About one in five IDUs has hepatitis B infection, which extrapolates as an increase approaching 200% since 1997.
FACING THE FACTS.
It is self evident from the facts that the disproportionate emphasis on harm reduction is failing to achieve that which the NTA document would have us believe.
The author(s) of the document contents have – knowingly or unknowingly – resorted to a technique known as ‘perception management’. This process could be regarded as more sinister than spin, since it seeks to bury the truth under a garbage of rhetoric in order to manufacture a ‘truth’ designed to influence or change the perceptions of a targeted audience.
Via email, I expressed my disappointment to the SMMGP for publishing as a “policy update” the NTA document, together with the endorsement the SMMGP gave. I now place on record my appreciation to Dr Chris Ford for the courtesy and promptness of her response.
In an age where avoidance of responsibility is so common, I also take this opportunity of expressing my admiration and respect for the forthrightness of her “mea culpa”, together with the integrity and that rare quality of humility which she displayed in our subsequent correspondence.
PETER O’LOUGHLIN is certificated in substance misuse and dependency by the Department of Addictive Behaviours, St George’s Medical School and Addaction, is an associate member of the Medical Council on Alcohol, a registered psychotherapist and clinical hypnotherapist. His 25 years’ experience spans detox, street work, rehabilitation,1:1 and group counselling.
Source: Addiction Today Feb.22nd 2009

“Britain’s rehab services are facing collapse. No fewer than 15 of the UK’s 100 rehab centres have closed in the past 15 months, despite an increase in the number of people seeking help for addictions.
Because of changes in government health policy, private rehab centres are finding fewer and fewer health authorities are willing to foot the bill for addicts to have residential treatment, despite that fact that it is much more effective in getting them off drugs, according to the Addiction Recovery Foundation.
The Independent on Sunday learnt this weekend that a flagship rehab centre – £26m Winthrop Hall in Kent – is preparing to shut after only one year of operation.
According to the latest Department of Health figures, 202,660 drug users were seen by addiction services in England in 2007-08.
The National Treatment Agency (NTA) has spent millions of pounds getting thousands more drug users into contact with addiction services since it was set up in 2001. Yet last year only 3 per cent of cases were referred to a residential rehab service, while two-thirds were prescribed heroin-substitute medication by GPs and NHS doctors working in addiction services.
Critics claim there are few long-term benefits of this medication-centred approach. The majority of rehab services use a version of the 12-step programme, and abstinence – becoming drug free – is the goal after four to six weeks of intense therapy. Clinics are run by large companies such as The Priory or small charitable organisations such as the Providence Projects in Bournemouth.
Up to now, rehab has been paid for by the drug abusers themselves or their local health service. But, increasingly, government policy supports putting as many addicts as possible into methadone-substitute programmes because they are cheaper.
As a result, rehab clinics such as Winthrop Hall have become reliant on private clients. The hotel-style addiction clinic was opened in October 2007 by Jon Moulton, a venture capitalist and millionaire, to provide specialist treatment in luxury surroundings for high-flying City executives. But yesterday, staff confirmed that the £32,000-a-year clinic is no longer accepting new patients.
Advocates of rehab say that the closure encapsulates the problem with government thinking on rehab. They point to research by the University of Glasgow, which found drug users who go through residential rehab are seven times more likely to be drug-free after three years than those who go to methadone clinics.
The Health Care Commission last week identified the low use of residential rehab services as a weakness.
Dr David Best, from the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Birmingham, said: “Commissioners have spent bigger and bigger slices of the pie on harm reduction services at the expense of rehab, despite the evidence that rehab works. Users now have to jump through so many hoops to get there, it has become much harder, and rehab centres have closed as a result. It’s not because we don’t need these services but the system has become saturated in methadone clinics, which are a much cheaper and easier way to ‘treat’ people.”
Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse in Glasgow, said: “When we stop patting ourselves on the back and look back on this period, we will see that this was a shameful dereliction of our responsibility and we failed the majority of drug users by keeping them locked into addiction. Drug services fail addicts, contrary to official figures