UK

By Kathy Gyngell – Editor of The Conservative Woman – October 2, 2025
A STUDY published in June that I have just come across provides unsurprising but nonetheless devastating and irrefutable evidence linking increased cannabis use with rising rates of breast and testicular cancers in young Americans.

The study covers the period between 2000 and 2019. The aim was clear: to test the hypothesis that the increasing incidence of testis and breast cancer in adolescent and young adult (AYA) Americans correlates with their increasing cannabis use. Its conclusions are stark: that North America has evidence which implicates cannabis as a potential etiologic factor contributing to the increasing incidence of breast carcinoma in young females and testis cancer in older adolescent and young adult males, and in most races and ethnicities. Temporal correlations suggest that a carcinogenic effect of cannabis is rapid, leading to cancer within a few years after cannabis exposure. You can read this extremely detailed and careful study here. 

Its overall study design involved comparing breast and testis cancer incidence trends in jurisdictions that had and had not legalised cannabis use. In the US, both breast carcinoma in 20- to 34-year-old females and testis cancer in 15- to 39-year-old males had annual incidence rate increases that were highly correlated (Pearson’s r = 0.95) with the increase in the number of cannabis-legalising jurisdictions during the period 2000–2019. Both were significantly greater during the period 2000–2019 in the cannabis-legalising than non-legalising states. (My italics)

During the period 2000–2019, registries in cannabis-legalising versus non-legalising states documented a 26 per cent versus 17 per cent increase in breast carcinoma and 24 per cent versus 14 per cent increase in testis cancer.

In the same age groups, the study (predictably) found Canada had an even greater increase in both breast and testis cancer incidence than the US. A UNICEF study on the well-being of children had already confirmed that Canadian adolescents (aged 11 to 15) have the highest rate of cannabis use among the 29 advanced economies of the world. Of particular concern that legalising advocates would do well to note is the considerable percentage of the Canadian youth who are daily or weekly users – approximately 22 per cent of boys and 10 per cent of girls. And that amongst the older 16-19s the upward trend in use which increased to 43 per cent in 2023 compared with 36 per cent in 2018 follows the country’s nationwide legalisation of cannabis for over-18s in 2018.

This link between cannabis and these forms of cancer should come as no surprise.  A report from the American Cancer Society (ACS) in February this year identified non-seminoma testis cancer as the cancer type most closely linked to cannabis use. 

More shocking is that this relationship has been known about for years. In 2009, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre in Seattle investigated the possibility of a link ‘after learning that the testes were one of the few organs in the body to contain receptors for the main psychoactive substance in the drug, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)‘.   The same scientists noted that there had also been a rise in testicular cancer cases that had ‘mirrored the rise in marijuana use since the 1950s’. 

The 2025 study is of course of a different type and order of magnitude. It was certainly needed. Its findings warrant the utmost attention of our national and local public health authorities which were so zealous to promote child covid vaccination but have remained over the years so strangely silent about cannabis.

This valuable study should also serve as a warning to cannabis legalisers including Sir Sadiq Khan that their endorsement of the drug and indifference to the impact of legalisation on teen health is not just irresponsible but near-criminal.  

Postscript: There are other disturbing elements regarding the underlying mechanisms noted in the study’s findings. These, its authors state, ‘may involve genotoxic effects, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial dysfunction caused by cannabis, leading to genomic instability’. For further elucidation of this a 2024 study published in Addiction Biology provides some key insights into cannabis-cancer pathobiology and genotoxicity. You can read this report here. 

Source:  https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-irrefutable-link-between-cannabis-and-cancer-in-young-americans/

Filed under: Cannabis/Marijuana,Drug use-various effects,Health,Latest News,Marijuana and Medicine,Mental Health,UK,Youth :

LONDON DAILY MAIL

by Sam Lawley, News Reporter –  5 October 2025 | 

Laying bare the extent of Glasgow‘s substance crisis, a disturbing video showed the drug-taking hotspot in grim detail with needles, spoons and other drug paraphernalia strewn over the ground – and all just round the corner from a popular student accommodation.

Glasgow is home to the UK’s first and only drug consumption facility, The Thistle, less than half a mile from the location of the clip, posted to X on Saturday by Reform councillor Thomas Kerr.

The centre is already open 365 days a year from 9am to 9pm but its operators told MSPs this week that they may have to extend hours as so many addicts are bingeing on cocaine later in the day and evening.

Run jointly by Glasgow City Council and the NHS, The Thistle allows users to inject hard drugs under medical supervision without fear of prosecution.

More than 400 addicts have so far had 5,000 ‘injecting episodes’, with cocaine taken three times as much as heroin. There have also been 60 ‘medical emergencies’ on site.

But it seems drug use is still spilling onto the streets and parks of Scotland’s largest city.

A squalid drug den featuring a tree covered in dirty heroin syringes has been discovered just yards from Scotland’s only ‘safe’ consumption room in Glasgow

‘But as you can see this is student accommodation and look at this,’ he says.

The camera pans from a block of student flats towards a tree loaded with syringes like darts lodged on a board.

Speaking with hundreds of pieces of rubbish scattered across the ground, Ms Dempsey adds: ‘To think this is what we are driving people to is just outrageous. It’s worse than outrageous.’

Seemingly criticising The Thistle consumption room, she sayd: ‘This is where the road to recovery comes right in. The right to enable should not count, it should not be a factor in it.

‘And that’s what we’re doing because all this equipment here, the packaging, the boxes, the syringes, the spoons for burning and the naloxone packages. These are all stuff that is given out freely in the safe consumption room.’

Mr Kerr adds: ‘Scotland’s drug crisis is here for everybody to witness. We need to start focussing on recovery as Audrey said, and not driving into despair where they’re sitting taking needles apparently safely down in the Calton, where you can see the state that people have been driven into.

‘This is absolutely scandalous and this is what’s going on in the streets of Glasgow, just around the corner from a so-called safe consumption facility.’

Ms Dempsey says: ‘This is outrageous. This makes you physically sick to think this is what we are pushing people into, and it tells you all the more that the Right to Recovery Bill should stand because people have a right to recover from this. They shouldn’t be driven to this, it’s just awful.’ 

The Right to Recovery Bill, if passed, would ‘establish a right in law to treatment for addiction for anyone in who is addicted to either alcohol, or drugs or both’. It is currently at stage one, the committee stage, of the process.

The Daily Mail has approached Cllr Casey for comment. 

The Thistle, which opened in January, also stepped up demands for an ‘inhalation space’ for people to smoke crack. 

Responding to calls for longer opening hours, Glasgow Tory MSP Annie Wells said: ‘Local residents will be terrified at the prospect of a 24/7 drug room on their doorsteps. 

‘The Thistle is making lives a misery for those living near it, with dirty needles and anti-social behaviour plaguing the community.

‘Expanding state-sponsored drug taking is not the answer – that’s why it’s crucial that MSPs back our Right to Recovery Bill which would enshrine in law a right to life-saving rehab.’

SNP drugs policy minister Maree Todd later MSPs she was confident the Thistle had already saved lives.

She said: ‘We’re seeing more smoking than we have before, more inhalation routes, so we just need to remain agile. Things are not static.

‘It’s a challenging situation to stay ahead of, quite a dynamic situation that’s out there.’

Tricia Fort, chair of Calton Community Council, said the Thistle was ‘doing good’, but there were concerns about it drawing drug dealers to the area.

Morrisons security boss Steve Baxter said the chain’s nearby supermarket had seen a 94 per cent drop in dirty needles in its car park since the Thistle opened.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15163757/drug-den-tree-heroin-syringes-Scotland-glasgow-consumption-room.html

Filed under: Addiction,Culture,Latest News,Needle Exchange,UK :
Press Office, Media Relations – press-office@brunel.ac.uk

The UK’s science minister, Sir Patrick Vallance, has sounded the alarm over the country’s declining investment in medicines. He warned that the NHS risks losing out on important treatments and the country could lose its place at the cutting edge of medical research if spending does not recover. It comes at a sensitive time – this year drug-makers including Merck and AstraZeneca have backtracked on plans to invest in the UK.

Vallance is correct that there is a need to encourage pharmaceutical firms to keep investing and launching new medicines in the UK. On the other side, there is a need to protect public funds from being wasted on treatments that do not offer enough benefit for their cost.

At the moment, just 9% of NHS healthcare spending goes on medicines. This is less than Spain (18%), Germany (17%) and France (15%). At a time when some experts believe the UK is getting sicker, this might come as a surprise.

But the UK is unusual among major health systems in how carefully it regulates drug spending. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) has, since its creation, judged new treatments not only on clinical evidence but on cost-effectiveness.

That means asking whether a drug’s health benefits – measured in quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) – justify its price compared with existing care. For most treatments the threshold is about £20,000 to £30,000 per QALY. This is not a perfect measure, but it gives the NHS a consistent way of deciding whether the health gained is worth the money spent.

The value of this approach is clear. Nice’s record shows that medicines that pass its tests have added millions of QALYs to patients in England, while also preventing waste on drugs that bring only marginal improvements at high cost.

A study published earlier this year in medical journal The Lancet found that many of the new medicines recommended by Nice between 2000-2020 brought substantial benefit to patients. But it also noted that some high-cost drugs deliver much less health gain than investments in prevention or early diagnosis could.

The study emphasises that maintaining rigorous thresholds around cost-effectiveness ensures that public funds go to treatments that really improve lives. In other words, the discipline of cost-effectiveness has protected the public purse while ensuring access to genuine innovations.

This regulatory strength is reinforced by national pricing schemes for branded medicines. These cap overall growth in the NHS drugs bill and require companies to pay rebates if spending rises too fast. In practice, this means that if total spending on branded medicines exceeds an agreed annual limit, pharmaceutical companies must pay back a percentage of their sales revenue to the Department of Health.

In recent years that rebate rate has been as high as 20–26% of sales, effectively lowering the price the NHS pays. This is made possible by the buying power of the health service.

Together with Nice’s appraisals, these measures have helped the NHS maintain relatively low medicines spending compared with many countries. At the same time, it still secures access to major advances in cancer therapy, immunology and rare disease treatment.

For a publicly funded service under constant financial strain, these protections are vital. Despite the pressure on its budget, the NHS has secured meaningful access to new therapies. For example, by March 2024, nearly 100,000 patients in England – many of whom would otherwise face long delays or rejection – had benefited from early access via the Cancer Drugs Fund to more than 100 drugs across 250 conditions.

The balance with Big Pharma

However, strict controls on price and access can have unintended consequences. If companies see the UK as a low-return market, they may choose to launch new drugs elsewhere first, or to limit investment in research and early trials here.

There is a danger that patients could face delays in receiving new treatments. Or the scientific ecosystem, which relies on steady collaboration with industry, could weaken.

Still, the answer is not to abandon cost-effectiveness. Without it, the NHS would risk paying high prices for small gains. This would divert money from staff, diagnostics or prevention – areas that often bring more health benefit per pound spent.

In such cases, raising thresholds or relaxing scrutiny would do more harm than good. Cost-effectiveness is not just about saving money. It is about fairness, ensuring that treatments funded genuinely improve lives relative to their cost.

The challenge, then, is balance. The UK should continue to hold firm on value for money, while finding ways to encourage investment. That might mean improving the speed and clarity of Nice processes, so that companies know where they stand earlier and patients can access good drugs more quickly.

It could involve reviewing thresholds periodically to account for inflation and medical progress, without undermining the principle that treatments must show sufficient benefit. And it certainly means supporting research and development through stable partnerships with universities, tax incentives and grants.

What should not be underestimated is the UK’s scientific strength. The country remains home to world-class universities, skilled researchers and an innovative biotech sector. The rapid development of the Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID vaccine showed what UK science can deliver at scale and speed.

Pharmaceutical companies know this, and many – including AstraZeneca, GSK, Novo Nordisk, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and most recently Moderna – continue to invest in British labs and trials because of the talent and infrastructure. Danish firm Novo Nordisk has strengthened its ties with the University of Oxford, committing £18.5 million to fund 20 postdoctoral fellowships as part of its flagship research partnership.

The UK’s approach to assessing value has won respect internationally. That discipline must be preserved. Reversing the decline in investment means creating a predictable, transparent environment for industry while maintaining the protections that safeguard patients and taxpayers alike. If done well, the UK can continue to be both a responsible buyer of medicines and a world leader in science.

Source: https://www.brunel.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/articles/The-UK-must-invest-in-medicines

Filed under: Drug use-various effects,Latest News,Medicines,Strategy and Policy,UK :

 

The UK government has launched a new campaign to alert young people to the dangers of ketamine, counterfeit medicines and adulterated THC vapes.
by Department of Health and Social Care and Ashley Dalton MP – Published 16 October 2025
  • New campaign to alert young people to the dangers of ketamine, counterfeit medicines and adulterated THC vapes
  • Ketamine use and drug poisonings highest on record with 8 times more people seeking treatment since 2015
  • Government investing £310 million into drug treatment services alongside awareness campaign

Young people are being warned that they risk irreparable bladder damage, poisoning and even death if they take ketamine, synthetic opioids or deliberately contaminated THC vapes, as part of a new anti-drugs campaign.

Launching today (16 October 2025), the campaign, which includes online films, will target 16 to 24 years olds and social media users, following a worrying rise in the number of young people being harmed by drugs. There has been an eight-fold increase in the number of people requiring treatment for ketamine since 2015.

Supported by £310 million investment in drug treatment services, this initiative directly supports the government’s Plan for Change mission to create safer streets by reducing serious harm and protecting communities from emerging drug threats.

Health Minister Ashley Dalton said:

Young people don’t always realise the decision to take drugs such as ketamine can have profound effects. It can destroy your bladder and even end your life.

We’ve seen a worrying rise in people coming to harm from ketamine as well as deliberately contaminated THC vapes and synthetic opioids hidden in fake medicines bought online.

Prevention is at the heart of this government’s approach to tackling drugs and this campaign will ensure young people have the facts they need to make informed decisions about their health and safety, so they think twice about putting themselves in danger.

As part of the campaign, experts will highlight particular risks, including the:

  • potentially irreparable damage ketamine can cause to your bladder
  • dangers of counterfeit medicines containing deadly synthetic opioids purchased online
  • risks from so-called ‘THC vapes’ that often contain dangerous synthetic cannabinoids like spice rather than THC

Resources will be available for schools, universities and local public health teams with content available on FRANK, the drug information website.

There are growing concerns about novel synthetic opioids, particularly nitazenes, which are increasingly appearing in counterfeit medicines sold through illegitimate online sources. Users purchasing these products are typically younger and more drug-naïve.

Reports of harms from THC vapes have also increased, with many products containing synthetic cannabinoids (commonly known as ‘spice’) that have higher potency and unpredictable effects.

Katy Porter, CEO, The Loop, said:

The Loop welcomes the further investment in evidence-based approaches and support to reduce drug-related harm.

Providing accurate, non-judgemental information equips and empowers people to make safer choices and can help reduce preventable harms.

Drug poisoning deaths reached 5,448 in England and Wales in 2023, the highest number since records began in 1993. The campaign emphasises that while complete safety requires avoiding drug use altogether, those who may still use substances should be aware of the risks and know how to access help and support.

The campaign underlines that ketamine’s medical applications do not make illicit use safe, with urologists increasingly concerned about young people presenting with severe bladder problems from recreational ketamine use.

Resources will be distributed to local public health teams, drug and alcohol treatment services, youth services, schools and universities. The campaign provides clear information on accessing help and support for those experiencing drug-related problems or mental health issues.

This year the Department of Health and Social Care is also providing £310 million in additional targeted grants to improve drug and alcohol treatment services and recovery support in England, including specialist services for children and young people.

For information and support on drug-related issues, visit www.talktofrank.com or call the FRANK helpline on 0300 123 6600.

Background information

How to watch this YouTube videoThere’s a YouTube video on this page. You can’t access it because of your cookie settings.You can change your cookie settings or watch the video on YouTube instead:Ket: while each high lasts minutes, for some the damage to their bladder could last forever

How to watch this YouTube videoThere’s a YouTube video on this page. You can’t access it because of your cookie settings.You can change your cookie settings or watch the video on YouTube instead:Synthetic opioids: what are they and why are they so dangerous?

Additional resources for professionals and educators will be available through local public health networks.

The £310 million additional funding for drug treatment services is separate from the public health grant.

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/young-people-given-stark-warning-on-deadly-risks-of-taking-drugs

 

Filed under: Brain and Behaviour,Cannabis/Marijuana,Culture,Drug use-various effects,Drug use-various effects on foetus, babies, children and youth,Ketamine,Latest News,Prevention and Intervention,Treatment and Addiction,UK,Vaping,Youth :

by Gabrielle Humphreys &  Natalie Finch – BMC (BioMedCentral) –

Abstract

Background

Lived experience recovery organisations (LEROs) are social support services facilitated by those who have shared lived experience. Typically, they aim to build shared identity and reducing stigma in this area, although there is limited knowledge on the experiences of those using LEROs, with research rarely permitted into these groups. The current study aims to provide insight into these groups, examining the experiences of service users in a UK-based LERO focussed on substance use disorder recovery.

Methods

Fifteen service users were interviewed about their experiences attending this LERO. Transcripts from these semi-structured interviews were thematically analysed by authors, with an inductive approach adopted.

Results

Eight themes and 10 sub-themes were identified. Themes were; Feeling supported in recovery, Experiencing life outside of substance use disorder, Fun, Skills acquisition, Preventing relapse by filling time, Gaining a sense of community, Psychological impact, and Changes in public perception. Participants reported having a positive experience within this LERO, particularly in comparison to traditional treatment pathways. Specifically, participants highlighted feelings of self-worth, belongingness, and enjoyment from this LERO – experiences they felt made this treatment pathway unique.

Conclusion

This paper highlighted the importance of peer support in substance use disorder recovery. Embedding those with lived experience into services was highly valued by participants and generated a unique culture of comfort, hope and opportunity. Although the scope of this study was limited to participants only currently attending this organisation, those interviewed significantly valued this LERO, highlighting their future potential to alleviate the lack of satisfaction reported by some around traditional treatment methods.

 

To access the full article, please click on the ‘Source’ link below:

Source: https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-025-00671-9

Filed under: Addiction,Drug use-various effects,Latest News,Treatment and Addiction,UK :

 

Authors: Cyntia Duval, Brandon A. Wyse, Noga Fuchs Weizman, Iryna Kuznyetsova, Svetlana Madjunkova & Clifford L. Librach

Published by: Nature Communications

Published: 09 September 2025

 

Abstract

Cannabis consumption and legalization is increasing globally, raising concerns about its impact on fertility. In humans, we previously demonstrated that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and its metabolites reach the ovarian follicle. An extensive body of literature describes THC’s impact on sperm, however no such studies have determined its effects on the oocyte. Herein, we investigate the impact of THC on human female fertility through both a clinical and in vitro analysis. In a case-control study, we show that follicular fluid THC concentration is positively correlated with oocyte maturation and THC-positive patients exhibit significantly lower embryo euploid rates than their matched controls. In vitro, we observe a similar, but non-significant, increased oocyte maturation rate following THC exposure and altered expression of key genes implicated in extracellular matrix remodeling, inflammation, and chromosome segregation. Furthermore, THC induces oocyte chromosome segregation errors and increases abnormal spindle morphology. Finally, this study highlights potential risks associated with cannabis use for female fertility.

Introduction

Cannabis consumption for both medicinal and recreational use and legalization have been rising globally1. Cannabis contains several classes of chemicals with cannabinoids being the most prominent; among these, tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the primary psychoactive compound and the most studied2. Notably, the concentration of THC in cannabis products has increased significantly, from an average of 3% (by weight) in the 1980s to around 15% in 2020, with some strains reaching 30% of THC2. The increase in frequency, ease of availability, and escalation in potency raises concerns about broader impacts on global human health, including reproductive health. Indeed, the main apprehension regarding THC and reproductive health stems from the importance of the endocannabinoid system in human reproduction3. Endocannabinoids, including N-arachidonoylethanolamide and 2-arachidonoylglycerol, are endogenous cannabinoids that play a central role in both male and female reproduction3, whereas THC is an exogenous cannabinoid. Extensive research has documented the effects of THC on male reproduction, highlighting an impact on sperm deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) methylation  4,5,6,7 and sperm parameters8 including sperm concentration  9,10,11, morphology  12,13,14 and motility14. As for female health, literature reports the impact of cannabis use during pregnancy on pregnancy outcomes  15,16,17,18, placental development  18,19,20 and offspring health  18,20,21,22. However, to our knowledge, no studies have investigated the impact of cannabis on the human female gamete, the oocyte, a gap partly due to the challenge associated with obtaining these samples.

During in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment, exogenous gonadotropins are administered in a process called “controlled ovarian hyperstimulation” which recruits multiple follicles and induces follicle growth. These recruited follicles, each containing an oocyte, are then collected by a physician in a procedure called oocyte retrieval. Oocytes are collected along with their surrounding microenvironment, including follicular fluid (FF) and supportive somatic cells (granulosa cells). The oocytes are isolated, and mature oocytes are used for subsequent in vitro fertilization. Using FF, our group has previously quantified Δ9-THC and its metabolites, 11-OH-THC and 11-COOH-THC  23,24, demonstrating that these compounds could reach the follicular niche. This is significant as it suggests that THC may directly alter the microenvironment where the oocyte matures. Furthermore, our group has shown that THC exposure altered human granulosa cell methylation in a concentration dependent manner23, and in vitro exposure modulated cannabinoid receptor dynamics in granulosa cells24. However, no human studies and only a few animal model studies have investigated the impact of cannabis directly on oocyte development with conflicting results  25,26,27,28,29.

Maturation of the oocyte is a unique and highly specialized process beginning in utero during fetal development. It is widely accepted that female neonates are born with a finite number of oocytes, which, following menarche, are recruited to mature in cohorts with each menstrual cycle30. Although oocytes are protected in the ovary by the blood-follicle-barrier, they remain highly sensitive to environmental factors31. Given their essential role in reproduction, any perturbations in their development and maturation could have profound effects on fertility and on future generations. Thus, understanding the impact of THC on oocyte health is critical for providing informed guidance and counseling to patients of the potential risks to their fertility and future offspring.

In this study, we determine the impact of physiologically relevant concentrations of THC on oocyte maturation, elucidate the transcriptomic changes induced by THC exposure and its effect on chromosome segregation, and compare our findings with a retrospective cohort study. Our investigation will aid in bridging the knowledge gap in our understanding of the sex-specific reproductive consequences of cannabis use and contribute to more effective and evidence-based patient counseling.

 

To read the full article, please click on the source link below

Source:  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-63011-2

 

Filed under: Cannabis/Marijuana,Drug use-various effects,Drug use-various effects on foetus, babies, children and youth,Europe,Marijuana and Medicine,Others (International News),Prevention and Intervention,Sexual Behaviour,Treatment and Addiction,UK,USA :

by Jack Fenwick – BBC Political correspondent – 16 September 2025

Hilary’s son Ben died from a heroin overdose in 2018, but his death was never included on official opioid death statistics

More than 13,000 heroin and opioid deaths have been missed off official statistics in England and Wales, raising concerns about the impact on the government’s approach to tackling addiction.

Research from King’s College London, shared exclusively with BBC News, found that there were 39,232 opioid-related deaths between 2011 and 2022, more than 50% higher than previously known.

The error has been blamed on the government’s official statistics body not having access to correct data and it is understood ministers are now working with coroners to improve the reporting of deaths.

A former senior civil servant said fewer people might have died if drug policies had been based on accurate statistics.

The number of opioid deaths per million people in England and Wales has almost doubled since 2012, but this new study means the scale of the problem is likely to be even greater.

Researchers from the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality at King’s used data from coroners’ reports to calculate a more accurate estimate of opioid-related deaths.

Opioids include drugs such as heroin that come from the opium poppy plant, as well as synthetically-made substances like fentanyl.

The Liberal Democrats have said the government needs to “urgently investigate” how the error was made.

The reliability of the Office for National Statistics (ONS) data relies on coroners naming specific substances on death certificates, something which often does not happen.

Specific substances such as heroin are instead sometimes only included on more detailed post-mortem reports or toxicology results, which the ONS does not have access to.

Government data on overall drug deaths, which does not name specific substances, is not affected by the error, but ministers’ decision-making is generally influenced by the more granular statistics.

The body that oversees police commissioners says correct data on opioid deaths could have led to more funding and better treatment for front-line services such as police forces and public health.

Sir Philip Rutnam, who was the most senior civil servant at the Home Office between 2017 and 2020, told the BBC it was “quite possible” that fewer people would have died, if the government’s drug policies had been based on accurate statistics.

He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “It really does matter, first of all the level of attention given to these issues, but then specifically it will affect decisions on how much funding to put into health-related programmes, treatment programmes, or into different bits of the criminal justice system.”

“My son’s death is one of thousands missed from official stats”

Ben was 27 when he died from a heroin overdose in 2018, but his death was ruled as “misadventure” and was never included on the official opioid death statistics.

His addiction began with cannabis when he was a teenager and progressed to using aerosols and eventually heroin.

“Ben was just a very kind person. We miss him, we all miss him every day,” said his mother Hilary.

At one point, she said Ben appeared to “turn a corner”.

He was awarded a place in a rehab facility, but shortly before he was set to move in, Hilary got the phone call she had always dreaded.

“I think what happened is, he wasn’t using,” she said. “They think probably about three months and his tolerance had gone down.”

Ben’s family believe that different treatment and support for drug addicts could have helped him.

Dr Caroline Copeland, who led the new research, said drug policies “will not have the desired impact unless the true scale of the problem is known”.

She added: “We need to alert coroners to the impact that not naming specific drugs as the cause of death has on the planning and funding of public health policies.”

The research, which has been peer-reviewed and published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, focused specifically on opioid deaths, but similar undercounts are thought to exist in data about deaths from other drugs too.

Further work by King’s College London has found that 2,482 cocaine-related deaths have also been missed off ONS statistics over the last 10 years.

David Sidwick, the drugs lead for the National Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, told the BBC the organisation would “be pushing hard” for more treatment funding, in light of the faulty statistics.

Mr Sidwick, who is also a Conservative police and crime commissioner, said more accurate data would lead to “better decisions about the amount of funding required for treatment” and suggested “new treatment methods” such as buprenorphine, a monthly injection that can help heroin users overcome addiction.

Helen Morgan, the Liberal Democrat health spokesperson, said: “I dread to think of the lives that may have been lost due to damaging policies based on faulty stats.”

She added: “The government now needs to step up, launch an investigation and ensure that the ONS is given access to the data it needs so that it can never make this error again.”

The ONS, which helped with the research, said it had warned that “the information provided by coroners on death registrations can lack detail” on the specific drugs involved.

A spokesperson added: “The more detail coroners can provide about specific drugs relevant to a death will help further improve these statistics to inform the UK government’s drug strategy.”

The flaw in the ONS system is not present in Scotland, where there are no coroners and where National Records Scotland (NRS) is responsible for collating official statistics.

Unlike the ONS, the NRS does receive more detailed pathology reports, but differences in how deaths are reported across the UK make it difficult to compare.

The opioid undercounting raises further questions about the under-fire ONS, which has been accused of failing on several statistical fronts recently.

Data sets on job markets and immigration have been criticised and earlier this year a government review said the ONS had “deep-seated” issues which needed tackling.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “We continue to work with partners across health, policing and wider public services to drive down drug use, ensure more people receive timely treatment and support, and make our streets and communities safer.”

 

Source:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cg7dzmyjrjzo

 

Filed under: Addiction,Drug use-various effects,Heroin/Methadone,Latest News,Opioids,Prevalence,Strategy and Policy,UK :
Daniel Hall   – -BBN Times – 24/08/2025

Outdated views of addiction hurt patients. Dr. Roger Starner Jones, Jr. and others are working to change that.

Despite decades of medical research, public awareness campaigns, and growing national concern, many people still see addiction through a distorted lens. “Addict” remains a pejorative label. Misconceptions persist that addiction is a choice, a character flaw, or the result of bad parenting. These outdated ideas don’t just misinform—they actively harm. They delay care, deepen stigma, and make recovery even more complicated to reach.

But addiction is not a moral failing. It is a complex brain disease, and understanding it as such is crucial to saving lives.

A Medical Diagnosis, Not a Personal Weakness

Addiction, clinically known as substance use disorder (SUD), alters brain chemistry in ways that impact decision-making, impulse control, and the experience of pleasure and reward. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), addiction is a chronic, relapsing disorder characterized by compulsive drug seeking, continued use despite harmful consequences, and long-lasting changes in the brain.

Yet societal attitudes lag behind the science. More than three-quarters of Americans surveyed believe that substance use disorder (SUD) is not a chronic medical illness, and more than half said they believe SUD is caused by bad character or lack of moral strength, according to findings from the 2024 Shatterproof Addiction Stigma Index Report. This belief system creates barriers to treatment by fueling shame, encouraging secrecy, and often leading families and employers to distance themselves rather than lean in with support.

The Real Risks of Misunderstanding

Misconceptions don’t just alienate people—they endanger them. Fear of judgment keeps many individuals from seeking help until their condition worsens. Delayed treatment can lead to job loss, relationship breakdowns, homelessness, overdose, and even death.

“Shame is one of the biggest enemies of recovery,” says Dr. Roger Starner Jones, Jr., a board-certified emergency and addiction medicine physician based in Nashville. “When patients think they’ll be judged instead of treated, they wait too long. They spiral. By the time they reach us, their situation is often much more severe than it needed to be.”

Dr. Jones has seen this pattern play out thousands of times. After a decade in emergency medicine, he pursued a fellowship in addiction medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, driven by both clinical experience and personal history. Starner Jones’ father, who once faced 11 DUIs in seven years, found lasting sobriety after being committed to a state hospital and undergoing physician-led detox. That experience changed the course of both their lives—and led Dr. Jones to dedicate his career to compassionate, customized addiction care.

Rewriting the Narrative: Care That Meets Patients Where They Are

Through his practices—Nashville Addiction Recovery and Belle Meade AMP—Starner Jones delivers concierge-level, judgment-free care. His model includes in-home detox, private hotel suite treatment, and office-based services designed to remove as many barriers as possible between a patient and their recovery. His focus is on meeting patients where they are, not where the system dictates they should be.

“There’s no one-size-fits-all in addiction treatment,” Dr. Jones says. “Some people need a quiet, safe space to detox privately. Others need a highly structured plan for relapse prevention. What they don’t need is bureaucracy or blame.”

Starner Jones’s approach is part of a broader shift happening in the addiction medicine field. More physicians are advocating for low-threshold treatment models—services that reduce wait times, eliminate unnecessary paperwork, and avoid rigid abstinence requirements. According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), these models have been shown to increase engagement and retention in care, particularly among people with co-occurring mental health conditions.

While not a clinician in the traditional sense today, Dr. Gabor Maté is one of the most influential voices advocating for a trauma-informed approach to addiction. His book, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, explores how early childhood trauma, not moral weakness, underpins most substance use. He argues that addiction is not the problem itself, but rather a misguided attempt to solve internal pain. His philosophy underpins many treatment programs worldwide.

The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation is one of the most established names in addiction treatment and has evolved to embrace an integrated model that combines medical detox, medication-assisted treatment (MAT), therapy, and mental health services. They openly reject the idea of addiction as a character flaw and emphasize long-term support and relapse prevention, rooted in compassion, not control.

Dispelling Common Myths

Several deeply ingrained myths continue to distort how addiction is viewed and treated. Let’s set the record straight:

  • Myth: Addiction is a choice.
    Reality: While the initial decision to use a substance may be voluntary, the progression to addiction is driven by changes in brain circuitry, not moral weakness.

  • Myth: You have to hit “rock bottom” to recover.
    Reality: Early intervention improves outcomes. Waiting for someone to “bottom out” can be fatal, especially in the era of fentanyl-laced street drugs.

  • Myth: Medication-assisted treatment is trading one addiction for another.
    Reality: FDA-approved medications like buprenorphine and methadone reduce cravings and withdrawal, allowing patients to stabilize their lives. They’re widely considered best practice in treating opioid use disorder.

  • Myth: Recovery is rare.
    Reality: Millions of Americans are living in recovery today. In the United States, 9.1%, or 22.35 million adults have reported resolving a substance use problem.

Compassion Is Evidence-Based

What ultimately works in addiction care isn’t punishment or shame—it’s connection. “When you treat addiction like the disease it is, you empower people to get better,” Dr. Starner Jones says. “You stop asking ‘What’s wrong with you?’ and start asking ‘What happened to you?’”

At Nashville Addiction Recovery, the ethos of compassion is baked into every interaction. From discreet intake to 24/7 physician supervision, the patient experience is defined by dignity and respect. Many of the patients Dr. Jones sees are high-profile professionals—athletes, musicians, executives—whose careers demand confidentiality. But the underlying need is universal: to be seen, respected, and supported through one of the most complex challenges a person can face.

A Call for Better Understanding

Changing how society views addiction won’t happen overnight, but it starts with how we talk about it. Swapping judgment for empathy, punishment for treatment, and generalizations for science can change not just conversations—but lives.

Source: https://www.bbntimes.com/science/what-most-people-get-wrong-about-addiction

Filed under: Addiction,Brain and Behaviour,Culture,UK :
by Jac Charlier, Executive Director, Center for Health and Justice, TASC, and Jason Kew, Centre for Justice Innovation, UK

July 23, 2025.

Lessons from a Decade of Police, Drug Treatment, and Community Partnerships

Ten years ago, an article appeared in the September 2015 issue of IACP’s Police Chief magazine that would introduce a new word into the U.S.  police and justice lexicon: deflection. Eventually, the word also would make its way into the public health world of drug treatment and recovery, as well as move into global usage. In the article, “Want to Reduce Drugs in Your Community? You Might Want to Deflect Instead of Arrest,” author Jac Charlier described a model of crime reduction and crime prevention in which police would “deflect” people who use drugs to substance use treatment rather than arresting and charging them, thereby addressing the root of the problem—that person’s drug use—and, in turn, reducing drug-related offenses in the community. Further, in the case of opioids, police also were seeking to prevent overdoses.

“This scenario is ripe for innovation,” wrote Charlier, adding that deflection lays the groundwork for “comprehensive solutions that work in a variety of jurisdictions.”1

A decade later, the benefits suggested in the 2015 article have borne out, and the practice of deflection indeed has exploded into the emergence of a global field and movement. Reflecting on the impact of deflection over the past decade, many additional lessons and benefits have become evident as well.

What’s In a Name?

At first appearance, the need for a word to describe what was a small and disparate set of police departments working with local drug treatment agencies to address overdoses might have seemed unnecessary. With only a handful of departments across the United States known to be doing what would become called deflection, and with departments each developing their own processes ad hoc, the need for a new word was anything but obvious. Now, 10 years on, the word itself, while still new to some, has stuck. That is in part because of the simplicity and logic of the term: while diversion moves people away from the justice system after they have already entered it, deflection happens earlier, before they even enter it, moving them into community-based services instead. In other words, diversion is post-filing, and deflection is always pre-filing, whether or not an arrest occurs.

At the time the deflection term was coined, it was becoming clear that (1) something new and different was happening between police and drug treatment that had not been seen formally before; (2) when looked at closely, even in those early days, it appeared that what other parts of the justice system (prosecutors, jails, courts, prisons, probation, and parole) had been doing for many years (working closely with drug treatment) had now arrived for police; and (3) this was more than a move upstream to the police now doing diversion; rather, this was something very different because it relied not on the justice system solving the problem, but first and foremost on community, treatment, and recovery as co-problem-solving partners with the police.

“When one thinks about when and where they can have the greatest impact with the fewest resources, including costs, it is always best and better to act first at prevention and then early intervention”

Another aspect of deflection that easily could be overlooked yet deserves to be acknowledged for the tremendous innovation that it represents is this: deflection emerged not from the treatment or recovery movement, but from—almost exclusively at first—police, sheriffs, and other law enforcement agencies. The birth of deflection was in large part, but not exclusively, a response to the overdose crisis, and the maxim that “we can’t arrest our way out of this” is due to the courage, willingness, and creativity of police, sheriffs, law enforcement, and prosecutors to seek alternative solutions.

 While one-off versions of deflection have existed here and there since the 1990s, deflection now is practiced across departments, in multicounty approaches, and even at the level of state police. Deflection exists in training, practice, policy, legislation, research, and funding and continues to expand into new areas. It is here to stay and (together with its older sibling diversion, which also works at the intersection of public safety and public health) forms an entirely new way of understanding a practice-based, community-first-approach to reducing drug use and drug use–related crime, while promoting recovery and well-being.

Another way to think about the emergence of deflection is that whereas before, prevention and diversion of drug-related offenses happened through models such as treatment courts, there now exist new opportunities to reduce drug use and drug-related behaviors earlier than previously practicable by thinking of prevention–deflection–diversion, each offering opportunities to act.

Today, 9 U.S. federal agencies; 41 states; and innumerable counties, cities, foundations, researchers, universities, police training units, and—most importantly—police practitioners, recognize deflection. From those original few sites (and with federal, state, and local funding streams for deflection) it is now estimated that more than1,600 deflection initiatives exist, not including any of the  sites outside the United States.

Deflection on an International Scale

Deflection has evolved in concert with parallel international advances in related drug- and crime-reduction policies grounded in public safety and public health working together. For instance, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in the past several years, has hosted Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) side events focused specifically on deflection. Outside of the United States, deflection initiatives have emerged in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Kenya, Mexico, South Africa, Italy, Tanzania, and other countries as communities seek efficient and cost-effective means to reduce substance use and its consequences.2 Just as has occurred in the United States, these initiatives are growing organically and according to local needs and resources. As one example, deflection practice in the UK incorporates a vast menu of options, from children’s referrals from schools, to veterans, mental health co-response, and women-only pathways. Each program is coordinated through the local authority’s community safety partnership, and each local authority is very different from another.

10 Lessons Learned from 10 Years of Deflection

With these roots, 10 major lessons have emerged as deflection has become formalized and has grown across the United States and globally:

  1. Police–treatment partnerships are effective. The first and most important lesson is that police and drug treatment can work together, side by side, with a shared mission and vision, to make a positive difference for the community. This idea, prior to deflection, was not routinely seen nor practiced. Policing and drug treatment historically have had misgivings about working together, starting with not considering how it might benefit them both to work together. Thanks to deflection, this has now changed. Through locally driven efforts unique to each community, where police departments have flexibility and control over processes, along with treatment partners who offer clinical and outreach expertise, deflection offers mutually rewarding solutions whereby both the justice system and public health system benefit from shared goals through a collaborative working relationship. In practical terms, police officers on the street now have a new “partner” working alongside them to figure out how to handle situations for which police were neither trained nor equipped, and the treatment and recovery communities now have earlier-than-before access to people with problem drug use who were not yet, in all but overdose cases, at the point of crisis. Of course, for the deflection participant, they benefit from a supportive “warm handoff” to treatment and services as a way to stop continued drug use.
  2. Police–recovery partnerships are growing. The second lesson, which stems from the first, is that police and people in recovery from addiction could work well together. If the first lesson was a hill to overcome, then this lesson was the mountain. Indeed, the credit of deflection actually working on the ground, day in and day out, goes to the line officers and people in recovery who have learned to work together by understanding and respecting why the other does what they do. Deflection creates a situation where they need each other. This is because while the police previously may have had the contact with the person using drugs, deflection offered a way to build trust that mattered. Through what is known in the field as “relentless engagement,” the partnerships seek to ensure the person knows that both the officer and treatment/services/recovery supports are there to assist them.
  3. The community is on board. The third lesson is that communities can accept deflection, especially and importantly when key community partners are consulted and included from the outset. Binary notions such as “tough on drugs” versus “let people use drugs” are politicized statements that do not reflect the reality on the ground of what the public wants—a response that leads to a solution that actually works for their family members, neighbors, businesses, and the community alike, and then allows their local police to focus more on serious and violent crimes, including, not coincidently, drug trafficking. Limited resources require efficient use of those resources.
  4. Deflection is effective. The fourth lesson underscores all the others: deflection works. From early evaluations to research to now second and even third site evaluations, it is clear that this entirely new field and movement, which sits between drug prevention and justice diversion (post-filing and entry into the justice system), was indeed called for and needed. As anticipated when it came into being a decade ago, deflection evaluations have shown it can reduce drug use and reduce drug use–related behaviors and crime, while also promoting recovery, well-being, and community safety.3
  5. Deflection’s community focus is rooted in the history of policing. Deflection fits naturally within the history and role of policing. Sir Robert Peel, who established the first organized police force in London, England, in 1829, and August Vollmer, who became known as the “father of modern policing” in the United States a century later, each contended that a foundational principle of policing is to prevent crime before it occurs and that this happens in partnership with the community. They both proposed that, by addressing underlying reasons for criminal behavior, policing practices can mitigate the harm caused by crime and reduce its occurrence. Indeed, Vollmer practically described deflection exactly when he suggested at a 1919 IACP meeting that police collaborate with social service agencies as a crime prevention strategy.4
  6. Police want to help people recover from drug use. The sixth lesson is that the police want to learn more about drug use, misuse, and addiction; about drug treatment and how it works; and most importantly, how they can be part of helping people to recover from addiction. Every day, police see people who use drugs. They see them getting worse, not better, and they see the harmful impact of drug use on families and the community at large. Through deflection, police get to see people reduce and then stop and recover from drug use. This is critical to a profession that otherwise often sees only bad and negative things. Police can see in deflection the role they play in reducing the scourge of addiction and how helpful they and their profession can be. They are not asked to provide treatment nor do the case management, but they kick off the entire process. It is said within the field that while police may be only the first step of many to recovery from drugs, without law enforcement, deflection would never get started. (Deflection is now practiced by EMS and fire departments, as well as by others, including second responders, but police deflection still makes up the majority of sites.)
  7. Local, community-based designs, decisions, and control are vital. Deflection is a framework, not a program. This is often heard in the field with the idea being that while some critical elements that make deflection work, and work better, are known, it is and always will exist only within the context of the local community in which it operates. Deflection is a multisystems approach to addressing a complex, often chronic problem: addiction. That means the local community has a say in how it is designed and looks; police have a say in how it operates; and treatment and recovery providers have a say into how it will focus their limited resources. The complexity of deflection, understood within the design of a specific community, is what gives meaning to the statement, “If you’ve seen one deflection initiative, you’ve truly seen only one deflection initiative.”
  8. Deflection is good public policy. The combined voice of police, drug treatment, and community together makes for good, community-grounded public policy, and as a result, is much more powerful when speaking to drug policy, funding, and practice than any of them would be alone. This lesson comes from the work of each of the deflection sites themselves, which figures out how to make it work on the ground and from that, find their shared voice to do more and do better to share deflection insights with neighboring communities.
  9. Barriers to treatment persist. The ninth lesson is that deflection has required greater adjustments for treatment than it has for the police. For police, any initial hesitancy about deflection usually relates to the practical side of how this will work. For treatment, recovery, and health partners, working alongside the police is often a new endeavor altogether. Interestingly, treatment partners will state they know this can be done but do not know how. Deflection creates a bridge between public safety and public health and the resulting connection provides guidance; instruction; training; and most important, one-on-one relationships between officers, people who treat those who use drugs, and people in recovery.
  10. The efficiency of deflection: Why wait for an arrest? The tenth lesson comes directly from the motto of the deflection field: “Why wait for an arrest?” Deflection offers an opportunity to get people to treatment before they reach the point of entering the justice system, and often before addiction has set in at full force. Deflection creates pathways, six to be exact, to connect people to treatment, housing, recovery, and services.5)

This matters because when one thinks about when and where they can have the greatest impact with the fewest resources, including costs, it is always best and better to act first at prevention and then early intervention. This is, of course, where deflection operates. In cases of overdose, its focus is preventing the next potential overdose. Deflection is an early, upstream strategy. This means that deflection is efficient in addressing issues before they become crises or happen again.

First national deflection and pre-arrest diversion summit, held at IACP in Alexandria, VA, 2017.
Photo courtesy TASC’s Center for Health and Justice.

As the decade since the introduction of the term deflection closes out and stakeholders reflect on these 10 lessons learned, the future of this field and movement is nothing but positive. It is growing nationally and globally; it is now common; it has funding and legislative support; researchers and policymakers are doing more of it; the demands to show more and better outcomes by the public are underway; and there is much more to come. Most important, the idea attached to the word deflection—this foundational change in how police and drug treatment work together, in and with the community—is no longer unusual, something not understood. Rather, the communities  practicing it show that deflection can be done, and the field indeed is doing it!

Finally, as deflection celebrates its 10th anniversary with a celebration at the Police, Treatment, and Community Collaborative (PTACC) 2025 International Deflection and Pre-Arrest Diversion Summit in New Orleans, Louisiana, from December 2–4, deflection sites will share their own lessons learned. Police professionals are invited to join PTACC in New Orleans. After that, it’s time to get ready for the next 10 years. Many possibilities exist of where this work will go, but this field and movement, once unheard of, will be more, do more, and achieve more. Indeed, police, treatment, and communities alike are counting on deflection to do just that! d

 

 

Source: https://www.policechiefmagazine.org/deflection-turns-10/

Filed under: Crime/Violence/Prison,Drug use-various effects,Prevention and Intervention,UK,USA :

OPENING STATEMENT BY NDPA

We repeat this 2004 article by Stanton Peele as a useful position statement for us all.  Peele’s classic 1975  text ‘Addiction and Love’ (Peele and Brosky – Published: Taplinger, New York) is also well worth reading in this context.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

By Stanton Peele Ph.D. published May 1, 2004

More people quit addictions than maintain them, and they do so on their own. People succeed when they recognize that the addiction interferes with something they value—and when they develop the confidence that they can change.

Change is natural. You no doubt act very differently in many areas of your life now compared with how you did when you were a teenager. Likewise, over time you will probably overcome or ameliorate certain behaviors: a short temper, crippling insecurity.

For some reason, we exempt addiction from our beliefs about change. In both popular and scientific models, addiction is seen as locking you into an inescapable pattern of behavior. Both folk wisdom, as represented by Alcoholics Anonymous, and modern neuroscience regard addiction as a virtually permanent brain disease. No matter how many years ago your uncle Joe had his last drink, he is still considered an alcoholic. The very word addict confers an identity that admits no other possibilities. It incorporates the assumption that you can’t, or won’t, change.

But this fatalistic thinking about addiction doesn’t jibe with the facts. More people overcome addictions than do not. And the vast majority do so without therapy. Quitting may take several tries, and people may not stop smoking, drinking or using drugs altogether. But eventually they succeed in shaking dependence.

Kicking these habits constitutes a dramatic change, but the change need not occur in a dramatic way. So when it comes to addiction treatment, the most effective approaches rely on the counterintuitive principle that less is often more. Successful treatment places the responsibility for change squarely on the individual and acknowledges that positive events in other realms may jump-start change.

Consider the experience of American soldiers returning from the war in Vietnam, where heroin use and addiction was widespread. In 90 percent of cases, when GIs left the pressure cooker of the battle zone, they also shed their addictions—in vivo proof that drug addiction can be just a matter of where in life you are.

Of course, it took more than a plane trip back from Asia for these men to overcome drug addiction. Most soldiers experienced dramatically altered lives when they returned. They left the anxiety, fear and boredom of the war arena and settled back into their home environments. They returned to their families, formed new relationships, developed work skills.

Smoking is at the top of the charts in terms of difficulty of quitting. But the majority of ex-smokers quit without any aid––neither nicotine patches nor gum, Smokenders groups nor hypnotism. (Don’t take my word for it; at your next social gathering, ask how many people have quit smoking on their own.) In fact, as many cigarette smokers quit on their own, an even higher percentage of heroin and cocaine addicts and alcoholics quit without treatment. It is simply more difficult to keep these habits going through adulthood. It’s hard to go to Disney World with your family while you are shooting heroin. Addicts who quit on their own typically report that they did so in order to achieve normalcy.

Every year, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health interviews Americans about their drug and alcohol habits. Ages 18 to 25 constitute the peak period of drug and alcohol use. In 2002, the latest year for which data are available, 22 percent of Americans between ages 18 and 25 were abusing or were dependent on a substance, versus only 3 percent of those aged 55 to 59. These data show that most people overcome their substance abuse, even though most of them do not enter treatment.

How do we know that the majority aren’t seeking treatment? In 1992, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism conducted one of the largest surveys of substance use ever, sending Census Bureau workers to interview more than 42,000 Americans about their lifetime drug and alcohol use. Of the 4,500-plus respondents who had ever been dependent on alcohol, only 27 percent had gone to treatment of any kind, including Alcoholics Anonymous. In this group, one-third were still abusing alcohol.

Of those who never had any treatment, only about one-quarter were currently diagnosable as alcohol abusers. This study, known as the National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey, indicates first that treatment is not a cure-all, and second that it is not necessary. The vast majority of Americans who were alcohol dependent, about three-quarters, never underwent treatment. And fewer of them were abusing alcohol than were those who were treated.

This is not to say that treatment can’t be useful. But the most successful treatments are nonconfrontational approaches that allow self-propelled change. Psychologists at the University of New Mexico led by William Miller tabulated every controlled study of alcoholism treatment they could find. They concluded that the leading therapy was barely a therapy at all but a quick encounter between patient and health-care worker in an ordinary medical setting. The intervention is sometimes as brief as a doctor looking at the results of liver-function tests and telling a patient to cut down on his drinking. Many patients then decide to cut back—and do!

As brief interventions have evolved, they have become more structured. A physician may simply review the amount the patient drinks, or use a checklist to evaluate the extent of a drinking problem. The doctor then typically recommends and seeks agreement from the patient on a goal (usually reduced drinking rather than complete abstinence). More severe alcoholics would typically be referred out for specialized treatment. A range of options is discussed (such as attending AA, engaging in activities incompatible with drinking or using a self-help manual). A spouse or family member might be involved in the planning. The patient is then scheduled for a future visit, where progress can be checked. A case monitor might call every few weeks to see whether the person has any questions or problems.

The second most effective approach is motivational enhancement, also called motivational interviewing. This technique throws the decision to quit or reduce drinking—and to find the best methods for doing so—back on the individual. In this case, the therapist asks targeted questions that prompt the individual to reflect on his drinking in terms of his own values and goals. When patients resist, the therapist does not argue with the individual but explores the person’s ambivalence about change so as to allow him or her to draw his own conclusions: “You say that you like to be in control of your behavior, yet you feel when you drink you are often not in charge. Could you just clarify that for me?”

Miller’s team found that the list of most effective treatments for alcoholism included a few more surprises. Self-help manuals were highly successful. So was the community-reinforcement approach, which addresses the person’s capacity to deal with life, notably marital relationships, work issues (such as simply getting a job), leisure planning and social-group formation (a buddy might be provided, as in AA, as a resource to encourage sobriety). The focus is on developing life skills, such as resisting pressures to drink, coping with stress (at work and in relationships) and building communication skills.

These findings square with what we know about change in other areas of life: People change when they want it badly enough and when they feel strong enough to face the challenge, not when they’re humiliated or coerced. An approach that empowers and offers positive reinforcement is preferable to one that strips the individual of agency. These techniques are most likely to elicit real changes, however short of perfect and hard-won they may be.

Source:  https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/articles/200405/the-surprising-truth-about-addiction

Filed under: Addiction,Brain and Behaviour,Culture,Treatment and Addiction,UK :

by The Daily Telegraph, London, UK –

Sadiq Khan wants to decrim­in­al­ise the Class-B drug, but fam­il­ies and doc­tors warn that smoking it is ‘play­ing Rus­sian roul­ette with your brain’. By Gwyneth Rees

For retired char­ity dir­ector Terry Ham­mond, 78, the issue of can­nabis-induced psy­chosis has come to dom­in­ate his life. About 25 years ago, his teen­age son Steven, now 42, began smoking skunk – a highly potent strain of the drug – at friends’ houses, without his par­ents know­ing.

For retired char­ity dir­ector Terry Ham­mond, 78, the issue of can­nabis-induced psy­chosis has come to dom­in­ate his life. About 25 years ago, his teen­age son Steven, now 42, began smoking skunk – a highly potent strain of the drug – at friends’ houses, without his par­ents know­ing.

“He was like so many young boys,” recalls Ham­mond from his home in Leicester­shire. “He was binge­ing on it in secret and thought it would be fine.” But around six months later, in the autumn of 1999, Steven sud­denly became para­noid. “We were watch­ing the BBC news, and he turned to me and accused me of ringing them. He was con­vinced the presenters were talk­ing about him.”

The psy­chosis didn’t stop there. “He began to think ali­ens had taken over every­body,” adds Ham­mond. “Then he began mum­bling in an incom­pre­hens­ible lan­guage, shout­ing at the walls and lock­ing him­self in his room. He was a boy gripped by abso­lute fear and ter­ror, and his beau­ti­ful mind had just been des­troyed.”

The psy­chosis didn’t stop there. “He began to think ali­ens had taken over every­body,” adds Ham­mond. “Then he began mum­bling in an incom­pre­hens­ible lan­guage, shout­ing at the walls and lock­ing him­self in his room. He was a boy gripped by abso­lute fear and ter­ror, and his beau­ti­ful mind had just been des­troyed.”

At 21, and with no fam­ily his­tory of men­tal health prob­lems, Steven was dia­gnosed with para­noid schizo­phrenia – psy­chosis that con­tin­ues indef­in­itely. He spent three months in the depart­ment of psy­chi­atry at the Royal South Hants Hos­pital in Southamp­ton, where he was put on the anti­psychotic drug Olan­za­pine and given talk­ing ther­apy. But even now – two dec­ades on – Steven, who lives in a stu­dio flat in his par­ents’ garden, is still affected by his early drug use.

At 21, and with no fam­ily his­tory of men­tal health prob­lems, Steven was dia­gnosed with para­noid schizo­phrenia – psy­chosis that con­tin­ues indef­in­itely. He spent three months in the depart­ment of psy­chi­atry at the Royal South Hants Hos­pital in Southamp­ton, where he was put on the anti­psychotic drug Olan­za­pine and given talk­ing ther­apy. But even now – two dec­ades on – Steven, who lives in a stu­dio flat in his par­ents’ garden, is still affected by his early drug use.

At 21, and with no fam­ily his­tory of men­tal health prob­lems, Steven was dia­gnosed with para­noid schizo­phrenia – psy­chosis that con­tin­ues indef­in­itely. He spent three months in the depart­ment of psy­chi­atry at the Royal South Hants Hos­pital in Southamp­ton, where he was put on the anti­psychotic drug Olan­za­pine and given talk­ing ther­apy. But even now – two dec­ades on – Steven, who lives in a stu­dio flat in his par­ents’ garden, is still affected by his early drug use.

“He can­not work and struggles socially,” says Ham­mond, who has Steven’s per­mis­sion to share his story and has also writ­ten a book, Gone to Pot, to help oth­ers in sim­ilar cir­cum­stances. “He is still on anti­psychotic drugs but con­tin­ues to hear voices, although he now has the skills to ration­al­ise them.

“He can­not work and struggles socially,” says Ham­mond, who has Steven’s per­mis­sion to share his story and has also writ­ten a book, Gone to Pot, to help oth­ers in sim­ilar cir­cum­stances. “He is still on anti­psychotic drugs but con­tin­ues to hear voices, although he now has the skills to ration­al­ise them.

“It has com­pletely ruined his life, and as par­ents we have had to suf­fer the bereave­ment of los­ing our son. Fun­da­ment­ally, it has dam­aged his brain for good. Young people need to know smoking can­nabis is play­ing Rus­sian roul­ette with brain dam­age.”

It is a har­row­ing story. But the issue of how to tackle the grow­ing prob­lem of ever-more potent can­nabis on our streets divides those in power. Sir Sadiq Khan, Lon­don’s mayor, has backed a report by the Lon­don Drugs Com­mis­sion stat­ing that pos­ses­sion of small amounts of can­nabis should be decrim­in­al­ised. He said there was a “com­pel­ling, evid­ence­based case” for decrim­in­al­isa­tion.

It is a har­row­ing story. But the issue of how to tackle the grow­ing prob­lem of ever-more potent can­nabis on our streets divides those in power. Sir Sadiq Khan, Lon­don’s mayor, has backed a report by the Lon­don Drugs Com­mis­sion stat­ing that pos­ses­sion of small amounts of can­nabis should be decrim­in­al­ised. He said there was a “com­pel­ling, evid­ence­based case” for decrim­in­al­isa­tion.

But on July 7, Bri­tain’s lead­ing police chiefs rejec­ted this and urged their officers to crack down on the drug. Last month, David Sid­wick, the Con­ser­vat­ive police and crime com­mis­sioner for Dor­set, wrote a let­ter to the police min­is­ter Diana John­son – signed by 13 other police and crime com­mis­sion­ers – call­ing can­nabis a “chron­ic­ally dan­ger­ous drug” that is as harm­ful as cocaine and crack.

Evid­ence shows that can­nabisin­duced psy­chosis has sub­stan­tially increased in recent years. A 2019 study pub­lished in The Lan­cet by Prof Marta Di Forti shows that can­nabis is respons­ible for 30 per cent of first-time psy­chosis cases in south Lon­don (it is 50 per cent in Ams­ter­dam).

Evid­ence shows that can­nabisin­duced psy­chosis has sub­stan­tially increased in recent years. A 2019 study pub­lished in The Lan­cet by Prof Marta Di Forti shows that can­nabis is respons­ible for 30 per cent of first-time psy­chosis cases in south Lon­don (it is 50 per cent in Ams­ter­dam).

Fur­ther research, not yet pub­lished, by Dr Diego Quat­trone and Dr Robin Mur­ray, pro­fess­ors of psy­chi­at­ric research at King’s Col­lege Lon­don, reveals that can­nabis-induced psy­chosis in the

‘In Amer­ica, the THC con­tent is so strong, you can go psychotic in one night’

UK is three times more com­mon than in the 1960s. Their research sug­gests that 75 per cent of this increase is down to the use of skunk, which accounts for 94 per cent of can­nabis on the UK mar­ket.

“Viol­ence is also asso­ci­ated with psy­chosis, and of the psychotic people who go on to kill, 90 per cent are using either alco­hol or can­nabis,” says Mur­ray.

More experts are now link­ing can­nabis use to viol­ence, which they attrib­ute to a chem­ical com­pon­ent in the plant – tet­rahy­drocan­nabinol (THC) – which can trig­ger hal­lu­cin­a­tions and para­noid ideas in vul­ner­able indi­vidu­als. Wor­ry­ingly, THC levels in can­nabis have been rising sharply. In the 1960s, THC levels in “weed” were around 3 per cent. Today, most UK can­nabis has THC levels of 16 to 20 per cent. In Hol­land, the fig­ure is between 30 and 40 per cent, and in Cali­for­nia, where can­nabis is legal, levels can reach 80 per cent.

“It is not easy to get psy­chosis,” says Mur­ray. “Typ­ic­ally, someone may smoke skunk for five years before it kicks in. But in Amer­ica, the THC is so strong, you can go psychotic in one night. It will hit those who already have a his­tory of men­tal health prob­lems the worst. We are braced for an epi­demic of psy­chosis.”

Dr Niall Camp­bell, a con­sult­ant psy­chi­at­rist at the Roe­hamp­ton Pri­ory Clinic, believes looser can­nabis reg­u­la­tion com­bined with increased potency have led to more patients suf­fer­ing psy­chosis. “I don’t think this rise is that sur­pris­ing given how easy skunk is to buy online, and how ubi­quit­ous it has become,” he says.

“Psy­chosis often begins with young people smoking a few joints and feel­ing a bit para­noid. But if they don’t stop, over time they can reach a psychotic state which won’t go away, even if they stop smoking. Sadly, this psy­chosis may last a life­time and once people are told that they can get very depressed or sui­cidal.”

“Psy­chosis often begins with young people smoking a few joints and feel­ing a bit para­noid. But if they don’t stop, over time they can reach a psychotic state which won’t go away, even if they stop smoking. Sadly, this psy­chosis may last a life­time and once people are told that they can get very depressed or sui­cidal.”

Lin­sey Raf­ferty, 42, from Pais­ley near Glas­gow, is one of those to have exper­i­enced dam­age firsthand. She had three short psychotic epis­odes over the dec­ades she smoked, but in 2020, dur­ing the Covid lock­down, she suffered an extreme epis­ode. “I was hear­ing things and writ­ing all over the walls of my home,” she says. “I threw my phone away because I thought it had been tapped and was eat­ing out of bins. It all made total sense to me at the time, and I can under­stand why people go viol­ent.”

Lin­sey Raf­ferty, 42, from Pais­ley near Glas­gow, is one of those to have exper­i­enced dam­age firsthand. She had three short psychotic epis­odes over the dec­ades she smoked, but in 2020, dur­ing the Covid lock­down, she suffered an extreme epis­ode. “I was hear­ing things and writ­ing all over the walls of my home,” she says. “I threw my phone away because I thought it had been tapped and was eat­ing out of bins. It all made total sense to me at the time, and I can under­stand why people go viol­ent.”

Raf­ferty was sec­tioned and put on anti­psychot­ics. Five years on, she has stopped smoking.

“When I stopped smoking, the psy­chosis went away,” she says. “But still, the epis­ode was deep and long-last­ing, and the scars haven’t gone. I never real­ised it could make me so vul­ner­able. I used to think drugs should be leg­al­ised, but not any­more.”

Source: https://www.pressreader.com/uk/features/20250716/281548001918086?
Filed under: Brain and Behaviour,Cannabis/Marijuana,Drug use-various effects,Mental Health,UK,Youth :

by  James White – Jul 7, 2025

Transporting (widening) the effect of the ASSIST school-based smoking prevention intervention to the Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Young People in England Survey (2004-2021): A secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Aims: To conduct exploratory analyses into the transported effect of the ASSIST (A Stop Smoking in Schools Trial) school-based smoking prevention intervention on weekly smoking in young people between 2004 and 2021.

Design: Secondary analysis of a cluster randomized control trial (cRCT).

Setting: England and Wales.

Participants: ASSIST trial participants comprised 8756 students aged 12-13 years in 59 schools assigned using stratified block randomization to the control (29 schools, 4193 students) or intervention (30 schools, 4563 students) condition. The target population was represented by 12-13-year-old participants in the Smoking, Drinking and Drug Use Among Young People in England Survey (SDDU) in 2004 (n = 3958), 2006 (n = 3377), 2014 (n = 3145), 2016 (n = 4874) and 2021 (n = 3587), which are randomly sampled school-based surveys with student response rates varying between 85% and 93%.

Intervention and comparator: The ASSIST intervention involved 2 days of off-site training of influential students to encourage their peers not to smoke over a 10-week period. The control group continued with their usual education.

Measurements: The outcome was the proportion of students who self-reported weekly smoking 2 years post-intervention.

Findings: The prevalence of weekly smoking at the 2-year follow-up in the ASSIST trial in 2004 was 4.1%, 49.5% of students were girls, and 7.8% ethnic minorities. In the SDDU in 2004, the prevalence of weekly smoking was 3.6%, 47.6% students were girls and 14.4% ethnic minorities and in 2021 0.2% were weekly smokers, 48.6% girls and 27.8% ethnic minorities. The odds ratio of weekly smoking in the ASSIST trial in 2004 was 0.85 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) = 0.71-1.02]. The estimated odds ratio in the SDDU target population in 2004 was 0.90 (95% CI = 0.72-1.13), in 2014 was 0.89 (95% CI = 0.70-1.14), and by 2021 was 0.88 (95% CI = 0.60-1.28). The confidence interval ratio was used to estimate precision in the transported estimates in the target population and was 1.57 in 2004, 1.63 in 2014 and 2.13 in 2021, reflecting increasing uncertainty in the effect of ASSIST over time. Subgroup analyses showed effects were comparable when restricted to only English schools in the ASSIST trial.

Conclusions: These exploratory analyses indicate the effect of the ASSIST school-based smoking prevention intervention reported in the original trial may not have been replicated in the target population over the 17-year period of its licensing and roll out.

Keywords: generalizability; prevention; randomized controlled trial; real world evidence; smoking; transportability.

Filed under: Addiction,Alcohol,Cannabis/Marijuana,Drug use-various effects,Mental Health,Prevention and Intervention,Treatment and Addiction,UK,Youth :

By Joe Rossiter – The Mail on Sunday-  29 June 2025 

More than a quarter of police and crime commissioners have written to the policing minister calling for cannabis to be upgraded to a class A substance, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

In the stark letter to Dame Diana Johnson MP, seen exclusively by this newspaper, 14 police chiefs claim the effect of the drug in society ‘may be far worse’ than heroin.

They warn that ‘we cannot allow this to become the Britain of the future’. And they also hit out at the recent report by the London Commission – backed by Labour London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan – which suggested decriminalising small amounts of cannabis, which is currently a class B drug.

‘Heroin can kill quickly but the cumulative effect of cannabis in our society may be far worse,’ the letter states. 

It adds that class A status – which comes with potential life sentences for suppliers – was the way forward ‘rather than effective decriminalising’.

And renowned psychiatrist Professor Sir Robin Murray, of King’s College London, told The Mail on Sunday that the UK may now be ‘at the beginnings of an epidemic of cannabis-induced psychosis’ which could overwhelm NHS mental health services.

The commissioners also pointed to other countries where laws are laxer, warning that the US has seen ‘unofficial pharmacies’ selling cannabis and the powerful opiate fentanyl alongside one another, while Portugal has been forced to consider reversing drug decriminalisation after a 30-fold increase in psychosis.

They said cannabis’s effects were so devastating it had ‘more birth defects associated with it than thalidomide’ – the notorious morning sickness drug which caused deformities among thousands of babies in the 1950s and 1960s.

More than a quarter of police and crime commissioners have written to the policing minister calling for cannabis to be upgraded to a class A substance (file pic)

Marcus Monzo, 37, was last week found guilty of 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin’s murder while in a state of cannabis-induced psychosis Monzo attacked the teenager with a samurai sword in Hainault, east London, last May

Their warnings came after Marcus Monzo, 37, was last week found guilty of 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin’s murder after he attacked him with a samurai sword in Hainault, east London, while in a state of cannabis-induced psychosis.

David Sidwick, Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset, said cannabis legislation was ‘clearly not fit for purpose’ and likened it to ‘using a machete for brain surgery’. 

He added the public wanted to see ‘tougher measures’ for cannabis possession because it was a gateway to harder drugs.

His Devon and Cornwall counterpart Alison Hernandez said: ‘The fact that we’ve been so blase about cannabis in society means that people think it’s legal and normal, and it’s not. 

‘We’ve got to show them that it’s not, and the way you do that is to be quite fierce in your enforcement arrangements.’

Latest figures show three in four people caught with cannabis avoid appearing in court, while 87 per cent of children and young people in alcohol and drug treatment cited cannabis dependency, compared to 39 per cent for alcohol.

In the stark letter to Dame Diana Johnson MP, 14 police chiefs claim the effect of the drug in society ‘may be far worse’ than heroin

David Sidwick, Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset, said he wanted to see ‘tougher measures’ for cannabis possession because it was a gateway to harder drugs (file pic)

Stuart Reece, an Australian clinician and cannabis researcher quoted in the letter said more than 90 per cent of hard drug addicts he encountered had started with cannabis.

He said pro-cannabis campaigners had the view it was ‘my right to use drugs and destroy my body and you will pay for it through the NHS’.

Dr Karen Randall, a physician in the US state of Colorado where recreational cannabis was legalised in 2012, said healthcare costs linked to the drug are ‘exorbitant’.

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘We work with partners across health, policing and wider public services to drive down drug use, ensure more people receive timely treatment and support, and make our streets and communities safer.’

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14857305/Cannabis-worse-society-heroin-police-tsars-upgrade-class.html

Filed under: Cannabis/Marijuana,Crime/Violence/Prison,Culture,Drug use-various effects,Opioids,Prevention and Intervention,Strategy and Policy,UK,Youth :

by Sarjna Rai – New Delhi –  Jun 26 2025 

Observed on June 26, the day raises global awareness about drug abuse and illicit trafficking. The 2025 theme, “Break the Cycle. #StopOrganisedCrime,” calls for long-term action and reform

World Drug Day 2025 theme, “Break the Cycle. #StopOrganizedCrime,” urges global action against drug abuse and illicit trafficking.(Photo: Adobestock)
Every year on 26 June, the world observes the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking—also known as “World Drug Day”—to raise awareness of the global drug crisis and promote multilateral action toward prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation.

History & Theme

On December 7, 1987, the General Assembly of the United Nations set aside the 26th day of June of each year as International Day Against Illicit Trafficking of Drugs and other Substances of Abuse to be observed worldwide. 
The theme for 2025, Break the Cycle. #StopOrganisedCrime, emphasises the significance of focused long-term action to disrupt the link between drug trafficking and organised crime, both of which fuel violence, corruption, and instability across regions. 

Source:  https://www.business-standard.com/health/international-day-against-drug-abuse-2025-theme-history-significance-125062600553_1.html

Filed under: Australia,Canada,Europe,New Zealand,Others (International News),Strategy and Policy,UK,USA :

by Ingrid Fadelli, Phys.org – edited by Gaby Clark, reviewed by Robert Egan – The GIST – June 26, 2025

Omicron Limited’ 36 Hope Street, Douglas, IM1 1AR, Isle of Man

Cannabis, also known as marijuana or weed, is widely consumed worldwide, whether for recreational or medicinal purposes. Over the past decades, the use of cannabis has been fully legalized or decriminalized in various countries worldwide, including Canada, many U.S. states, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Portugal.

While some studies have found that cannabis and especially cannabidiol (i.e., the non-intoxicating compound contained in it) can have medicinal effects, others have linked the abuse of its psychoactive variations (i.e., containing tetrahydrocannabinol or THC) with a greater risk of being diagnosed with psychiatric disorders.

As many individuals worldwide use cannabis on a regular basis, understanding the mechanisms that could link its consumption with psychiatric disorders could be highly valuable, as it might help to identify factors that increase the risk of developing specific disorders.

In a paper published in Nature Mental Health, researchers at Yale University School of Medicine, the Veterans Affairs Connecticut Healthcare System and Washington University School of Medicine shed new light on the genetic associations between cannabis use, cannabis use disorder (CanUD) and various psychiatric disorders.

CanUD is a mental health disorder characterized by a continued use of cannabis, difficulties experienced when trying to cut down its consumption or cease using it altogether, and an interference of the substance with daily activities, relationships or responsibilities.

“Increasing prevalence of cannabis use and CanUD may increase risk for psychiatric disorders,” wrote Marco Galimberti, Cassie Overstreet and their colleagues in their paper. “We evaluated the relationships between these cannabis traits and a range of psychiatric traits, running global and local genetic correlations, genomic structural equation modeling, colocalization analyses and Mendelian randomization analyses for causality.”

Genomic-SEM. Genomic-SEM analyses of cannabis traits (CanUD and cannabis use) and
psychiatric disorders for a three-factor model. Credit: Galimberti et al.
(Nature Mental Health, 2025).

The researchers analyzed genetic, psychiatric and psychological data collected as part of earlier studies, using various statistical techniques. First, they tried to detect genetic patterns that linked cannabis use with specific psychiatric and personality traits, using a technique known as genomic structural equation modeling.

Subsequently, they ran colocalization analyses, a statistical analysis that allowed them to uncover instances where two traits shared the same underlying genetic variant. Finally, they used a technique called Mendelian randomization to uncover causal relationships between traits, or in other words, if a sporadic or problematic use of cannabis caused specific disorders via genetic factors and vice versa.

“Global genetic analyses identified significantly different correlations between CanUD and cannabis use,” wrote Galimberti, Overstreet and their colleagues. “A variant in strong linkage disequilibrium to one regulating CHRNA2 was significantly shared by CanUD and schizophrenia in colocalization analysis and included in a significant region in local genetic correlations between these traits. A three-factor model from genomic structural equation modeling showed that CanUD and cannabis use partially map together onto a factor with major depressive disorder and ADHD.”

Interestingly, the researchers found that although cannabis use and CanUD are in some ways related, they had different genetic relationships with psychiatric disorders. In fact, they found that variations in the regulation of the gene CHRNA2, which has also been linked to nicotine consumption and dopamine signaling, were common to both schizophrenia and CanUD, but not to casual or general cannabis use.

“In terms of causality, CanUD showed bidirectional causal relationships with most tested psychiatric disorders, differently from cannabis use,” wrote Galimberti, Overstreet and their colleagues. “Increasing use of cannabis can increase rates of psychiatric disorders over time, especially in individuals who progress from cannabis use to CanUD.”

Overall, the findings of this recent study suggest that there is a bi-directional genetic relationship between the abuse of cannabis, specifically CanUD, and various psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia, ADHD, depression, and bipolar disorder. In other words, it appears that CanUD could increase the risk of developing mental health disorders, and being diagnosed with some psychiatric disorders could also prompt abuse of cannabis.

This recent work could potentially inform the development of public health interventions aimed at monitoring or limiting people’s consumption of cannabis early, to reduce the risk that they will later develop psychiatric disorders. In addition, the analyses could inspire other research groups to delve deeper into the genetic associations they uncovered, potentially by analyzing a wider pool of genetic, psychological and medical data.

Written for you by our author Ingrid Fadelli, edited by Gaby Clark , and fact-checked and reviewed by Robert Egan —this article is the result of careful human work. We rely on readers like you to keep independent science journalism alive. If this reporting matters to you, please consider a donation (especially monthly). You’ll get an ad-free account as a thank-you.

More information: Marco Galimberti et al, The genetic relationship between cannabis use disorder, cannabis use and psychiatric disorders, Nature Mental Health (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44220-025-00440-4.

Journal information: Nature Mental Health

Source: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2025-06-explores-genetic-link-cannabis-psychiatric.html

Filed under: Brain and Behaviour,Cannabis/Marijuana,Drug use-various effects,Health,Marijuana and Medicine,Mental Health,Prevention and Intervention,Treatment and Addiction,UK,Uncategorized :

Opening Remark by NDPA:

“Although Harm Reduction is too often abused as a vehicle for liberalising or legalising drugs( tactically ignoring the fact that the strongest form of harm reduction is to stop using) Peter Kykant’s selfless and commendable work was an example of the positive side of harm reduction – which could work alongside prevention rather than at odds with it”

NDPA – 22 – 06 – 2025

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by Libby Brooks The Guardian – Fri 20 Jun 2025

Peter Krykant by the River Carron near Falkirk in March 2020.

His decision to set up a mobile drug consumption facility in Glasgow propelled Scotland’s drug deaths crisis up the political agenda. 

Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Drugs policy campaigner whose commitment to harm reduction led him to set up an overdose prevention service

The drugs policy campaigner Peter Krykant, who has died suddenly aged 48, advanced the cause of the harm reduction movement through a transformative act of civil disobedience.

Fitting out a van as a mobile safer drug consumption space and making it available to Glasgow’s most vulnerable homeless addicts broke the law. And it also – eventually – broke the stalemate around UK drugs policy, propelled Scotland’s drug deaths crisis further up the political agenda and, most importantly, saved lives.

Krykant’s law-breaking plan coalesced in February 2020 after he attended what he saw as another talking shop – a Scottish government conference focused on drug deaths, which took place 24 hours before a UK government summit on the same subject, at the same Glasgow venue. It seemed to him a ludicrous show of escalating tensions between the two administrations.

“The conferences were the final straw, and the fact that [a drug consumption room pilot] is being used as a political football,” he told the Guardian a week later. “As a person who went through my own trauma – drug use and street homelessness issues many years ago – I cannot stand back.”

Within days of announcing his plan to purchase a vehicle and customise it as a mobile safer-injecting suite, Krykant had raised more than £2,000. He was immediately sacked from his job as an HIV outreach worker at the charity Waverley Care.

Undeterred by the looming global Covid pandemic, Krykant recognised that, as services contracted, the homeless drug users who congregated around Trongate in Glasgow were even more in need. So he struck out in the midst of lockdown, first in a minibus nicknamed “the Tank” and later in a converted ambulance, providing clean water, needles and swabs, as well as supplies of naloxone, the potentially life-saving drug that reverses the effects of opioid overdose. Rules included using your own drugs, and agreeing to an overdose intervention if needed.

Writing in the Guardian, Krykant later explained: “Overdose prevention services are an internationally recognised way of reducing drug-related harms. It benefits everyone by supporting the most vulnerable and saving taxpayers’ money on ambulance callouts, hospital admissions and council clean-up teams.”

The local police largely tolerated his activity, although he was charged in October 2020 for obstructing officers attempting to search his van – the charges were later dropped. He continued operating until May 2021. More than 1,000 injections were supervised, and nine overdoses reversed.

“It was the trust people had in Peter, the cup of tea and the Mars bar, that really helped them and is hard to quantify,” said the MSP Paul Sweeney, who became a close friend when the pair volunteered together at the van. “He proved all the naysayers and the procrastinators wrong. He never said it was a silver bullet but Peter knew firsthand the particular risks for people who inject on the street and saw that this intervention could directly save lives.”

Krykant was always insistent that addiction should be understood in the wider context of poverty and inequality, a message he took around the doorsteps of his local Holyrood constituency of Falkirk East when he stood for the Scottish parliament elections in May 2021.

A Guardian film, which followed his campaign, captures his younger son, aglow with pride, explaining to the producers: “I’ve got three reasons you should vote for my dad: because he’s honest, reliable and he listens to people’s suggestions.”

But the responsibility he evidently carried for every individual he helped, the memories they stirred of his own trauma as well as escalating public scrutiny, took their toll and Krykant relapsed.

He had talked openly about darker currents in his childhood in the village of Maddiston, near Falkirk; trauma and sexual abuse that would lead him to start taking drugs when he was 11. He left school with no formal qualifications, and by his late teens he was sleeping rough and injecting heroin.

But eventually he found support to live drug-free, and worked successfully in sales for over a decade, first in Brighton, and later returning north of the border, where he subsequently trained as an addiction support worker. During this time he married and started a family, taking market research work to fit around caring for his two young sons.

Krykant had continued his advocacy work in recent years, passing the van on to the Transform Drug Policy Foundation and embarking on a tour across the UK. Lately he worked at the harm reduction charity Cranstoun, where he developed an overdose response app called BuddyUp and represented the organisation at events around the world.

When the UK’s first legal drug consumption room, the Thistle, opened its doors in Glasgow this January, there were many who drew a direct line from his minibus to its airy vestibule. Others felt his contribution had been sidelined to make way for more mainstream voices, or that his vulnerabilities had been exploited by those who desired the frisson of his lived experience for their campaigns.

This winter, say friends, Krykant found himself at his lowest ebb. His marriage had collapsed, he had lost his job and he was struggling to support himself, worrying about the impact this had on his sons.

Martin Powell, who drove the van on its UK tour, said: “He was the catalyst and without him we might still be waiting. Without question there are people alive today who would not be without Peter Krykant. It’s an absolute tragedy that he isn’t one of them.”

Krykant is survived by his sons.

 Peter Krykant, campaigner, born 13 November 1976; died 9 June 2025

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jun/20/peter-krykant-obituary

Filed under: Addiction,Drug use-various effects,Prevalence,Prevention and Intervention,UK :

by Albert Tait – Telegraph of London – 04 June 2025

Marcus Arduini Monzo is also charged with assaulting four others in Hainault attack in April last year

A man accused of murdering a 14-year-old schoolboy with a Japanese sword experienced psychotic episodes after taking cannabis, a court has heard.

Marcus Arduini Monzo, 37, believed “he was in a battle against evil forces” when he allegedly stabbed Daniel Anjorin as he walked to school in Hainault, north-east London, on April 30 last year.

He is said to have “moved quickly like a predator” behind Daniel before inflicting a “devastating and unsurvivable chopping injury” to his face and neck.

The Spanish-Brazilian national, from Newham, east London, is also accused of attacking four others, including two police officers, during a 20-minute rampage.

He has denied eight of the 10 charges against him, including murder.

A trial at the Old Bailey heard on Wednesday that Mr Monzo’s mental state had been “materially altered” by cannabis use and, at the time of the alleged attack, he had “developed a cannabis-induced fully fledged psychotic episode characterised by reality distortion symptoms”.

Tom Little KC, prosecuting, said Mr Monzo was “informed by his delusional beliefs that he and his family were in mortal danger, and that he was engaged in a battle against evil forces at a time of revelation or Armageddon”.

He said cannabis was identified in Mr Monzo’s urine and blood samples after the incident and a “large amount” of cannabis was also found in a search of his house, along with a “skinned and deboned cat”.

Mr Little, quoting forensic psychiatrist Prof Nigel Blackwood, who will later be called by the prosecution, said: “In Prof Blackwood’s opinion, cannabis misuse appears to have been the principal driver of his mental state deterioration at this time.

“The violence would not, in Prof Blackwood’s opinion, have happened in the absence of such voluntary substance misuse.”

Mr Monzo appeared in the dock wearing a bright green jumper with short, cropped hair and stubble. He looked furtively around the court at times and spoke often to security guards sitting on either side of him. Daniel’s family was also in the court.

Mr Little said Mr Monzo had left his home just before 6.30am in his van, wearing a yellow Quiksilver hoodie, black trousers, and black shoes.

He said the attack started at about 6.51am when he drove his van into Donato Iwule, a pedestrian in Laing Close, causing him to be “catapulted some distance into a garden”.

Video footage of the incident was played to the jury, in which Mr Iwule, who had been walking to a Co-op store where he worked, can be heard screaming in pain.

Mr Monzo allegedly then left the vehicle and approached Mr Iwule with a samurai sword.

Mr Little said: “Donato Iwule shouted at him ‘I don’t know you’ and the defendant said ‘I don’t care, I will kill you’.

“That comment from the defendant tells you, you may think, everything you need to know about his intention that morning.”

Mr Monzo is alleged to have swung his sword at Mr Iwule’s neck and torso, but he was able to roll away and escape over a fence.

“If he had not managed to escape, it seems inevitable that he too would have been killed,” said Mr Little.

Mr Monzo is then said to have driven further down Laing Close before exiting the vehicle.

At this time, the court heard that Daniel had left his home and was walking to school wearing sports clothes, his backpack, and headphones.

Mr Little said: “The defendant had obviously seen him and the defendant then moved quickly like a predator behind Daniel Anjorin.

“He lifted the sword above his head and then swung it downwards towards Daniel’s head and neck area.

“Daniel instantly fell to the ground. The defendant then leant over him and used the sword again to injure Daniel.”

He added: “The force used was extreme. It involved a devastating and unsurvivable chopping injury to the left-hand side of Daniel’s face and neck”.

Mr Monzo is then said to have taken off Daniel’s backpack, dragging the schoolboy’s body along the road in the process.

The court heard that emergency services had been called to the scene at this time.

Mr Monzo is said to have then attacked Pc Yasmin Margaret Mechem-Whitfield, who pursued him down a series of alleyways behind residential properties while he was still armed.

He is then alleged to have entered a nearby house where he attacked a couple in their bedroom.

Mr Little said the couple’s lives had been spared only because “their four-year-old child woke up and started crying”.

He said there were many police officers in the area at that time, and that Mr Monzo then became “surrounded in a garage area nearby to the other attacks”, where he attacked another police officer.

Mr Monzo was finally disarmed and detained after he climbed onto the roof of the garage, Mr Little said.

Asked about the attack in a police interview, Mr Monzo said his personality switched and that “something happened, like a game happening”, and it was like “the movie Hunger Games”.

Mr Little said: “He said that one of his personalities is a professional assassin.”

In court last month, Mr Monzo denied eight of the 10 charges against him but admitted two counts of having an offensive weapon – a katana sword and a tanto katana sword.

He also pleaded not guilty to the attempted murders of Mr Iwule, Sindy Arias, Henry De Los Rios Polania and Pc Mechem-Whitfield as well as wounding Insp Moloy Campbell with intent.

Mr Monzo denied aggravated burglary and possession of a bladed article relating to a kitchen knife.

The trial continues.

 

Source:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/c13e61a0c544cb64

Filed under: Addiction,Cannabis/Marijuana,Crime/Violence/Prison,Drug use-various effects,Marijuana and Medicine,UK,Youth :

by Charles Hymas Home Affairs Editor. Ollie Corfe. Ben Butcher Data Editor – The Telegraph of London – 29 May 2025

Possession of hard drugs such as cocaine and heroin treated as a health issue rather than a criminal matter by UK forces

It represents a six-fold increase in drug users escaping prosecution since 2016, when the proportion was only 7.5 per cent.

In some forces, more than 80 per cent caught with cocaine, heroin or other class A drugs escaped any criminal punishment.

They were instead handed community resolutions, which do not result in a criminal record and only require an offender to accept “responsibility” for their crime, or were let off “in the public interest”.

Only a third of class A drug possession offences resulted in a charge.

The data reflects a shift by police to treat drug possession of any type as a health issue rather than criminal one and comes days after Sir Sadiq Khan, the Labour Mayor of London, called for possession of small amounts of natural cannabis to be decriminalised.

But critics have warned police against “decriminalising drugs via the back door by ignoring tens of thousands of offences”.

At least a quarter of the 43 police forces in England and Wales have adopted “diversion” schemes where users caught with small amounts of drugs like cannabis are “diverted” to treatment or education programmes rather than prosecuted, particularly for first-time offences.

Nearly three-quarters (72.1 per cent) of those caught in possession of cannabis were let off without any criminal sanctions.

Thames Valley, West Midlands and Durham are among the dozen forces to have adopted diversion schemes, which could be rolled out nationally if successful.

The Treasury and Cabinet Office have put £1.9 million into evaluating the approach in partnership with five universities, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing, the standards body for forces in England and Wales.

The College said the aim of the diversion scheme was to “reduce re-offending and wider harms by approaching substance use as a health issue rather than a criminal justice issue”.

The research will compare re-offending rates, hospital and treatment admissions with the aim of establishing “whether and how drug diversion works, for whom, when and why”.

‘Devastated by soft policy’

But Chris Philp, the Tory shadow home secretary, warned the move amounted to decriminalisation by stealth.

“Parliament has rightly legislated that certain drugs are illegal because they cause serious harm to health, lead to antisocial behaviour and fuel acquisitive crime like theft, burglary and shoplifting as addicts steal to fund buying drugs,” he said.

“Police should not be decriminalising drugs via the back door by ignoring tens of thousands of offences. People who break the law should be prosecuted, and a magistrate or judge can decide what to do.

“Options a magistrate has available include fines, community service and addiction treatment requirements as well as prison.

“We have seen many US and Canadian cities devastated by soft drugs policies. These have allowed ghettos to develop where zombified addicts loiter unpunished and law abiding members of the public fear to go. We can’t allow the UK to go the same way through weak policing.

“We need a zero tolerance approach to crime, including a zero tolerance approach to drug taking.”

But the College of Policing defended its approach and pointed to research, based on 16 different studies, that showed drug diversion had resulted in a “small but significant” reduction in drug use, particularly among young people.

The Telegraph analysis showed that Warwickshire had the lowest proportion of offenders caught with class A drugs who were let off, at just 9.2 per cent, while Dyfed Powys had the highest at 88.6 per cent.

Nerys Thomas, Director of Research at the College of Policing, said:“We are focussed on cutting crime and keeping the public safe. Class A drugs are the most harmful category and being found in possession of them is a criminal offence.

“The government has provided funding to understand what initiatives could be used to reduce offending and protect the public. This includes a piece of work between the College,  the University of Sheffield and 11 other agencies across the criminal justice system to interview hundreds of officers and drug offenders and analyse police data to understand if diversion schemes can reduce crime.

“The results of this study will be made publicly available next year.”

Source:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/6e423b9614e616f8

 

Filed under: Crime/Violence/Prison,Drug use-various effects,Legal Sector,Prevention and Intervention,UK :

by Charles Hymas – Home Affairs Editor – The Telegraph of London – 28 May 2025

Police Commissioner says drug should be Class A over long-term health impacts

Cannabis should be upgraded to a class A drug because of the harm it can cause, a policing chief has said.

As Sir Sadiq Khan calls for possession of the drug to be decriminalised, David Sidwick, Dorset’s police and crime commissioner, has urged that cannabis, currently a Class B drug, should be put on a par with crack cocaine and heroin.

Such a move would see the maximum penalties for possession increase from five to seven years in jail, while the maximum penalty for supplying cannabis would rise from 14 years in prison to life.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, also opposed Sir Sadiq’s call for cannabis to be decriminalised. He pointed out that drugs were “at the centre of a lot of crime” and said drug use was one of the main drivers of antisocial behaviour.

Sir Sadiq, the Mayor of London, has proposed that the possession of small amounts of natural cannabis should no longer be a criminal offence. Dealing in or producing the drug would remain illegal.

Mr Sidwick sets out his demand in a foreword to a new book by Albert Reece and Gary Hulse, two Australian professors of medicine and psychiatry, who have linked cannabis to mental ill-health, autism and cancer.

He said there was growing evidence linking psychosis, cancer and birth defects to cannabis use, particularly with the development of more potent strains.

Mr Sidwick warned it was also a “gateway” drug used by crime gangs to lure in users. They then entice them on to addictive class A drugs such as crack that not only provide more profit per unit but also give the gangs greater power to leverage them into criminal activity.

“Cannabis needs to be taken seriously on a national scale because of the danger it presents, and there needs to be money put into prevention and education to ensure people are aware of these dangers,” he said.

“Currently, Class A drugs take precedence when it comes to enforcement and treatment, but it is my view that there is no point focusing on the destination of addiction if we don’t stop people getting on the first two or three carriages of the train in the first place.

“Only through reclassifying cannabis will it be treated with the severity it deserves.”

The London Drugs Commission, set up by Sir Sadiq, ruled out full legalisation of cannabis in its report because it said any benefits from tax revenues and reduced police workload were outweighed by the potential longer-term health impacts on users.

Instead, it proposed that natural cannabis would be removed from the Misuse of Drugs Act and brought under the Psychoactive Substances Act.

This would mean possession of small amounts of cannabis for personal use would no longer be a criminal offence, but importing, manufacturing and distributing the drug would remain a criminal act.

The Home Office has ruled out any reclassification of cannabis.

Mr Sidwick’s proposals have been backed by Janie Hamilton, a Dorset mother who has campaigned for upgrading cannabis to class A.

Her son James died when he was 36 after refusing treatment for testicular cancer. It followed years of battling mental illness, which his family believes was triggered by his addiction to cannabis, which he started using at 14.

Ms Hamilton said: “My beloved son James was a fun-loving, mischievous, clever, tender-hearted boy who wanted to fit in with his peers and be part of the ‘in’ crowd. This was to be his undoing.

“At the age of 14, unbeknown to us, living at a boarding school where his father taught, he started smoking cannabis. He became arrogant, rude, secretive, rebellious and unpredictable. I remember thinking how I loved him, but that I didn’t like him.

“He dropped out of university after one term and took job after job, worrying us with his bizarre behaviour. He shaved his hair, his eyebrows, cut his eyelashes and became aggressive. He would stay in his room all day and come out at midnight to shower and cook.

“One day, he came home from his job on a building site, turning in circles in the garden and all that night. He told me he had spent all his wages on cannabis. I called the doctor the next day and James was sectioned within an hour, diagnosed with schizophrenia.”

She said there had been a 16-year cycle of medical treatment, relapses and trouble with the police before her son died.

“Cannabis is everyone’s problem. It destroys lives and families. Let no one say that cannabis is harmless – cracking down on this destructive drug is one of the greatest and most urgent needs facing us all,” she said.

Source:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/32da88934bd58598

Filed under: Cannabis/Marijuana,Culture,Drug use-various effects,Political Sector,Prevention and Intervention,UK :

by Michael Deacon       Columnist & Assistant Editor  – The Telegraph of London (UK)        28 May 2025

The Mayor of London has called for law reform because he believes that stop-and-search powers disproportionately affect black communities

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan walking through cannabis plants at a licensed factory in Los Angeles Credit: PA

Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, says he believes the police should stop arresting people for possessing cannabis. Frankly, I’m shocked.

Mainly because I didn’t know the police were arresting people for it in the first place.

It certainly doesn’t smell like it. These days, practically all our towns and cities – including the one run by Mr Khan – stink of weed. Which suggests that a very large number of people now feel able to smoke it with absolutely no fear of getting arrested. Whether this is because the police can no longer be bothered to enforce the law, or they’re too busy carrying out dawn raids on the bookshelves of Spectator readers, I don’t know. But either way, it hardly seems worth clamouring for decriminalisation, when in effect we’ve already got it.

Even so, Mr Khan has backed calls to change the law. And these calls seem to have something to do with race.

According to an independent commission, set up by the Mayor, the policing of cannabis use is shamefully unjust to people who aren’t white. In a new report, the commission says: “The law with respect to cannabis possession is experienced disproportionately by those from ethnic minority (excluding white minority) groups, particularly London’s black communities. While more likely to be stopped and searched by police on suspicion of cannabis possession than white people, black Londoners are no more likely to be found carrying the drug.”

If so, that plainly is unfair. But it’s not an argument for decriminalisation. It’s an argument for stopping and searching greater numbers of white people. Which, of course, would be completely fine. Go right ahead. Even if today’s over-anxious police chiefs would probably misunderstand such an edict, and tell their officers: “When investigating crime, we must never treat any community with more suspicion than any other. Which is why, this afternoon, I’m sending you all to a WI jumble sale, to search little old ladies for machetes.”

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None the less, the report maintains that the way forward is to decriminalise possession. At the same time, though, it says producing and dealing should remain illegal. Which is odd, because it implies that the blame for the trade lies solely with the people doing the latter. But if it weren’t for all the people wishing to possess the drug, no one would produce or deal it. Ultimately, therefore, it’s their fault.

Anyway, if possession does get decriminalised, you can bet there’ll soon be calls to loosen the law further. Which would be even more unwise. Just look at what’s happened to New York, which in 2021 decided not only that people should be allowed to smoke cannabis, but that shops should be granted licences to sell it. Has this put criminals out of business, while raising lots of lovely extra cash through tax?

Funnily enough, no. Illegal vendors simply undercut the legal ones. Kathy Hochul, who is New York’s governor (and a Democrat, rather than some stereotypically stuffy Republican), has called it “a disaster”. Even The New Yorker, proud tribune of liberal America, ran a dismayed article asking: “What happened?”

All the same, the Mayor of London insists that his commission’s report makes a “compelling” case. I don’t think it does. And I especially think we could have done without the irrelevant wittering about ethnicity. We’ve got quite enough “community tensions” in this country as it is. So we certainly don’t want people thinking: “What? They want to allow possession of a dangerous drug, just because they think it will improve ‘police relations’ with ‘black communities’? That sounds awfully like special treatment. Mind you, I suppose they need to free up the cells, to make more space for middle-aged women who post problematic opinions on the internet.”

This, in short, is why Mr Khan’s plan for cannabis isn’t just naive. It’s dangerously divisive.

I note, incidentally, that the Mayor has just proposed a 20 per cent rise in London’s congestion charge. But don’t worry. I’ve prepared a report arguing that the charge is unjust, because it’s experienced disproportionately by the motoring community, while the cycling and walking communities get off scot-free. So the whole thing should be scrapped.

 

Source: (Via Drugwatch International): www.telegraph.co.uk

Filed under: Cannabis/Marijuana,Culture,Drug use-various effects,Health,Marijuana and Medicine,UK :

by Dr Max Pemberton (The Mind Doctor) in the Daily Mail on 17 March 2025

Source: Daily Mail – 17 March 2025

Filed under: Addiction,Brain and Behaviour,Cocaine,Culture,Drug use-various effects,Drugs and Accidents,Parents,Prevention and Intervention,UK,Youth :

The ex-England football manager reflects on his personal journey, belief and resilience …

During Sir Gareth’s football career as a defender and midfielder, he played for Crystal Palace, Aston Villa and Middlesbrough and was in the England squad between 1995 and 2004. He took over as manager in 2016 and led the team to the 2018 World Cup semi-final, 2022 World Cup quarter-final and Euro finals in 2020 and 2024.

He stepped down as Manager in July 2024,  two days after England lost to Spain in the Euros.

Sir Gareth has been credited with revitalising the England team and was knighted in the King’s New Year Honours in December.

He is the latest in a line of academics, business leaders and other notable figures to deliver the Richard Dimbleby Lecture, which has been held most years since 1972 in memory of the broadcaster.

Previous speakers have included King Charles III, when he was the Prince of Wales, tech entrepreneur and philanthropist Bill Gates, and Christine Lagarde, then the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

‘Too many young men are isolated’

Sir Gareth’s talk focused on the importance of belief and resilience for young men, and he cited three things needed to build these: identity, connection and culture.

He referred to a report, released earlier this month by the Centre for Social Justice, which said boys and young men were “in crisis”, with a “staggering” increase in those not in education, employment or training.

“Too many young men are isolated,” Sir Gareth said in his talk. “Too many feel uncomfortable opening up to friends or family. Many don’t have mentors – teachers, coaches, bosses – who understand how best to push them to grow. And so, when they struggle, young men inevitably try to handle whatever situation they find themselves in, alone.”

“Young men end up withdrawing, reluctant to talk or express their emotions,” he added. “They spend more time online searching for direction and are falling into unhealthy alternatives like gaming, gambling and pornography.”

Referencing his own experiences, he said the UK needed to do more to encourage young people – especially young men – to make the right choices in life and to not fear failure.

Rather than turning to teachers, sports coaches or youth group leaders, Sir Gareth said he feared many young men were searching for direction online. There, he said they were finding a new kind of role model, one that too often did not have their best interests at heart.

“These are callous, manipulative and toxic influencers, whose sole drive is for their own gain,” he said.

“They willingly trick young men into believing that success is measured by money or dominance, that strength means never showing emotion, and that the world, including women, is against them.”

He also said young men don’t get enough opportunities to fail and learn from their mistakes.

“In my opinion, if we make life too easy for young boys now, we will inevitably make life harder when they grow up to be young men,” he said. “Too many young men are at risk of fearing failure, precisely because they’ve had so few opportunities to experience and overcome it. They fail to try, rather than try and fail.”

The ex-footballer also reflected on what his career has taught him about belief and resilience.

“If I’ve learned anything from my life in football, it’s that success is much more than the final score,” he said. “True success is how you respond in the hardest moments.”

 

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqjpzg0qwno

 

Filed under: Gambling,Prevention and Intervention,UK,Youth :
by Dr Max Pemberton (The Mind Doctor) in the Daily Mail on 17 March 2025.
Source: Dr Max Pemberton (The Mind Doctor) in the Daily Mail on 17 March 2025.  
Filed under: Drug use-various effects,Prevalence,Prevention and Intervention,UK :

This article, reporting on research by Profs Stuart Reece and Gary Hulse, is seen as seminal contribution to the current concerns about the effects of cannabis use on autism. Accordingly, NDPA has written to JF Kennedy Jnr as below:

Date: 20th April 2025

Importance: High

To Robert F. Kennedy Jnr, Secretary of Health and Human Services, Government of the United States

Sir,

I understand that you and President Trump are becoming extremely concerned about the US autism epidemic.

Please see the attached paper above suggesting that Maternal Cannabis use and CUD may be a factor.

This paper attached is independently supportive of the other Australian work by Professors Reese and Hulse.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8bDLzEInWA&t=935s

The Reese/Hulse work indicates strong concordance between Cannabis legalization States and an those same States having an increase in ASD.

Yours sincerely,

David Raynes, Senior Advisor, NDPA (UK)

UK NATIONAL DRUG PREVENTION ALLIANCE

+44 7967708568

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<NDPA>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Psychiatry Research

Volume 337, July 2024, 115971
Exposure to maternal cannabis use disorder and risk of autism spectrum disorder in offspring: A data linkage cohort study.

by Abay Woday Tadesse et al.    School of Population Health, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley, WA, 6102, Australia

Highlights

  • •     This study involved over 222,000 mother-offspring pairs.
  • •     Maternal prenatal CUD is linked to higher ASD risk, with a stronger risk in male offspring.
  • •     More research is needed to understand these gender-specific effects.

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the association between pre-pregnancy, prenatal and perinatal exposures to cannabis use disorder (CUD) and the risk of autism spectrum disoder (ASD) in offspring. Data were drawn from the New South Wales (NSW) Perinatal Data Collection (PDC), population-based, linked administrative health data encompassing all-live birth cohort from January 2003 to December 2005. This study involved 222 534 mother-offspring pairs. . The exposure variable (CUD) and the outcome of interest (ASD) were identified using the 10th international disease classification criteria, Australian Modified (ICD-10-AM). We found a three-fold increased risk of ASD in the offspring of mothers with maternal CUD compared to non-exposed offspring. In our sensitivity analyses, male offspring have a higher risk of ASD associated with maternal CUD than their female counterparts. In conclusion, exposure to maternal CUD is linked to a higher risk of ASD in offspring, with a stronger risk in male offspring. Further research is needed to understand these gender-specific effects and the relationship between maternal CUD and ASD risk in children.

To access the full document:

Click on the ‘Source’ link below.

Source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165178124002567

Filed under: Australia,Cannabis/Marijuana,Drug use-various effects,Drug use-various effects on foetus, babies, children and youth,Health,Marijuana and Medicine,Psychiatric drugs,UK :

As reports show highest rates of deaths after drug misuse among older people, experts take a look at the health risks

by Damon Syson – Daily Telegraph,  London – 12 April 2025

A recent report from the Office for National Statistics revealed that older people continue to register the highest rates of drug misuse mortality. According to the ONS, there were 1,118 deaths involving cocaine registered in 2023, which was 30.5 per cent higher than the previous year and nearly 10 times higher than in 2011.

“I actually think those figures are an underestimate,” says Dr Niall Campbell, a Priory consultant psychiatrist specialising in addictions. “When people die from drug-related causes, it’s often not recorded.”

Campbell is quick to point out that far from being the preserve of urban professionals, this phenomenon occurs throughout the UK: “A significant number of people will be partying on coke, whether it’s in central London or at a middle-class dinner party in the Cotswolds.

It’s a national problem. I have a patient in his sixties who was taking a lot of cocaine and ended up experiencing chest pains. He stopped, sought help, and he’s now much, much better. He lives in a small provincial town; he set up a Cocaine Anonymous support group there.”

The dangers of common drugs

Cocaine is by far the most serious source of concern when it comes to accidental death, but the other drugs that are commonly misused in the UK (according to the most recent ONS statistics) can also damage your health.

Used chronically, ecstasy (MDMA) depletes your serotonin levels, which can lead to depression, anxiety and lethargy.

Despite the growing numbers of people microdosing psilocybin as a treatment for depression, so-called “magic” mushrooms have been known to bring on panic attacks and can also exacerbate existing mental health problems.

Regular use of cannabis, especially when smoked together with tobacco, has been linked to chronic respiratory conditions, depression, impaired memory, motor skills and cardiovascular function – and its negative effects increase as the user gets older.

The dangers of excessive ketamine use, meanwhile, are well-documented, with chronic users risking bladder damage, cognitive impairment and personality change. But the over-50s have not embraced it as a drug of choice.

Aside from its toxicity, there are two other factors that make cocaine more of an immediate cause for concern than any of these drugs. Firstly, accessibility: it is the second-most used drug in the UK after cannabis; it’s easily available, and its relative cost has gone down over the past decade.

Secondly, cocaine is frequently – and incorrectly – perceived to be less harmful than it is. “Today, what we tend to see is a lot of intermittent cocaine users,” says Campbell, who is based at Priory Hospital Roehampton. “Often they’ve stopped regular use. But for whatever reason, it has caught up with them.”

Why are so many over-50s dying from cocaine poisoning?

The ONS reported in 2019 that the reason Generation X cohort are dying in greater numbers by suicide or drug poisoning is partly because “during the 1980s and ’90s more people started using hard drugs habitually”.

“These people still feel young at heart,” says Campbell. “They think they can still do what they used to do in the old days. Unfortunately, they can’t. Even if they’re aware of the health risk – say for example another person in their group has previously had an episode – they choose to ignore it.”

In essence, a certain group, now in their fifties, have either continued to take drugs since their twenties or now occasionally dabble “for old time’s sake”.

But the body of a 55-year-old is very different to that of a 25-year-old. The stakes become much higher because of the increased vulnerability of ageing bodies to the physiological and cognitive effects of cocaine.

“The typical scenario is a group of men in their fifties who say, ‘Come on, lads, let’s go to Ibiza and party like we did in 1999,’” says Campbell. “The trouble is, their bodies can’t take it, and they end up facing severe cardiac problems, or even death. As you get older, every time you take cocaine you’re playing Russian Roulette.”

The critical factor, he adds, is the cardiac toxicity of cocaine: “Cocaine gives you a massive release of dopamine from your limbic system into your brain, and it also speeds up your heart rate. That may be survivable if you’re 20 or 30, but as you get older, your heart isn’t as robust as it was. For them, doing a line of cocaine is like putting a supercharger onto a Ford Anglia.”

How does taking cocaine affect your brain and body – and how does this change as you get older?

Older adults are more susceptible to the effects of drugs and alcohol, because as the body ages, it cannot metabolise these substances as easily as it once did.

The short-term physical effects of using cocaine include constricted blood vessels, increased heart rate and high blood pressure. These factors can dramatically increase the risk of having a heart attack.

“What we commonly see when we’re called to A&E is arrhythmias, which are irregularities of heart rhythm,” says Dr Farhan Shahid, a consultant interventional cardiologist at The Harborne Hospital, part of HCA Healthcare UK.

“What happens when you take cocaine is that you’re stimulating the body’s flight and fight response, and the heart responds appropriately by speeding up. In the older population you’re often dealing with a patient who has other underlying medical problems – which makes treating them a lot less straightforward. They may be on blood pressure tablets, for example, or they might have had a stroke in the past.”

Long-term cocaine use brings with it a whole suite of potential health problems. It can increase an individual’s chances of suffering an aneurysm, because constricting the blood vessels over a long period may reduce the amount of oxygen the brain receives. It can raise the risk of strokes and lead to impaired cognitive function. And it can also cause damage to kidneys and liver, especially when used – as it almost invariably is – in tandem with excessive amounts of alcohol.

Shahid confirms that he frequently treats patients who display the chronic effects of taking cocaine: “It might, for example, be a 56-year-old who has high blood pressure as a background, regardless of the misuse. Taking cocaine on top of that will send their blood pressure off the chart, so to speak.

Over time, they become resistant to medication, and they may require admission into hospital and intravenous medication to bring their blood pressure down.

Cocaine causes a compromise in the demand and supply of the heart muscle: it causes a constriction of the arteries and a state where the blood is thicker and has a greater predisposition to clot.

It’s also worth noting that chronic cocaine use is linked with mental health issues like anxiety, panic attacks and psychosis. Even a one-off line at a party can cause an individual to behave erratically and recklessly, leading to accident and injury.

“Cocaine-induced paranoid states get worse as you get older,” says Campbell. “I had a patient who got together with friends to relive old times. They went away for the weekend, took cocaine, and as a result, he had a huge depressive crisis. He went back to the hotel and attempted suicide. Fortunately, he didn’t succeed.”

How to counteract the damage of cocaine

“The simple answer is – stop,” says Campbell. “If you’ve taken cocaine and you’ve experienced palpitations, for example, that’s a serious red flag. A user needs to get themselves checked out. If you’re worried, talk to your doctor and be honest about it. Your GP can perform an ECG and arrange a full cardio workup.”

Anyone concerned should also take encouragement from the fact that it’s never too late to take a positive step. “With the right treatment and the cessation of the misuse, you can reverse the effects of cocaine misuse,” says Shahid. “Cocaine drives up blood pressure, so if you stop the cocaine use, you can reduce that blood pressure change, and – with the correct medications in the background – bring it down to safe levels.”

Of course, not everyone can afford to seek treatment at Priory, but as a first port of call, Campbell advises contacting Cocaine Anonymous, which he says is “free and widespread, and staffed by people who really know what they’re talking about”.

“This phenomenon is certainly a matter for concern,” he says on a final note, “and it’s on the increase, as the generation comes through that were partying in 1999. Could it get worse? I think it will, because people are reluctant to seek help. Unfortunately, they have no idea how much of a risk they’re taking.”

 

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/conditions/ageing/the-devastating-effects-of-drug-misuse-in-the-middle-aged/

Filed under: Addiction,Drug use-various effects,Health,Mental Health,UK :

 

Kara Alexander is jailed for life after drowning her sons, aged two and five, in a bath after smoking the drug

Kara Alexander has been sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering her children

Credit: Metropolitan Police/PA

 

A judge has warned against the dangers of drugs after a skunk-smoking mother drowned her young sons in the bath.

Kara Alexander, 47, of Dagenham, east London, murdered Elijah Thomas, two, and Marley Thomas, five, in the bath at their home in Cornwallis Road, on December 15 2022.

At Kingston Crown Court on Friday she was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 21 years and 252 days.

The judge, Mr Justice Bennathan, referred to the children’s father finding his deceased sons next to one another as “the stuff of nightmares”.

He noted that Alexander had been smoking skunk – a stronger type of cannabis – on the night she killed her children and had been “doing so every night for weeks, probably much longer”.

In his sentencing remarks, he said: “The heavy use of skunk or other hyper-strong strains of cannabis can plunge people into a mental health crisis in which they may harm themselves or others.

“If any drug user does not know that, it’s about time they did.

“At your trial, Kara Alexander, the three psychiatrists who gave evidence disagreed about a number of things, but on that they were unanimous.

“It will comfort nobody connected to this case, but if these events bring home that message to even a few people, some slight good may come from what is otherwise an unmitigated tragedy.”

The bodies of Elijah, left, and Marley, were found by their father

 Credit: Central News/Facebook

 

He said he could not reach any conclusion but, in her state at that time, she intended to kill the boys, pointing out that she had “unspeakably” held the boys under water for “up to a minute or two”.

“The bath was probably still run from their normal evening routine and I do not think for a moment that your dreadful acts were pre-meditated,” he said.

The judge said Alexander dried the boys, put them in clean pyjamas and laid them together, tucked in under duvets, on the same bunk bed.

“The next morning, their father, worried by your unusual silence, came and found them. The stuff of nightmares,” he said.

The judge said there was every sign Alexander was a “caring and affectionate” mother to both children before the events of Dec 15.

He pointed out that their father said Alexander “never shouted or raised her voice at the boys” and “never showed violence to the boys”.

Psychotic state caused by cannabis 

Mr Justice Bennathan said Alexander was in a psychotic state when she killed her sons and that it was cannabis induced.

He said she had a previous psychotic episode in 2016 in which cannabis also probably played a part, but said he cannot be sure that she was aware that cannabis could trigger another psychotic state.

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The judge said he noted that in Dec 2022, Alexander spoke regularly with two members of her social circle about her heavy cannabis use, both of them knowing that she was looking after two small children.

“And at least one of them knew of your previous psychotic episode in 2016, yet neither of them warned you of any risk or sounded any note of caution at all,” he said.

The judge said Alexander will mourn her sons for the rest of her life.

“From all that I have read and seen of you, I have no doubt that every day when you awake you will remember and grieve for the little boys whose lives you snatched away,” he said.

 

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/11/cannabis-killer-mother-psychotic-state/

Filed under: Addiction,Cannabis/Marijuana,Crime/Violence/Prison,Drug use-various effects,Mental Health,UK :

National Crime Agency exposes increasing ketamine use in England amid surge in ‘drug cocktails’

by Tony Diver, Associate Political Editor, The Telegraph (London) 21 February 2025

 

Drug use in England

Ketamine

2023: 10,600 kilograms consumed

2024: 24,800 kilograms consumed

Hotspots: Norwich, Liverpool and Wakefield

Street value: Unknown

 

Cocaine

2023: 87,600 kilograms consumed

2024: 96,000 kilograms consumed

Hotspots: Liverpool and Newcastle

Street value: £7.7 billion

 

Heroin

2023: 25,300 kilograms consumed

2024: 22,400 kilograms consumed

Hotspots: Liverpool and Birmingham

Street value: £1.1 billion

 

Ketamine usage more than doubled in England last year amid the rising popularity of designer “drug cocktails”, The Telegraph can reveal.

The largest and most accurate study of its kind, conducted on behalf of the National Crime Agency (NCA), has exposed a dramatic rise in the popularity of the drug.

Almost 25 tonnes of ketamine were consumed in England last year, up from 10.6 tonnes in 2023.

The drug is now more popular than heroin, with the worst hotspots in Norwich, Liverpool, and Wakefield.

The findings are revealed in Home Office data, seen by The Telegraph, which will form part of the NCA’s annual threat assessment next week.

The agency, dubbed Britain’s FBI, will warn of a rise in the use of several recreational drugs in Britain, including a 10 per cent increase in cocaine.

The sharp increase in the prevalence of ketamine on Britain’s streets is thought to be driven by drug cocktails, including “pink cocaine” – a combination of ketamine and other substances taken by Liam Payne, the One Direction star, before his death last year.

Payne, who fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina in October last year, had taken a mixture of methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA along with crack cocaine and benzodiazepine before he died, a toxicology report found.

Liam Payne reportedly had ‘pink cocaine’ along with other drugs in his system when he fell to his death in Buenos Aires Credit: Marc Piasecki/GC Images

Mixing ketamine and other drugs can produce hallucinogenic effects, but presents a greater risk to partygoers because the substances can be laced with even stronger narcotics including fentanyl.

The Home Office sampled wastewater from 18 treatment plants across England and Scotland over three years to build the most accurate picture of drug consumption in Britain ever compiled.

The samples, which covered wastewater from more than a quarter of the population, were analysed and scaled up by scientists from Imperial College London.

Previous estimates were based on the quantity of drugs seized by police and self-reported drug surveys, which are less accurate.

The final report found that almost 100 tonnes of cocaine were consumed in England alone last year, up from 88 tonnes in 2023.

Liverpool and Newcastle were the heaviest consumers of cocaine. Usage peaked in London during Christmas, the Euro 2024 football tournament and the Eurovision song contest.

Adjusted for purity, quantities of cocaine consumed in England last year had an estimated street value of £7.7 billion.

That figure is almost double the NCA’s previous estimate and the equivalent of £100 spent on cocaine each year by every person in the country.

Over the same period, heroin consumption is estimated to have decreased by 11 per cent, from 25,300 kilograms in 2023 to 22,400 kilograms in 2024. The highest rates were measured in wastewater from Liverpool and Birmingham.

Experts have previously warned of the dangers of trendy designer drug cocktails, including pink cocaine and “Calvin Klein” or “CK”, which refers to a mixture of cocaine and ketamine.

The combination of drugs can make it more difficult for users to know what substances they have taken.

CK, which is growing in popularity in the UK, has been blamed for overdoses among young people in nightclubs.

It comes as in this week’s Crime and Policing Bill, the Government will propose banning “cuckooing” – when criminals seize a vulnerable person’s home and use it as a drug den or for other illegal activity.

The Home Secretary will also propose new measures to jail those convicted of using children for crime Credit: Jacob King

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, will also propose a new offence of child criminal exploitation, which is thought to affect around 14,500 children each year.

Under the new measures, people convicted of using children for crime, including county lines drug dealing, will face ten years in prison.

Ms Cooper said: “The exploitation of children and vulnerable people for criminal gain is sickening and it is vital we do everything in our power to eradicate it from our streets.

“As part of our Plan for Change, we are introducing these two offences to properly punish those who prey on them, ensure victims are properly protected and prevent these often-hidden crimes from occurring in the first place.

“These steps are vital in our efforts to stop the grooming and exploitation of children into criminal gangs, deliver on our pledge to halve knife crime in the next decade and work towards our overall mission to make our streets safer.”

Ministers and the NCA are also concerned about the rise of drug importers, who bring classified substances into the UK through weaker entry points and sell them to distributors around the country.

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/21/true-scale-uk-illegal-drug-use/

Filed under: Cocaine,Drug use-various effects,Ketamine,Opioids,Prevention and Intervention,Treatment and Addiction,UK :
by Ioulia Kondratovitch – UNODC

Globally, the number of people who used drugs rose to 292 million in 2022 – a 20 per cent increase over 10 years.  The UN Office on Drugs and Crime’s (UNODC) 2024 World Drug Report shows that the emergence of new synthetic opioids and a record supply and demand of other drugs have compounded the impacts of the world drug problem, including overdoses, violence, instability, environmental harms and more.

The Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND), the United Nations’ central drug policy-making body, is meeting this week to take stock of progress made in the implementation of international drug policy commitments.

Below, learn more about the CND and why it matters.

The basics

The CND is where UN member states set policy on all issues related to drugs. 53 Member States from all regions of the world are elected to serve four-year terms.

UNODC acts as Secretariat to the CND.

Why does the CND matter?

Drug production, trafficking and consumption can cause violence, instability and even death.

UNODC’s 2024 World Drug Report found that 64 million people worldwide suffered from drug use disorders in 2022, with only one in 11 in treatment.

Drug trafficking is empowering organized crime groups, who are also engaged in other crimes including human trafficking, online scams, fraud and illegal resource extraction.

A new record high of cocaine production has coincided with a rise in violence in states along the supply chain, as well as an increase in health harms in countries of destination. Meanwhile, nitazenes – a group of synthetic opioids which can be even more potent than fentanyl – have recently emerged in several high-income countries, resulting in an increase in overdose deaths.

How does it work?

CND reviews and analyses the global drug situation and takes action through resolutions and decisions. At this year’s CND, Member States will be discussing resolutions on preventing drug use among children; research on evidence-based interventions for the treatment and care of stimulant use disorders; alternative development; safety of officers in dismantling synthetic opioid laboratories; the impact of drugs on the environment; and strengthening the global drug control framework.

The CND also decides, based on recommendations by the World Health Organization and the International Narcotics Control Board, on which substances will be placed under international control – or “scheduled” – under the three international drug control treaties.

These conventions help prevent the abuse of psychoactive substances, protecting individuals, communities and entire countries from drug use epidemics while reducing crime and violence. They also ensure that these substances are available for necessary medical and scientific purposes.

International scheduling of substances, including precursor chemicals, helps law enforcement efforts to curb production and trafficking of dangerous drugs.

Why are we talking about it now?

In recognition of these new and persistent challenges, the CND adopted the 2019 Ministerial Declaration to accelerate the implementation of the international drug policy commitments made since 2009.

At last year’s CND, Member States made new commitments under the “Pledge4Action” on how they could expedite actions to tackle the world drug problem. This year, Member States will report on efforts to fulfill these pledges, as well as have an opportunity to make new ones.

What else is the UN doing to address the world drug problem?

UNODC collects, analyses and reports data on drug trends and developments. Find more in our 2024 World Drug Report, Afghanistan Drug Insights Series, Colombia and Bolivia coca surveys, and Myanmar opium survey.

Additionally, by strengthening the ability of Member States to detect and intercept illicit drug flows at borders and equipping front-line officers with testing equipment, UNODC bolsters countries’ national security by disrupting the operations and profits of organized drug trafficking groups. Making borders and key shipping routes less vulnerable to exploitation also fosters a safer environment for legitimate business and trade, contributing to a more stable and resilient global economy.

UNODC also works with Member States to support the prevention of drug use; treatment and rehabilitation for people who use drugs; and access to controlled drugs for medical purposes.

Source: https://www.unodc.org/unodc/news/2025/March/explainer_-what-is-the-commission-on-narcotic-drugs.html

Filed under: Australia,Canada,Europe,New Zealand,Others (International News),UK,USA :
Home
United Nations
The United Nations Office at Geneva

 

Synthetic drugs are rapidly transforming the global drug trade, fuelling an escalating public health crisis, according to the UN administered International Narcotics Control Board (INCB).

In its 2024 Annual Report, released on Tuesday, the INCB explains that unlike plant-based drugs, these substances can be made anywhere, without the need for large-scale cultivation, making them easier and cheaper for traffickers to produce and distribute.

The rise of powerful opioids like fentanyl and nitazenes – potent enough to cause overdoses in tiny doses – has worsened the crisis, driving record-high deaths.

“We need to work together to take stronger action against this deadly problem which is causing hundreds of deaths and untold harm to communities,” he continued.

Traffickers stay ahead of regulations

Criminal groups are constantly adapting to evade law enforcement.

By exploiting legal loopholes, they develop new synthetic compounds and use artificial intelligence to find alternative chemicals for drug production.

New smuggling methods – including drones and postal deliveries – make these drugs harder to detect.

As a result, seizures of synthetic substances are now outpacing those of traditional plant-based drugs like heroin and cocaine.

Patchwork response

Despite efforts to curb synthetic drugs, responses remain fragmented, allowing traffickers to stay ahead.

The INCB is calling for stronger global cooperation, including partnerships between governments, private companies and international organizations, to disrupt supply chains and prevent harm.

Medication out of reach

While synthetic drugs flood illegal markets, millions of people in low- and middle-income countries still lack access to essential pain relief medication.

The report highlights that opioid painkillers such as morphine, remain unavailable in regions like Africa, South Asia and Central America – not due to supply shortages, but because of barriers in distribution and regulation.

The INCB is urging opioid-producing nations to increase production and affordability to improve palliative care and pain management.

Regional hotspots concerns

The report identifies several regions where synthetic drug trafficking is expanding.

In Europe, the looming heroin deficit following Afghanistan’s 2022 opium ban could push more users toward synthetic alternatives while in North America, despite efforts to curb the crisis, synthetic opioid-related deaths remain at record highs.

The manufacture, trafficking and use of amphetamine-type stimulants are increasing across the Middle East and Africa, where treatment and rehabilitation services are often inadequate.

Meanwhile, in the Asia-Pacific region, methamphetamine and ketamine trafficking continues to grow, particularly in the Golden Triangle.

Call for urgent action

The INCB is urging governments to strengthen international collaboration, improve data-sharing and expand drug prevention and treatment services.

Without decisive action, the synthetic drug trade will continue to evolve, putting more lives at risk.

 

Source: ‘Rapid expansion’ of synthetic drugs reshaping illicit markets, UN anti-narcotics body warns
Filed under: Australia,Canada,Europe,Fentanyl,New Zealand,Others (International News),Prevalence,Prevention and Intervention,Synthetics,UK,USA :

National Crime Agency exposes increasing ketamine use in England amid surge in ‘drug cocktails’

Ketamine usage more than doubled in England last year amid the rising popularity of designer “drug cocktails”, The Telegraph can reveal.

The largest and most accurate study of its kind, conducted on behalf of the National Crime Agency (NCA), has exposed a dramatic rise in the popularity of the drug.

Almost 25 tonnes of ketamine were consumed in England last year, up from 10.6 tonnes in 2023.

The drug is now more popular than heroin, with the worst hotspots in Norwich, Liverpool, and Wakefield.

The findings are revealed in Home Office data, seen by The Telegraph, which will form part of the NCA’s annual threat assessment next week.

The agency, dubbed Britain’s FBI, will warn of a rise in the use of several recreational drugs in Britain, including a 10 per cent increase in cocaine.

The sharp increase in the prevalence of ketamine on Britain’s streets is thought to be driven by drug cocktails, including “pink cocaine” – a combination of ketamine and other substances taken by Liam Payne, the One Direction star, before his death last year.

Payne, who fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Argentina in October last year, had taken a mixture of methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA along with crack cocaine and benzodiazepine before he died, a toxicology report found.

Liam Payne reportedly had 'pink cocaine' along with other drugs inside his system when he fell to his death in Buenos Aires
Liam Payne reportedly had ‘pink cocaine’ along with other drugs in his system when he fell to his death in Buenos Aires Credit: Marc Piasecki/GC Images

Mixing ketamine and other drugs can produce hallucinogenic effects, but presents a greater risk to partygoers because the substances can be laced with even stronger narcotics including fentanyl.

The Home Office sampled wastewater from 18 treatment plants across England and Scotland over three years to build the most accurate picture of drug consumption in Britain ever compiled.

The samples, which covered wastewater from more than a quarter of the population, were analysed and scaled up by scientists from Imperial College London.

Previous estimates were based on the quantity of drugs seized by police and self-reported drug surveys, which are less accurate.

The final report found that almost 100 tonnes of cocaine were consumed in England alone last year, up from 88 tonnes in 2023.

Liverpool and Newcastle were the heaviest consumers of cocaine. Usage peaked in London during Christmas, the Euro 2024 football tournament and the Eurovision song contest.

Adjusted for purity, quantities of cocaine consumed in England last year had an estimated street value of £7.7 billion.

That figure is almost double the NCA’s previous estimate and the equivalent of £100 spent on cocaine each year by every person in the country.

Over the same period, heroin consumption is estimated to have decreased by 11 per cent, from 25,300 kilograms in 2023 to 22,400 kilograms in 2024. The highest rates were measured in wastewater from Liverpool and Birmingham.

Experts have previously warned of the dangers of trendy designer drug cocktails, including pink cocaine and “Calvin Klein” or “CK”, which refers to a mixture of cocaine and ketamine.

The combination of drugs can make it more difficult for users to know what substances they have taken.

CK, which is growing in popularity in the UK, has been blamed for overdoses among young people in nightclubs.

It comes as in this week’s Crime and Policing Bill, the Government will propose banning “cuckooing” – when criminals seize a vulnerable person’s home and use it as a drug den or for other illegal activity.

The Home Secretary will also propose new measures to jail those convicted of using children for crime
The Home Secretary will also propose new measures to jail those convicted of using children for crime Credit: Jacob King

Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, will also propose a new offence of child criminal exploitation, which is thought to affect around 14,500 children each year.

Under the new measures, people convicted of using children for crime, including county lines drug dealing, will face ten years in prison.

Ms Cooper said: “The exploitation of children and vulnerable people for criminal gain is sickening and it is vital we do everything in our power to eradicate it from our streets.

“As part of our Plan for Change, we are introducing these two offences to properly punish those who prey on them, ensure victims are properly protected and prevent these often-hidden crimes from occurring in the first place.

“These steps are vital in our efforts to stop the grooming and exploitation of children into criminal gangs, deliver on our pledge to halve knife crime in the next decade and work towards our overall mission to make our streets safer.”

Ministers and the NCA are also concerned about the rise of drug importers, who bring classified substances into the UK through weaker entry points and sell them to distributors around the country.

 

Source: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/21/true-scale-uk-illegal-drug-use/

Filed under: Heroin/Methadone,Ketamine,Marijuana and Medicine,Methamphetamine/GHB/Hallucinogens/Oxycodone,Prevalence,UK :
by James Cook, BBC Scotland editor and Anton Ferrie, BBC News contributor                                                               

James McMillan and Lisa McCuish grew up next to each other and now they lie side by side in Pennyfuir Cemetery

James McMillan grew up next door to Lisa McCuish in a neat cul-de-sac on a hillside above Oban Bay. Now they lie side by side in Pennyfuir Cemetery.

The newest headstones on the freshly-dug fringes of the graveyard tell an alarming story of a lost generation in this pretty tourist town on Scotland’s west coast.

Oban is home to just 8,000 people and at least eight recent confirmed or suspected victims of drug misuse were buried here. The youngest was 26, the oldest was 48.

The population of the town is about the same as the total number of overdose deaths recorded in Scotland in the past seven years – by far the worst rate in Europe.

The deaths have led to calls for urgent action to tackle addiction in rural Scotland with relatives citing problems accessing vital services.

Scotland’s Health Secretary Neil Gray has told BBC News that he accepts more needs to be done to tackle drug misuse in rural areas.

For James’ mother, Jayne Donn, the nightmare began before dawn on a freezing night in December 2022 when she was woken by the doorbell.

“At 10 to five in the morning, when it was snowing and my Christmas tree was up, the police came to my door,” she says.

The officers had come, as Jayne had long dreaded they would, to tell her that her 29-year-old son was dead of an overdose.

James was another victim of a crisis that has been raging across Scotland for almost a decade, claiming 1,172 lives in 2023.

“As a little boy he was blonde-haired, blue-eyed, full of mischief,” Jayne tells me in the living room of the family home.

The young James loved “fishing, music and his skateboard,” she says.

“As a man, there’s not so many good memories,” says Jayne.

“He was very mixed up. He was very angry. He was very lost.”

James McMillan, who died in December 2022, with his mother Jayne Donn
Jayne Donn

James’ father left the family home when he was seven.

He struggled at school with dyslexia and mental health challenges and later began to dabble with cannabis.

He started to get into trouble, first with teachers, then with the police.

As he grew into adulthood, James drifted away from Oban and from his family, losing a job as an apprentice bricklayer because of poor attendance and concentration, and disappearing to England.

Jayne says she knew little about what was happening there. In truth, her son’s life was unravelling.

He had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder and drug-induced psychosis.

He was struggling with suicidal tendencies, taking more and harder drugs and increasingly turning to crime.

As a result he was in and out of custody for drug offences, breach of the peace, break-ins and theft, at one point serving a two-year prison sentence.

James died in Glasgow on 16 December 2022 – less than two days after he was released from custody following eight months on remand in Barlinnie prison.

James’ mother says she doesn’t know the details of the last charges he had faced or why he was released – but she believes more could have been done to support her son, as he had overdosed on release from custody on three previous occasions.

A Scottish Prison Service source pointed out that decisions taken at the end of a period of remand are a matter for the courts not the prison.

Jayne describes a web of organisations which dealt with her son: charities, local authorities, the NHS, addiction services, housing providers and more.

But she says: “He was released into a city he didn’t know with no jacket, no money and nobody aware.

“He lasted less than 36 hours.”

Lisa McCuish grew up in Oban.                                                                                                         MKC Photocreations 

Lisa McCuish grew up next to James in a street looking down on Oban Bay, where red and black Caledonian MacBrayne ferries bustle to and from the islands of the Hebrides.

Oban was recently named Scotland’s town of the year by an organisation which promotes smaller communities.

Today, Lisa’s sister Tanya is sitting in Jayne’s living room, tears in her eyes, recalling her sibling as “a larger than life character” with “a heart of gold”.

“Lisa was never into drugs, you know, that wasn’t her,” says Tanya.

Things began to go wrong only after Lisa was prescribed diazepam, which is typically used to treat anxiety, seizures or muscle spasms.

“She ended up buying it off the streets because she felt she needed more,” Tanya remembers.

“She kept on saying that she needed more help, more support.”

Then, she says, her sister started taking heroin.

Lisa had a cardiac arrest on 13 September 2022 and died four days later in hospital in Paisley. She was 42 years old.

She had prescription drugs in her system and also Etizolam, a benzodiazepine-type substance commonly known as street Valium because it is often sold illicitly.

Tanya and Jayne take us to the spot where they both mourn, pointing out other nearby graves where recent drug death victims are buried.

They include James’s best friend, who lies alongside him and Lisa. He was 30 when he died of a drug overdose.

“It’s just awful to think there’s at least 10 around here that we can think of,” says Jayne.

There is no official breakdown of how many lives have been claimed by drugs in small communities such as Oban.

We have been able to confirm that at least eight of the deaths occurred within just a year-and-a-half and were related to drugs, or are still under investigation.

This is the reality of Scotland’s drug deaths crisis in just one small community and both Tanya and Jayne say the Scottish government must do more to save lives.

“I personally believe that a lot of addiction is to do with mental health first,” says Tanya.

“There’s no continuity in support from addiction services or mental health services. There’s no link up.”

Jayne, who is a drugs support worker herself, says she spent years trying to bring James home to Oban where she felt he would have a better chance of recovery and survival.

A particular challenge, she says, was that Argyll and Bute Council offered James housing places in Dunoon and Helensburgh – both about two hours away – making it very difficult for his family to support him.

The local authority said it had offered “appropriate” services to James.

The council added that it had housing services throughout the area, but could not always satisfy “individual and sometimes changing criteria”.

Scotland’s Health Secretary Neil Gray says that both families have his deepest sympathies and he accepts that rural drug services could be improved.

“I think that the two cases that you’ve highlighted tell me that there’s more that can be done,” he said.

“I recognise that not everything is available in all parts of Scotland.”

Mr Gray added: “We support alcohol and drug partnerships across Scotland, whether they’re in rural areas or urban areas.

“I would obviously want us to be continuing to do more to make sure that there is access to facilities and services in rural and island areas.”

 

For Justina Murray, chief executive of the charity Scottish Families Affected by Alcohol and Drugs, the problems do not lie with strategy or funding but with culture and delivery, especially in NHS addiction services.

“People want services that are in their own community, they can access when they need them, they’re going to be met at the door by a friendly face,” she says.

“They’re going to be treated with dignity and respect.

“That’s not necessarily the experience you’re going to have engaging with an NHS or a statutory treatment service.”

According to the latest available figures, released in September 2024, there is capacity for 513 residential rehabilitation beds in Scotland, across 25 facilities.

Only 11 of those beds are available in what are considered by the Scottish government to be very remote rural areas, although the majority of facilities do accept referrals from any part of Scotland.

I ask Jayne and Tanya about the argument that individuals and their families, rather than the state, should take more responsibility for their own choices.

“Nobody sets out in life to be a drug addict,” replies Jayne.

“Nobody chooses it. The mental health issue was what led James to try and escape reality.

“He then no longer had capacity to make his choices. He wasn’t James any more.

“These are vulnerable adults who are unable to protect themselves from danger or harm,” adds Tanya.

“Why is more not being done?”

“Something’s got to change,” agrees Jayne.

“We’re losing far too many young people.”

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c20pwd04zy4o

Filed under: Addiction,Culture,Environment,UK,Youth :

 

Copied from DRB bulletin 03.02.2025:

Source: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/679a44136907bee181d31480/240125+Annex+A+-+Response+to+the+ACMD+Fifth+addendum+to+Advisory+Council+on+the+Misuse+of+Drugs+_ACMD_+report+on+the+use+and+harms+of+2-benzyl+benzimidazole+_nit.pdf

 

Filed under: Opioids,Political Sector,Prevention and Intervention,Synthetics,UK :

Note by NDPA: This article describes harm Reduction  as ” as an alternative to traditional abstinence-based education”. which is seen by NDPA as an unhelpful definition. The valid contribution of Harm Reduction can better be recognised as a strategy working in cooperation with Prevention i.e. it is case of applying ‘both’ rather than ‘either/or’.

  Head Office in London, UK
Substance abuse among adolescents is a significant public health concern, as it can lead to various negative health outcomes and hinder academic performance. School-based substance abuse prevention programs have emerged as a critical strategy to address this issue, leveraging the unique environment of schools to reach young people during a pivotal time in their development. Recent research has explored various approaches to these programs, focusing on their effectiveness, implementation, and the integration of innovative methods to enhance engagement and outcomes.

Recent Research

One of the key findings from recent studies is the effectiveness of different types of interventions in educational settings. A scoping review identified various approaches, including cognitive-behavioral skill enhancement, peer interventions, and family-school cooperation, all of which have shown varying degrees of success in reducing substance use among adolescents[2]. Notably, while electronic interventions yielded mixed results, traditional methods like curriculum-based programs and peer support have been beneficial in addressing substance use issues[2].

Another significant study examined the long-term effects of a selective personality-targeted alcohol prevention program called PreVenture. This program was designed for adolescents exhibiting high-risk personality traits and demonstrated sustained positive outcomes in reducing alcohol-related harms over a seven-year follow-up period[3]. The findings suggest that targeted interventions can effectively delay the onset of alcohol use and mitigate its associated risks, highlighting the importance of tailoring programs to the specific needs of students.

Additionally, innovative approaches such as hybrid digital programs that combine e-learning with in-person sessions have shown promise. A study evaluating this method found significant reductions in substance use and increases in health knowledge among middle school students[5]. This approach addresses common barriers to implementation, such as limited class time and inconsistent delivery, making it a viable option for schools looking to enhance their substance abuse prevention efforts.

Furthermore, harm reduction strategies have gained attention as an alternative to traditional abstinence-based education. A pilot study on a harm reduction curriculum revealed significant improvements in students’ knowledge and behaviors related to substance use, suggesting that engaging students with relevant and relatable content can lead to better outcomes[4]. This approach challenges the conventional views on substance education and emphasizes the need for programs that resonate with adolescents’ real-life experiences.

Technical Terms

Substance Abuse: The harmful or hazardous use of psychoactive substances, including alcohol and illicit drugs, leading to significant adverse consequences.

Cognitive-Behavioral Skills: Techniques that help individuals recognize and change negative thought patterns and behaviors associated with substance use.

Harm Reduction: A set of practical strategies aimed at reducing the negative consequences associated with substance use, rather than focusing solely on abstinence.

Source: https://www.nature.com/research-intelligence/school-based-substance-abuse-prevention-programs
Filed under: Education,Prevention and Intervention,UK,Youth :

by  Charles Hymas         Home Affairs Editor                  14 January 2025           Telegraph, London

Watchdog warns weapons and phones are being delivered to inmates with the devices, posing a threat to national security

HMP Manchester is among the prisons that have allowed basic security to fall into disrepair making it easier for gangs to access the grounds.

Drone-flying drug gangs have seized control of prison airspace in a move that threatens national security, a watchdog has warned.

Charlie Taylor, the chief inspector of prisons, said the service had “in effect ceded the airspace” to two high-security category A jails, allowing organised crime gangs to deliver drugs, phones and weapons to inmates who included organised crime bosses and terrorists.

He said HMP Long Lartin, in Worcestershire, and HMP Manchester had thriving illicit economies of drugs, mobile phones and weapons because basic security measures such as protective netting and CCTV had been allowed to fall into disrepair.

At Manchester, almost four in 10 (39 per cent) of prisoners had tested positive in mandatory drug tests. Half of inmates at Long Lartin, one of Britain’s top security jails, told inspectors it was easy to get drugs and alcohol. Some 27.2 per cent had tested positive for drugs.

Long Lartin has housed some of Britain’s most notorious prisoners, including hate preachers Abu Qatada and Abu Hamza. Among those currently being there are Jordan McSweeney, the murderer of law graduate Zara Aleena, and serial killer Steve Wright, jailed for life for the murder of five women in Ipswich in 2016. Mr Taylor said violence and self-harm at both jails had increased, in part driven by drugs and the accompanying debt prisoners found themselves in.

There had been six self-inflicted deaths at Manchester since 2021, with a seventh taking place a few weeks after the inspectors’ visit.

At Long Lartin, violence had increased by about 50 per cent since the last inspection in 2022. It was higher than at other category A jails, with more than 200 assaults on staff or prisoners in the last year. Forty per cent of prisoners said they felt unsafe.

“It is highly alarming that the police and prison service have, in effect, ceded the airspace above two high-security prisons to organised crime gangs which are able to deliver contraband to jails holding extremely dangerous prisoners including some who have been designated as high-risk category A,” he said. “The safety of staff, prisoners and ultimately that of the public, is seriously compromised by the failure to tackle what has become a threat to national security.

“The prison service, the police and other security services must urgently confront organised gang activity and reduce the supply of drugs and other illicit items which so clearly undermine every aspect of prison life.”

Charlie Taylor said violence and self harm had increased inside the prisons in part due to the rise of drug use and associated debt.

The scale of the problem at HMP Manchester, previously known as Strangeways, included inmates burning holes in windows to receive drone deliveries which prompted Mr Taylor to last year tell the Justice Secretary to put the prison into emergency measures.

The latest warning comes after Mr Taylor likened high-security jail HMP Garth in Lancashire to an “airport” because there were so many drones flying in drugs.

A report from Independent Monitoring Boards (IMB) – made up of volunteers tasked by ministers with scrutinising conditions in custody – into “crumbling” jails in England and Wales said delays in fixing broken prison windows were making it easier for drones to be used to deliver drugs and weapons. In December, MPs heard contraband was being taken into HMP Parc in South Wales in “children’s nappies”, while there were “industrial specification drone drops being organised by organised crime gangs”.

Source:  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/01/14/drone-flying-drug-gangs-seize-control-of-prison-airspace/

Filed under: Crime/Violence/Prison,UK :
Maia Davies, BBC News, Published 7 January 2025

Ketamine could be upgraded to a Class A drug as the government seeks expert advice on its classification, the Home Office has said.

Illegal use of the drug has reached record levels in recent years, with an estimated 269,000 people aged 16-59 reporting ketamine use in the year ending March 2024.

Increasing ketamine’s classification would bring it in line with drugs including cocaine, heroin and ecstasy (MDMA) and mean up to life in prison for supply and production.

The policing minister will ask the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs whether its classification should be changed and “carefully consider” its findings.

Ketamine can cause serious health problems including irreversible damage to the bladder and kidneys.

It is also one of the most detected drugs in incidents of spiking.

While commonly used on animals and in healthcare settings, ketamine is also thought of as a party drug due to its hallucinogenic effects.

An estimated 299,000 people aged 16-59 reported ketamine use in the year ending March 2023 – the highest on record.

Ketamine was upgraded from a Class C substance in 2014 due to mounting evidence over its physical and psychological dangers.

Currently, the maximum penalty for producing and supplying ketamine is up to 14 years in prison. Possession can carry up to five years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both.

Should it be upgraded to a Class A drug, supply and production of it could carry up to life in prison, while possession could carry up to seven years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both.

A coroner’s prevention of future deaths report called for action over the drug’s classification, after a man died from sepsis caused by a kidney infection that was “a complication of long-term use of ketamine”.

Greater Manchester South senior coroner Alison Mutch noted that James Boland, 38, started taking the drug as he believed it to be “less harmful” than Class A drugs.

She wrote in November: “Maintaining its classification as a Class B drug was likely to encourage others to start to use it or continue to use it under the false impression it is “safer”.”

Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson has pledged to “work across health, policing and wider public services to drive down drug use and stop those who profit from its supply.

“It is vital we are responding to all the latest evidence and advice to ensure people’s safety and we will carefully consider the ACMD’s recommendations before making any decision.”

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8306prgy6o

Filed under: Ketamine,Legal Sector,UK :
Lydia Wilson – BBC News – Published 14 December 2024

Khat falls into the class C drug category but it isn’t recorded as a specific drug in seizure data

A decade ago, a stimulative drug that sold for just a few pounds, was banned in the UK. Known as khat, it’s a plant that’s chewed, giving similar effects to amphetamine.

Ten years on from the drugs reclassification, experts say it is still being sold in the UK, in places for ten times more than it cost in 2014.

But there is little data to help understand the true impact of the ban.

Dr Neil Carrier, who carried out postdoctoral research on the drug at the University of Oxford, said it has largely been “forgotten” by authorities and “in terms of understanding drug policy, the bans’ impact should really be researched”.

Mohammed, not his real name, 25, told the BBC that he tried khat in 2018, four years after the ban.

He said: “The thing is, there’s actually quite a lot of it readily available in the UK.

“You can get it in little silver sachet bags that are air-sealed and marketed as herbal facial products, but it’s literally just khat.”

He chewed the drug in a dried form, which has become more common during the past 10 years.

Dr Carrier, who currently works as a social anthropology professor at the University of Bristol, said fresh khat leaves were sold for “around £3 a bundle (250g)” during the 2000s and 2010s.

It was often chewed by Somali, Yemeni and Ethiopian men in group sessions at designated khat cafes, called mafrishes.

He helped produce a government-published literature review around khat’s social harms and legislation in 2011: “Very often as anthropologists, when we think about drugs, we don’t just focus on the drug itself but also how it gets caught up in the wider cultural meanings, wider relationships and power.

“We look at how it becomes a commodity and how the substance fits into society.”

He felt that the ban was a “missed opportunity” to investigate alternative methods of regulating recreational drugs.

“We could see how khat was associated with various issues that were very challenging with communities using khat in the UK.

“But at the time I felt the drug was blamed for these wider issues,” he said.

In the early 2000s Dr Carrier said he often heard people attribute khat to family and social integration problems.

“I would hear things like ’men are not being good fathers as they chewed khat’.

“And ‘people who are chewing khat might, as a consequence, not be looking for work’.

“But in reality, this is only half the picture.

“We often in society give drugs so much power and label them as the cause of problems when really the picture tends to be more blurred and complicated.”

Last year Border Force seized 2,760 hauls of class C drugs.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “Border Force and police work relentlessly to stop illegal drugs from coming into the country and keep them off our streets.

“We have seen a record level of seizures as we continue to use advanced technology, data and greater intelligence to ensure these drugs do not enter the country.”

The UK was one of the last EU countries to reclassify the khat in June 2014.

Prior to this date, more than 2,500 tonnes was annually imported, according to the Advisory Council of the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD).

That is the equivalent weight of around 208 double-decker buses worth of the stimulative drug.

Most of the shipments are thought to have been distributed and sold amongst east-African diaspora communities in Britain, such as Somalis and Ethiopians.

Dr Carrier said khat and cannabis, both plant-based drugs, have a similar policing system which could have contributed to a lack of data on how prevalent less drugs like khat may be.

“A lot of the drugs data gets conflated with data around cannabis and they tend to get pooled together.

“As far as I understand anyways,” he said.

UK Border Force tend to place khat into an “other class ” category, when reporting the drug.

Dr Carrier added: “What people suspected would happen at the time of the ban has happened.

“Khat is now being smuggled in, especially a dried khat, mostly coming in from Ethiopia, and it seems to have become quite popular.

“The people that do still want to consume, even though it’s been banned, can still consume it in a different form.”

Dried khat is less potent than the fresh plant and is said to provide a “less pleasant user experience” in terms of taste and texture.

Dr Carrier said that meant there is still a market for the drug: “Some people, if they can afford it, will still chew the fresh stuff.

“The fresh stuff is £30 to £40 a bundle.

“But there are people still willing to spend that kind of money on it.

“People are still accessing khat.”

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gpl62dn26o?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-gb

Filed under: Khat,UK :

People smoke the stuff perfectly openly, without fear, with the threatened £90 fine seemingly a remote possibility.                                                                                                                           

by Zoe Strimpel – The Telegraph London author – 14 December 2024 4:09pm GMT

Sir Elton John Credit: Ben Gibson

Zoe Strimpel writes: I was about 23 and was still finding my feet socially in London. I’d always really been a champagne girl at heart but cannabis smoking was common in some of the circles I spent time in. It seemed so tacky and boring, the province of the sorts of bores one met while “travelling”, so I usually said no.

But one night in a run-down flat somewhere in north London, I went along with everyone else. Not long afterwards my heart began to pound like never before and a wave of horrible panic crashed over me, like I was trapped in a physiological nightmare and might die.

This was combined with a much more familiar sense of self-recrimination: why had I got myself into this? It wasn’t tempting in the first place and it could never have been worth it. And now I was paying the price – and so was the friend, now more like a sister to me, who had to tend to me in my tearful panic.

Since then, the pressure to imbibe cannabis has only grown and spread, from tatty student settings to (upper)-middle class and middle-aged environs.

Those who prefer to avoid the smoke element can still mainline the active ingredient – THC – by choosing from a wide range of edibles, which are generally like jelly babies. These make you (me) feel just as dreadful as the smoke sort, though mercifully without the stink.

All of which is why I am in full agreement with Elton John who, as Time magazine’s “icon of the year”, has lambasted the legalisation of pot in North America as “one of the greatest mistakes of all time”.

Sir Elton, himself an addict until he got sober 34 years ago, pointed out that: “It leads to other drugs. And when you’re stoned – and I’ve been stoned – you don’t think normally.”

This is a statement of blinding obviousness, and yet in our strange society it sounds reactionary, refreshing, courageous. How is it that a drug known – outside of carefully managed medical settings where it can help with pain and sleep – to trigger psychosis and turn people into paranoiacs and dullards, and, when smoked, to cause damage to the lungs and body, came to be considered safe by North American lawmakers?

To be seen as so perfectly respectable, fine and dandy that states explicitly give their blessing to recreational use of it? And this in an America that doesn’t let people drink until they are 21 or even touch containers of alcohol till that age, or in public.

In the UK, it is not legal and classed as a class B drug. But that does not mean that ‘it is not ubiquitous’.

This is depressing. I’m all for the exploration and titration of psychoactive drugs to help people in desperate need of pain relief. I am interested in, though not yet convinced by, use of mushrooms (psilocybin) and ecstasy (MDMA) in treating depression.

But the general prevalence of cannabis is a much drearier, bigger, more worrying issue, connected to a general sense of inconsistency and disconnected logic among law-makers and enforcers on one hand, and a sense that all we want to do is bury ourselves in escapist hedonism that alters our minds and our worlds so as to reduce the stress associated with, for instance, responsibility, reality and work.

Labour has indicated that it does not wish to legalise cannabis. But it seems happy, as do the police, with the fact that nobody cares about its technical illegality. People smoke the stuff perfectly openly, without fear, with the threatened £90 fine seemingly a remote possibility. Children therefore have to inhale it in parks. It is a gateway drug for hard drugs and criminality, and forms a familiar backdrop for the insouciant menace of gangs.

But according 2023 figures from the ONS, cannabis was by far the most-commonly used recreational drug in the UK, with 7.4 per cent of adults aged 16 to 59 saying they had consumed it in the last year.

The counter-currents in state attitudes to recreational drugs are just weird. Why does the state look benignly on the smoking of this illegal substance, and fail to promote information about the dangers of inhaling it via smoke (and edibles), but noisily pursue the outlawing of cigarette smoking for those born after a certain date?

Fags are toxic and cancer-causing, and nobody should have to regularly breathe second-hand smoke. But so long as the harm of smoking (the tar in tobacco) is limited to the smoker, and those who voluntarily inhale their smoke, the wider mental effects are not disturbing.

Nicotine alone doesn’t tend to ‘alter personality beyond recognition’ or induce fits of paranoia, depression, criminality or addiction to other substances.

And let’s face it: a waft of cigarette smoke is quite pleasant. Cigarettes retain a kind of aesthetic glamour; their use is not at odds with beauty, comfort, decadence and good conversation. Pot-smokers, instead, give off a polluting stink that lowers the tone of whatever environment one is in, makes conversation a thousand times more inane, and seems to celebrate the urge to do less, or nothing, smugly. Cannabis is deadening, however it is consumed.

Even among those who work hard and have children, cannabis rules, becoming a fixation without which no relaxation is possible, whipped out as soon as the working day ends or the children are asleep. Perhaps what we need is to find other ways to relax, like reading a good book. Or, of course, to stop chasing relaxation and indolence at all costs, full stop.

SOURCE: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/12/14/elton-john-is-right-cannabis-deadening-to-soul/

Filed under: Cannabis/Marijuana,Drug use-various effects,Health,Marijuana and Medicine,Mental Health,Prevention and Intervention,UK :

October 31, 2024

 

Scotland’s drug and alcohol deaths remain among Europe’s highest – despite an increase in spending and better national leadership.

The Scottish Government has made progress in increasing residential rehabilitation capacity and implementing treatment standards. However, it has been slow to progress key national strategies, such as a workforce plan and alcohol marketing reform. People in need still face many barriers to getting support. The workforce is under immense strain. And the increased focus on drug harm is shifting attention from tackling alcohol issues.

In 2023, there were 1,277 alcohol-specific deaths – the highest since 2008. And there were 1,172 drug misuse deaths, the second lowest number in the last six years. Scotland’s figures remain high compared to the rest of Europe despite alcohol and drug funding rising from £70.5 million in 2014/15 to £161.6 million in 2023/24.

Alcohol and drug services are co-ordinated by Alcohol and Drug Partnerships at a local level. But they have limited powers to influence change and direct funding, and their funding is falling in real terms due to inflation. Most alcohol and drug funding goes to NHS specialist services to treat people at crisis point. This means there is limited money to put into preventing people getting so ill in the first place.

Stephen Boyle, Auditor General for Scotland, said:

The Scottish Government needs to develop more preventative approaches to tackling Scotland’s harmful relationship with alcohol and drugs. That means helping people before they get to a crisis point.

Ministers also need to understand which alcohol and drug services are most cost-effective, and plan how they will be funded when the National Mission ends in 2026. That’s especially important at a time of increasing strain on the public finances.

With many alcohol and drug workers reporting feeling under-valued and at risk of burn-out, there is also an urgent need to put a timeline against plans to address the sector’s staffing challenges.

Christine Lester, a member of the Accounts Commission, said:

Alcohol and drug services are complex and delivered by a wide range of partners. But there needs to be more collective accountability across the system for how each body is helping people whose lives have been blighted by alcohol and drugs.

Better information is needed to inform service planning and where funding should be prioritised. There is also more to do to tailor services to individual needs, using the experience of service users. Right now, not everyone can access the services they need, and that experience is worse for people facing disadvantage.

Source: https://audit.scot/news/prevention-focus-needed-to-tackle-alcohol-and-drug-harm

Filed under: Alcohol,Drug use-various effects,Prevention and Intervention,UK :

The drug and alcohol awareness event was held at Faizen-E-Madina Mosque on Gladstone Street

Shariqua Ahmed – BBC News, Peterborough

A drug and alcohol awareness event has taken place at a mosque to encourage Muslims and families struggling with addiction to seek help.

Dozens of people, including children, attended the workshop organised by Dr Azhar Chaudhry at Peterborough’s biggest Mosque, Faizan-E-Madina.

Dr Chaudhry said the issue of drug and alcohol dependency within the city’s Muslim community was “a huge problem”, but engaging with them had been a challenge due to cultural stigma.

Raja Alyas from Peterborough-based Aspire charity, which works with harder-to-reach communities, called it “a step in the right direction”.

Dr Azhar Chaudhry has been organising awareness workshops for the community as a volunteer over the years

‘Still work to be done’

Dr Chaudhry, who works at Thistlemoor Medical Centre, said the involvement of the mosque committee, who attended and helped organise it, was “encouraging”.

He said there was still work to be done on engaging with Mosques who can support initiatives like Aspire, but appreciated their efforts to work together.

He moved to the UK in 2001 from Pakistan and is part of the British Islamic Medical Association (BIMA).

He runs other workshops on CPR, diabetes and cancer screening to raise awareness within the community as a volunteer.

“I love what I do. I am passionate about saving lives”, he said.

“You will be shocked to see how prevalent the drug and alcohol issues are in the Muslim community. I see it as a GP who works in a diverse part of the city.

“But it is difficult to engage with them, they don’t want to seek help.

“It is a sensitive issue for the community. There is a lot of stigma, so it needs to be addressed cautiously but attitudes are improving, hopefully.”

Aspire said the mosque committee has offered to help organise more regular drug and alcohol awareness events

Aspire works with Peterborough City Council, GPs and the Probation Service.

It also operates a clinic regularly at Thistlemoor Medical Centre to give people facing stigma a “discreet option” to seek help.

Mr Alyas said: “The workshop was well attended and was very interactive and great to see young people asking questions about how they can safeguard themselves.

“The young generation is being empowered with knowledge on making their decisions,” he said.

“It was good to see the attendees acknowledging that there is an issue. Previously, when we tired to set up a workshop like this it was not as well received.

“But the mosque saying they look forward to more events including for women is a step in the right direction.”

The event was organised by Dr Azhar Chaudhry and the Aspire charity and was supported by Faizan-E-Madina Mosque

Follow Peterborough news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr92nyl7k4o

Filed under: Addiction,Alcohol,Drug use-various effects,UK :

Our research on the adverse effects of cannabis contributed to a major public debate and Government campaign to inform teenagers about the potential risks of cannabis.

Research led by Professors Terrie Moffitt, Avshalom Caspi, Philip McGuire, Sir Robin Murray, Louise Arseneault & Drs Paul Morrison & Marta Di Forti

Our research on the adverse effects of cannabis contributed to a major public debate and Government campaign to inform teenagers about the potential risks of cannabis.

Cannabis is the most widely used drug in the world, but its effect on mental health has only recently been uncovered.

Research led by Professors Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi demonstrated that the earlier people start using cannabis, the more likely they are to have symptoms of psychosis as a young adult. A study of 1,000 men and women in New Zealand showed that people who had been regular cannabis users at 15 were about four times more likely to have psychotic symptoms by the time they were 26 than their abstaining peers. The research also identified genetic variations that made people more vulnerable to the harmful effects of cannabis.

Further work led by Dr Marta Di Forti showed that people who smoke a potent form of cannabis (skunk) regularly are much more likely to develop psychosis than those who use traditional cannabis resin (hash) or old-fashioned grass.

Research led by Dr Paul Morrison helped explain why, by investigating the effects of the two main constituents of cannabis: THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), the psychoactive ingredient that produces the ‘high’, and CBD (cannabidiol), which seems to moderate the effect of THC. Skunk contains much more THC than hash or old-fashioned grass and virtually no CBD. Our research illustrated that an injection of pure synthetic THC can induce transient symptoms of psychosis in people who have no experience of mental health problems.

‘Overall, our research in this area had a major impact on the perception of the risks of cannabis use on mental health,’ says Philip McGuire, Professor of Psychiatry and Cognitive Neuroscience.

In the wake of these studies and other evidence from around the world linking cannabis use with psychosis, the Home Secretary asked the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs to review the legal classification of cannabis in 2007. Professor Murray submitted written evidence to this review and Dr Morrison, spoke at a review meeting about the effects of THC and CBD.

In 2008, the ACMD reported that the majority of its members thought cannabis should remain as a class C drug, but confirmed that the drug, particularly skunk, can damage people’s mental health, especially if young people start to use it an early age.

Despite the recommendation, the Government decided to tighten the law and in 2009 the Misuse of Drugs Act cannabis was amended and cannabis was re-classified from class C (considered the least harmful), to class B, making it illegal to possess cannabis, give to friends or sell it.

Following reclassification, the Department of Health launched a major TV, radio and online campaign to demonstrate the role cannabis can play in the development of mental health problems. The ‘Talk to Frank’ television adverts, aimed at young people, illustrated how cannabis can contribute to paranoia and damage mental health.

Although cannabis is still the most widely used illicit drug in Britain, its use has been steadily declining. The 2011/12 Crime Survey for England and Wales showed that 15.7 per cent of young people said they had used cannabis in the previous year, the lowest level since measurement began in 1996, when 26 per cent of young people said they had taken cannabis.

Additionally, our research into the effects of CBD and THC has also led to a partnership with the pharmaceutical industry to develop a new antipsychotic medication based on CBD.

Source: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/spotlight/uncovering-the-link-between-cannabis-and-psychosis

Filed under: Brain and Behaviour,Cannabis/Marijuana,Mental Health,New Zealand,UK :

Cryptocurrency Tether enables a parallel economy that operates beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement

Wall Street Journal     Angus Berwick  and Ben Foldy       Sept. 10, 2024

A giant unregulated currency is undermining America’s fight against arms dealers, sanctions busters and scammers. Almost as much money flowed through its network last year as through Visa cards. And it has recently minted more profit than BlackRock, with a tiny fraction of the workforce. Its name: tether. The cryptocurrency has grown into an important cog in the global financial system, with as much as $190 billion changing hands daily.

In essence, tether is a digital U.S. dollar—though one privately controlled in the British Virgin Islands by a secretive crew of owners, with its activities largely hidden from governments.

Known as a stablecoin for its 1:1 peg to the dollar, tether gained early use among crypto aficionados. But it has spread deep into the financial underworld, enabling a parallel economy that operates beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.

Wherever the U.S. government has restricted access to the dollar financial system—Iran, Venezuela, Russia—tether thrives as a sort of incognito dollar used to move money across borders.

Russian oligarchs and weapons dealers shuttle tether abroad to buy property and pay suppliers for sanctioned goods. Venezuela’s sanctioned state oil firm takes payment in tether for cargoes. Drug cartels, fraud rings and terrorist groups such as Hamas use it to launder income.

Yet in dysfunctional economies such as Argentina and Turkey, beset by hyperinflation and a shortage of hard currency, tether is also a lifeline for people who use it for quotidian payments and as a way to protect their savings.

Tether is arguably the first successful real-world product to emerge from the cryptocurrency revolution that began over a decade ago. It has made its owners immensely rich. Tether has $120 billion in assets, mostly risk-free U.S. Treasury bills, along with positions in bitcoin and gold. Last year it generated $6.2 billion in profit, outearning BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, by $700 million.

Tether’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, boasted earlier this year that, with under 100 employees, it earned more profit per person than any company ever.

Tether wants “to build a fairer, more connected, and accessible global financial system,” Ardoino said in a May press release. He claims over 300 million people are using the currency.

With sanctions, Washington can cut adversaries off from the dollar and thus much of the global trading system, since all dollar transactions involve U.S. regulated banks. Tether’s popularity subverts those powers.

“We need a regulatory framework that doesn’t allow offshore dollar-backed stablecoin providers to play by a different set of rules,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo told The Wall Street Journal. Adeyemo singled out tether in April testimony before Congress.

For this article, the Journal spoke with tether users, researchers and officials, and reviewed messages exchanged between intermediaries, court and corporate records, and blockchain data.

Tether didn’t respond to requests for comment. The company said in May it collaborates with law enforcement and was upgrading its capacity to monitor transactions for sanctions evasion. Tether voluntarily freezes digital wallets used to transfer its tokens that were connected with sanctioned entities, it says. Ardoino said Tether has a “proactive approach to safeguarding our ecosystem against illicit activities.”

How Tether works: The company behind tether, Tether Holdings, issues the virtual coins to a select group of direct customers, mostly trading firms, who wire real-world dollars in exchange. Tether uses those dollars to purchase assets, mostly U.S. Treasurys, that back the coin’s value.

Once in the wider market, tether can be traded for other tokens or traditional currencies through exchanges and local brokerages. In Iran, for example, a crypto exchange called TetherLand allows Iranians to swap rials into tether.

Tether vets the identities of its direct customers, but much of its vast secondary market goes unpoliced. The tokens can be pinged near-instantaneously along chains of digital wallets to obfuscate the source. A United Nations report this January said tether was “a preferred choice” for Southeast Asian money launderers.  The company says it can track every transaction on public blockchain ledgers and can seize and destroy tether held in any wallet.

But freezing wallets is a game of Whac-A-Mole. Between 2018 and this June, Tether blacklisted 2,713 wallets on its two most popular blockchains that had received a total of about $153 billion, according to crypto data provider ChainArgos. Of that massive sum, Tether could only freeze $1.4 billion because the rest of the funds had already been sent on.

Tether’s founders—a group that included a former plastic surgeon called Giancarlo Devasini—created the currency back in 2014. Uptake for a stable token was initially slim. The prospect of profiting from billions of accumulated dollars was a “fantasy,” said William Quigley, an investor who was part of the founding team.

He and other co-founders sold their stakes soon after to Devasini, who has run Tether ever since, according to people familiar with the company. The reclusive billionaire lives at a modernist villa in the French Riviera enclave of Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, corporate records show. Ardoino, a fellow Italian, has become Tether’s public face.

Tether’s entry into the crypto mainstream came during the market’s 2020-2021 bull run, as traders used tether to buy and sell out of risky bets. Its market capitalization exploded from $4 billion to almost $80 billion.

The dollar for all: In Venezuela, financially isolated by sanctions and economic mismanagement, Tether found a ready user base.

President Nicolás Maduro’s government was under siege in 2020 from U.S. measures that targeted state oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela, or PdVSA. That October, Maduro’s parliament passed an “Anti-Blockade Law” that authorized the government to use crypto to protect its transactions.

PdVSA began demanding payment for oil shipments in tether, according to people familiar with its activities and transaction records. Purchase orders authorized by PdVSA often instructed buyers to transfer tether to a certain wallet address. Another method was for intermediaries to swap deliveries of cash for tether and load the tokens onto prepaid travel cards, which enabled holders to use crypto for purchases. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s parliament passed a law allowing the government to use crypto to protect its transactions. The company’s adoption of tether was so pervasive it had another effect: instead of sending oil revenues back to the government, the middlemen that PdVSA used for the sales diverted funds for themselves, leading to a scandal that toppled the oil minister.

“This cryptocurrency’s use only has served to perpetuate gigantic levels of corruption,” Rafael Ramírez, a former oil minister under Maduro, said in an interview.

Venezuela’s government didn’t respond to requests for comment. The country’s attorney general said in April that middlemen’s use of crypto made the stolen funds “undetectable” for authorities.

For regular Venezuelans, tether became a lifeline, too. Inflation that reached 2 million percent wiped out savings held in bolivars. Currency controls made bank transfers abroad impractical.

Guillermo Goncalvez, a 30-year-old Caracas graduate, runs a platform called El Dorado that offers Venezuelans peer-to-peer tether trading, which links buyers and sellers directly.  El Dorado has over 150,000 users, who pay fees that are a fraction of what traditional money remitters charge: local stores converting daily revenues into tether, Venezuelan migrants sending money back to families, and freelancers receiving salaries in USDT, as tether is also known. “USDT is the digital dollar for all Venezuelans,” Goncalvez said.

Enough money to fill a plane: In Russia, tether is a vital payment channel, the Journal has previously reported.

A confidential report drawn up this year by a government-backed Russian research center identified tether as one of the most popular ways for importers to convert rubles into foreign currencies. Major institutions are involved, too: Rosbank, a Russian lender, arranges tether transfers for clients to pay suppliers abroad, according to a company presentation circulated in June. Rosbank spokespeople didn’t respond to requests for comment.

It is also the go-to currency for Russia’s elite.

A glamorous fixer called Ekaterina Zhdanova told associates in Telegram messages in 2022 and 2023 that she was arranging huge ruble-for-tether deals for clients. Digital wallets she shared had transferred over $350 million in tether, according to blockchain data.

Born in a Siberian village, Zhdanova, 38 years old, ran a concierge service to help wealthy Russians get foreign visas, and a travel agency that organized luxury cruises. Her ex-husband was a top lieutenant for a billionaire Russian real-estate developer.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions amplified demand for her services.

Two months into the war, Zhdanova relayed a request from a client to a group of large Russian crypto traders, according to chats on Telegram. The client, who she said had their own bank, wanted to buy about $10 million of tether each month, needing $300 million’s worth in total, in exchange for cash that would be handed over in the United Arab Emirates or Turkey.

After finding a trader willing to accept the deal, Zhdanova told the group she could coordinate the cash’s collection. “They will use planes to pick up the cash,” she said.

Treasury sanctioned Zhdanova late last year, accusing her of transferring crypto on behalf of unnamed oligarchs. Police in France detained her around that time at an airport there as part of a separate French money laundering investigation, people familiar with her arrest said. She remains in custody. A lawyer for Zhdanova declined to comment.

‘Everything. Everywhere.’: Tether is now investing in startups that use tether for everyday payments. The more Tether can encourage its usage, the more tokens it needs to issue, and so the more dollars it will have to put to work.

In Tbilisi, Georgia, a popular landing spot for Russian émigrés, the token’s symbol—an encircled green “T”—glimmers outside money-change shops with blacked-out windows. Cash machines advertise that users can deposit bills for the stablecoin.

Ardoino, the Tether CEO, visited Georgia last year and approached government officials with an offer to help expand the local crypto economy. They signed a cooperation deal that Ardoino said would make the former Soviet republic a flourishing payments hub. Tether invested $25 million in local startups, according to Georgia’s innovation agency.

The main recipient of Tether’s financing, CityPay.io, has rolled out tether-payment systems for thousands of Georgian businesses. Hotels including Tbilisi’s downtown Radisson Blu Iveria have CityPay point-of-sale terminals, and it has joined with a property venture there to sell premium apartments in tether.

CityPay also facilitates international payments in tether for companies, totaling as much as $50 million a month, according to Eralp Hatipoglu, its Turkish CEO. He said the pressure the U.S. applied on the global banking system created these opportunities. Companies exporting from Turkey to Georgia get hammered with questions from correspondent banks, he said, and wire transfers take days. CityPay’s website advertises “100% anonymous transactions,” though Hatipoglu said they check clients’ identities against sanctions lists and don’t accept Russian businesses.

Tether has said it aims for CityPay to expand into other emerging markets. At a crypto conference in a Tbilisi skyscraper this June, sponsored by Tether and attended by its head of expansion, banners promoted the currency’s use for daily payments on CityPay. Guests queued to buy coffee in tether. “Pay with USDT,” read one sign. “Everything. Everywhere.”

 

Source: Tether: The Cryptocurrency Fueling the Financial Underworld – WSJ

Filed under: Australia,Canada,Crime/Violence/Prison,Drug Specifics,Economic,Europe,New Zealand,Others (International News),Prevalence,UK,USA :

Overview

In recent years, police forces in England and Wales have worked more closely with health, education and other local partners to address social issues, such as drug use, youth violence and people in mental health crisis.[1] This aims to ensure that vulnerable people are supported by the most appropriate professional, and that certain complex social issues are not automatically met with a criminal justice response.

These initiatives are sometimes referred to as public health approaches to policing.[2] They can include interventions aimed at preventing offending altogether (for example, early years school-based programmes), as well as ones covering offenders or people coming into contact with the police.[3]

In 2018, organisations representing public health bodies, health services, voluntary organisations and police forces signed an agreement to work more closely together to prevent crime and protect the most vulnerable people in England.[4] Public Health Scotland and Police Scotland announced a formal collaboration in 2021.[5] In 2019, Public Health England and the College of Policing published a discussion paper on public health approaches to policing,[6] and the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners issued guidance in 2023 to support implementation of such approaches.3

Research has found that cooperation between police and health services can help to improve social outcomes. For example:

  • a 2017 study in the USA suggested that health services and police forces have worked effectively together to improve police responses to mental health-related encounters[7]
  • research in 2017 highlighted international examples of how formal collaboration between criminal justice and public health agencies helped to reduce youth violence[8]
  • a 2022 study found that nurses and police officers could develop collaborative teamwork practices in police custody suites in England[9] [10]

There are examples of police forces working with health partners and other agencies to improve responses to vulnerable people in England and Wales:

  • Under drug diversion schemes, police refer people caught in possession of small quantities to voluntary sector treatment services, rather than prosecute for a possession offence. As of 2024, diversion schemes were operating in Thames Valley,[11] West Midlands,[12] and Durham police force areas.[13] The College of Policing and the University of Kent have received funding to evaluate these schemes, which is expected to be completed in 2025.[14]
  • The Right Care, Right Person model aims to reduce the deployment of police to incidents related to mental health and concern for welfare, and instead ensure that people receive support from the most appropriate health or social care professional. Humberside Police developed the model, which includes training for police staff and partnership agreements between police, health and social services.[15] From 2023, police forces nationally were beginning to adopt it, with support from the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing.[16]
  • Violence Reduction Units (VRUs) bring together police, local government, health and education professionals, community groups and other stakeholders to provide a joint response to serious violence, including knife crime. The London Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime established the first VRU in England and Wales in 2019. It states that it takes a public health approach to violence prevention,[17] including deploying youth workers in hospitals and police custody suites.[18] Between 2019 and 2022, the government funded 20 VRUs across England and Wales.[19] In 2019, the government provided funding for the Youth Endowment Fund, which funds and evaluates programmes in England and Wales that aim to prevent children and young people from becoming involved in violence.[20]

Since 2020, Scotland has seen increasing use of diversion from prosecution schemes.[21] In October 2024, the UK’s first official consumption facility for illegal drugs, including heroin and cocaine, was opened in Glasgow.[22]

Challenges and opportunities

In 2023, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services noted how police forces were often the “service of last resort” doing the work of other public services, especially with regards to mental ill health.[23] For some vulnerable people, police custody may provide their only space for healthcare interventions.10 Both police forces and voluntary organisations suggest that, at a time when police capacity is under pressure, public health approaches can reduce the amount of time police officers spend dealing with people with complex health needs, who may be referred to other health, care or support services.[24],[25] However, this can also lead to demand and capacity pressures being displaced onto these services.

For example, drug diversion schemes may increase the demand on local drug treatment services, which themselves are facing significant pressures. In her independent review of drugs for the government in 2021, Dame Carol Black raised significant concerns about the capacity and resourcing of drug treatment services in England, and the impact of funding reductions.[26] The Criminal Justice Alliance has called for increased funding for local drug services, to accommodate people being diverted away from the criminal justice system.[27]

The government’s 10-year drug strategy (2021) committed to invest £533 million into local authority commissioned substance misuse treatment services in England from 2022/23 to 2024/25, as part of its aim to “rebuild local authority commissioned substance misuse treatment services in England”.[28] In 2023, the Home Affairs Committee called for all police forces in England and Wales to adopt drug diversion schemes.[29] It also expressed concern about the long-term sustainability and security of funding for the drug treatment and recovery sector.26

Similar pressures in mental health services have led to concerns about the safety of the national rollout of Right Care, Right Person. In November 2023, the Health and Social Care Committee identified urgent questions around the available funding for health services, and the lack of evaluation, in the rollout of the scheme[30] The Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of Nurses agreed that people with mental illness should be seen as quickly as possible by a mental health professional.[31],[32] However, they and other health, local government, and mental health charities, have expressed several concerns about the programme. These include: the speed and consistency of implementation, lack of funding, the potential for gaps in provision, and increased welfare risks.[33],[34],[35],[36]

Key uncertainties/unknowns

Outside the UK, some public health approaches have involved a significant shift away from enforcing drug possession for personal use through the criminal justice system.[37] For example:

  • Portugal decriminalised possession of drugs for personal use in 2001 and instead refers drug users to support and treatment.[38] Analysis of these measures from researchers and policy experts suggests decriminalisation led to reductions in problematic use, drug-related harms and criminal justice overcrowding.38,[39]
  • In the USA, Oregon trialled a policy in 2020 making drug possession a fineable offence.[40]
  • In Canada, British Columbia trialled an approach in 2023 that decriminalised possession of small amounts of certain drugs for personal use in specific non-public locations.[41]

Citing international examples, some drug policy experts have called on the government to go further in its adoption of a public health approach to drug use.37 The Home Affairs Committee stated in 2023 that the government’s drug strategy should have adopted a broader public health approach, and called for responsibility for misuse of drugs to be jointly owned by the Home Office and Department of Health and Social Care.26 In 2019, the Health and Social Care Committee recommended the government shift responsibility for drugs policy from the Home Office to the Department of Health and Social Care, and for the government to “look closely” at the Portugal model for decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use.[42]

However, Portugal’s approach has also faced criticism. For example, a research review in 2021 highlighted continued social and political resistance to some of the measures 20 years after being introduced.[43] A 2023 editorial in the Lancet highlighted how a recent rise in the use of illicit drugs in Portugal had led to renewed criticism of the policy.[44] More recently, some states in North America have reversed decriminalisation policies, reportedly due to adverse consequences of drug decriminalisation.33,[45], [46]

This points to a mixed evidence base internationally for a fully public health approach to drug use. However, it may be difficult to compare international examples, given the different models of decriminalisation that have been adopted, and in a variety of social, economic, political and legal systems.[47]

Key questions for Parliament

  • Should the government do more to support the implementation of public health approaches to policing across England and Wales, considering both the police, and health, care and other local services?
  • Should the police continue to implement the Right Care, Right Person model? Do mental health services have sufficient resource and capacity to bridge the gap?
  • Should drug diversion schemes be rolled out across England and Wales? Do drug treatment services have sufficient capacity and resource to respond to increased demand on services?
  • Should the government go further in taking a public health approach to drugs by decriminalising drug possession for personal use?
  • How effective have government measures to reduce youth violence been?
  • What international comparisons are useful for implementation of public health approaches to policing?

 

Source: DOI: https://doi.org/10.58248/HS62

Filed under: Crime/Violence/Prison,Health,Mental Health,Prevention and Intervention,Social Affairs,Treatment and Addiction,UK :

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