HEP STEP UP
The Hepatitis C Trust is joining forces with
Addaction to improve efforts to tackle the virus,
with a shared member of staff delivering a
training programme to 600 frontline workers.
Around 2,000 people thought to be at risk will be
tested and referred to specialist secondary care.
‘We are excited to be working in partnership with
such a large organisation as Addaction,’ said
Hepatitis C Trust chief executive Charles Gore.
‘This is an enormous opportunity to reach tens
of thousands of people at risk of hepatitis C.
With so many people yet to be diagnosed in the
UK, this partnership could make a major
difference.’ The trust has also won a £25,000
GlaxoSmithKline IMPACT award for its
‘outstanding contribution to improving health’
and ‘significant impact on policy makers, both
nationally and internationally’.
HEROIN EVIDENCE
The EMCDDA has issued the first ‘state-of-the-
art overview’ of research on heroin-assisted
treatment, studying evidence from Europe and
further afield. Supervised use of medicinal
heroin could be an ‘effective second-line
treatment’ for heroin users who fail to respond
to other interventions, says EMCDDA. ‘New
heroin-assisted treatment is an issue that has
attracted much attention, controversy and
often confusion’, said EMCDDA Director
Wolfgang Götz. ‘We hope that this report will
help policymakers and practitioners draw their
own conclusions about this type of treatment
within their own national context’.
New heroin-assisted treatment available at
www.emcdda.europa.eu
BEREAVEMENT STUDY
Researchers at the University of Bath have
received a grant of more than £450,000 from
the Economic and Social Research council for a
study of families who have lost loved ones to
alcohol or drugs. The team will carry out in-depth
interviews with families and consult with
practitioners and policy makers to help develop
guidelines for people working to support
bereaved family members. ‘At a time when
substance misuse related deaths are increasing
and support for bereaved families lacking, the
study will address a significant gap in
understanding and addressing the needs of this
group,’ said researcher Dr Christine Valentine.
SOREK SWANSONG
Drinkaware chief executive Chris Sorek is
leaving the charity at the end of next month,
after three and a half years in the post. ‘I will
miss being part of Drinkaware and am
incredibly proud of what the charity has
become,’ he said.
New psychoactive substances were detected in the
EU at the rate of approximately one per week last
year, according to the European Monitoring Centre
for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).
Forty-nine new drugs were officially notified for the
first time through the EU early warning system (EWS) in
2011, the most ever reported, according to the
EMCDDA-Europol 2011 annual report
.
All of the new drugs were synthetic, with 23 new
cannabinoids – used to produce drugs such as ‘spice’ –
and eight new synthetic cathinones. Five new chemical
families of cannabinoids were detected.
‘New drugs (’legal highs’) have become a global
phenomenon which is developing at an unprecedented
pace,’ the report states. ‘The speed at which new
drugs appear on the market – reflected not only in the
sheer number of substances, but also in their diversity
and in how they are produced, distributed and
marketed – challenges established procedures for
monitoring, responding to and controlling the use of
new psychoactive substances.’ Forty-one new
substances were reported in 2010 (
DDN
, June 2011,
page 5) and 24 in 2009.
The European Commission (EC) is proposing
stronger EU legislation on new psychoactive
substances, which would enhance monitoring and risk
assessment of substances as well as improve alignment
of the laws relating to drug control, product safety,
consumer protection and medicine to cover ‘the wide
variety of substances that emerge’. The legislation
would also enable ‘a faster response to the emergence
of substances’, potentially through increased use of
temporary bans on those deemed to pose ‘immediate
risks’. The legal high methoxetamine – or ‘mexxy’ –
recently became the first substance to be banned in the
UK under a temporary class drug order (TCDO) (
DDN
,
April, page 4).
‘The simple fact is that a dangerous game of roulette
is being played by those who consume an ever-growing
variety of powders, pills and mixtures, without accurate
knowledge of what substances they contain and the
potential health risks they may pose,’ said EMCDDA
director, Wolfgang Götz. ‘We must continue to enhance
Europe’s ability to detect and respond quickly and
appropriately to these developments. This requires
networking and the sharing of information and it requires
greater investment in forensic analysis and research’.
Report available at www.emcdda.europa.eu
4 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| May 2012
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
New synthetic drug detected
in EU ‘every week’
News |
Round-up
Minimum alcohol pricing could ‘push
people to black market’
The introduction of a minimum price per unit of alcohol
and ban on multi-buy promotions could lead to a surge in
potentially dangerous black market alcohol, according to
the Local Government Association (LGA).
Although the LGA is in favour of giving local health
authorities the power to intervene in licensing conditions,
it has expressed concerns at other aspects of the
government’s alcohol strategy, announced earlier this year
(
DDN
, April, page 4). Focusing on affordability fails to
address the root causes of binge drinking, it says.
Illicit alcohol is an increasingly lucrative area of
operation for organised criminal gangs (
DDN
, August 2011,
page 6). Tests on bottles of fake vodka seized by trading
standards officers reveal ‘alarming’ levels of methanol,
says the LGA, which could potentially cause blindness or
death, and other industrial chemicals used in pesticides
and cleaning fluids have also been found. Trading
standards officers in Southampton recently found 35
bottles of fake Jacob’s Creek wine, with ‘Australia’
misspelled on the label.
‘We are concerned that targeting cheap alcohol could
push people to the black market and cheaper drinks,’ said
chair of the LGA's Community Wellbeing Board, Cllr David
Rogers. ‘When drinking counterfeit brands, you can never
be sure what you are putting into your body. People who
think they are getting a bargain could end up making
themselves blind or even drinking themselves to death.
National gestures like minimum pricing and banning
multi-buy discounts will only go so far in deterring binge
drinking and don't take into account the varying issues in
town and city centres across the country. We need to see
councils given the powers and flexibility to tackle
problems locally.’
Scotland’s Alcohol Minimum Pricing Bill has been
amended at stage 2 of its passage through the Scottish
Parliament to include a ‘sunset clause’ to allow minimum
pricing provisions to expire after six years if they are seen
as having been ineffective. The new clause addressed
concerns that minimum pricing had not been tried
elsewhere, said health secretary Nicola Sturgeon.
Meanwhile, a survey by Alcohol Concern Cymru reveals
that 77 per cent of Welsh publicans support a minimum
price per unit. More than 60 per cent expected their
business to decline in the coming year, with most blaming
cheap supermarket promotions.
‘Landlords are telling us that it's unfair that they are
blamed for so many of the alcohol-related problems in
society, whilst supermarkets are allowed to continue to sell
heavily discounted alcohol,’ said Alcohol Concern
spokesperson Mark Leyshon.
‘A minimum price would set a baseline price below
which alcohol could not be sold. This would leave pub
prices largely unaffected, but would stop supermarkets
and off licenses selling very cheap alcohol.’
News in Brief