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POLICY SHIFT
The Obama administration has published
its
2013 national drug control strategy
,
which includes a commitment to reform
the country’s criminal justice system
through alternatives to jail for non-violent
drug offenders. Other key aims are to
prevent drug use through education,
expand access to treatment and ‘support
Americans in recovery’. ‘There are no easy
answers to the drug problem, but
experience has shown us that by breaking
down silos and collaborating across
disciplines, we can make a real and lasting
change,’ said director of national drug
control policy Gil Kerlikowske.
www.whitehouse.gov
MINORITY REPORT
A new report on developing prevention
services targeted at minority groups has
been launched by EMCDDA. The study
analyses interventions in nearly 30
European countries, and offers guidance
on how to choose and adapt programmes
and select the workforce implementing
them.
Drug prevention interventions
targeting minority ethnic populations at
www.emcdda.europa.eu
PRIORITY REPORT
Public Health England has launched a
document setting out its priorities for
2013-14, including to ‘improve recovery
rates from drug dependency, recognising
this as the core purpose of drug
treatment’. The organisation ‘can and will
make important progress in our first year
by focusing on a small number of key
actions with the greatest potential to make
a difference to health and wellbeing in
England,’ states the publication.
Our
priorities for 2013/14 at www.gov.uk/govern
ment/organisations/public-health-england
RADIO WAVES
UK Recovery Radio (
DDN
, March, page 17)
has recorded its first podcast, featuring
interviews with people in recovery and
professionals from across the addictions
field.
Listen at
recoveryradio.blogspot.co.uk/p/the.html
BLEAK ADMISSION
One in 11 hospital admissions for liver
disease in England resulted in a hospital
death last year, compared to one in 72
admissions overall, according to the Health
and Social Care Information Centre
(HSCIC). Nearly half of all liver disease
admissions are for alcoholic liver disease.
Report at www.hscic.gov.uk
Minimum unit pricing (MUP) is ‘not dead and buried’,
chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Alcohol
Misuse, Tracey Crouch MP, told Alcohol Concern’s
recent
Happy families?
conference (see news focus,
page 6). However, it ‘will be delayed’.
‘I’m extremely disappointed that government is likely to
delay its implementation,’ she told the event, but stressed
that there was still ‘considerable’ support within
government. ‘I’m pressing, along with colleagues, for its
implementation. It’s a shame that we had a secretary of
state who wasn’t committed to it, because we’d be a lot
further along with it now if that hadn’t been the case.’
Public health minister Anna Soubry has also stated that
MUP was ‘still official policy’ in an interview with
Total
Politics
magazine, and that she was now convinced of its
merits, having previously expressed concerns about the
potential impact on lower-income responsible drinkers.
‘You have to get the balance right, especially with public
health, so that you take the measures that benefit the
public’s health but without causing people to resent you,’
she told the publication.
Meanwhile, a study by researchers from the London
School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the University
of York has concluded that the alcohol industry ‘ignored,
misrepresented and undermined’ scientific evidence in
submissions to the Scottish Government’s 2008 consultation
on minimum pricing and other measures.
Researchers studied nearly 30 submissions to the
Changing Scotland’s relationship with alcohol
consultation,
including those from the Portman Group, Tesco, ASDA and
the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. Submissions raised
‘concerns’ over the industry’s ‘ongoing involvement with
policy making’, says the study, which is published in the
peer-reviewed journal
PLOS Medicine
.
‘There is a broad consensus internationally among
researchers that the most effective measures to control
problems caused by alcohol are to raise the price, control
availability and restrict marketing activities,’ said lead
researcher Dr Jim McCambridge. ‘However, our study
shows that key players in the alcohol industry constructed
doubt about this wealth of scientific evidence and instead
chose to promote weak survey-based evidence as well as
making unsubstantiated claims to their advantage.’
The tactics meant it was harder for governments to
make evidence-based policy where the industry was
involved, he added. ‘The public interest is not served by
the alcohol industry’s misinterpretation of research
evidence and we must consider to what extent we should
allow the health of the population to be compromised by
these commercial interests.’
The BMA has also called on MEPs to consider the public
health impact of alcohol in response to the legal challenge to
the Alcohol Minimum Pricing (Scotland) Act mounted by the
Scotch Whisky Association and other bodies on the grounds
that it breaches European trade rules.
‘Evidence clearly demonstrates the link between alcohol
price and consumption and that is why doctors in the UK
and internationally recognise the importance of introducing
pricing mechanisms to reduce alcohol-related health harm,’
said BMA Scottish council deputy chair Charles Saunders.
‘Those who have opposed minimum pricing have dismissed
such evidence and instead have presented opinion as
evidence in a crude attempt to protect profits and business
interests. I hope that MEPs will consider in full the public
health impact as this issue is debated in Europe.’
Industry use of evidence to influence alcohol policy: a
case study of submissions to the 2008 Scottish Government
consultation at www.plosmedicine.org
4 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| May 2013
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Alcohol minimum unit
pricing still on the cards
News |
Round-up
NEWS IN BRIEF
Cultivating a problem?
Twelve
Afghan provinces are likely to
show an increase in opium
cultivation this year, according
to UNODC’s
Afghanistan
opium risk assessment 2013
,
with cultivation also expected
in provinces previously
considered poppy-free. The
findings point to a ‘worrying
situation’, says the report,
with high prices making
cultivation an attractive
option. There also remains a
‘strong association between
insecurity, lack of agricultural
assistance and opium
cultivation’, with villages that
had not received assistance in
the previous year significantly
more likely to grow opium.
UNODC recently announced its
intention to promote
grassroots development in
poor communities dependent
on drug crops, in association
with the United Nations
Industrial Development
Organization (UNIDO).
Meanwhile, a UNODC study on
organised crime in East Asia
and the Pacific found that
more than $16bn worth of
heroin was trafficked in the
region in 2011, two thirds of
which was produced in
Myanmar.
Reports at
www.unodc.org