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MYANMAR OPIUM INCREASE
Opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar
increased by 17 per cent this year and
has risen for six years in a row,
according to UNODC, despite a
‘significant increase’ in government
eradication efforts. The country is the
world’s second biggest opium grower
after Afghanistan, accounting for around
25 per cent of illicit poppy cultivation
worldwide, says
South-East Asia opium
survey 2012 – Lao PDR, Myanmar
.
Opium prices in Myanmar have also
increased by 15 per cent, mainly as a
result of currency fluctuations, and
although smaller in quantity, cultivation
in Lao also increased by 66 per cent this
year. ‘Eradication alone is not an
effective response to reduce opium
poppy cultivation,’ said UNODC’s Jason
Eligh. ‘We must remember why farmers
grow poppy – in most cases it is
because they need cash to buy food to
feed their families.’
Available at
www.unodc.org
SHOCKING STATISTICS
The average age of death for homeless
people is now 47, compared to 77 for
the general population, according to
Crisis, with the average age for homeless
women even lower, at 43. Homeless
people have 20 times the likelihood of
dying from drugs, says
Homelessness
kills
, and between seven and nine times
the chance of dying from alcohol-related
causes. ‘For too long homeless people
have been failed by the health system –
frequently left unable to register with a
GP or access the specialist services they
need,’ states the charity.
Available at
www.crisis.org.uk
BOOMER BOOZERS
The ‘baby boomer’ generation is the
greatest burden on the NHS in terms of
alcohol-related health costs, according to
Alcohol Concern’s new ‘alcohol harm
map’, which offers a complete picture of
alcohol-related health costs across
England by local authority. Inpatient
costs for the 55 to 74 age group – at
£826m – are more than ten times those
of 16 to 24-year-olds, the group usually
associated with binge drinking. ‘It is the
middle-aged, and often middle-class
drinkers, regularly drinking above
recommended limits, who are actually
requiring complex and expensive NHS
care,’ said chief executive Eric Appleby.
Available at www.alcoholconcern.org.uk
There should be a wholesale review of both the
Misuse of Drugs Act and the drugs classification
system, according to a report from the UK Drug Policy
Commission (UKDPC).
The culmination of a six-year study,
A fresh approach to
drugs
also calls for reduced sanctions for drug possession,
more consistency in controls over all psychoactive
substances, including alcohol and tobacco, and a review of
penalties for all drug offences, although it recommends that
the production and supply of most drugs should remain illegal.
Much of the spending on tackling illicit drug use, which
UKDPC estimates at around £3bn per year, is not based on
evidence, it says, with some policies – including seizures by
police and border agencies – having ‘little or no’ impact.
‘With some 42,000 people in England and Wales sentenced
annually for drug possession offences and about 160,000
given cannabis warnings, this amounts to a lot of time and
money for police, prosecution and courts,’ the report says.
‘On top of this comes the cost to the individual in terms of
damage to employment prospects’, with people also
deterred from seeking help because they are ‘doing
something illegal’.
Existing drug policies have struggled to limit the damage
caused by drug use, and are unable to keep pace with the
ever-developing range of new substances, it says. With fewer
resources available, a ‘radical rethink’ of responses is called
for, says the report, which analyses how policies and
interventions could be improved to create a ‘fresh approach’,
with evidence taking priority and an ‘environment that works
to reduce dependence’ and safeguard communities.
The report makes a range of other recommendations,
including more action to tackle stigma and support families,
as well as transferring responsibility for drug policy from the
Home Office to the Department of Health and creating a
cross-party political forum to develop dialogue about future
policy direction. All drug policies should undergo ‘rigorous
and continual scrutiny’ to make sure they are providing
value for money, it adds, with a new independent body
established to coordinate research.
DrugScope said it supported a review of the Misuse of
Drugs Act, including the use of civil rather than criminal
sanctions for personal possession of some drugs, and –
although other recommendations were more challenging –
serious public debate was welcome. ‘The media and our
politicians have an important role to play in shaping this
debate, which should not be reduced to a black and white
adversarial argument,’ said chief executive Martin Barnes.
‘Progress in this highly emotive and politicised arena will
occur when policymakers and politicians can more openly
express their views without fear of opprobrium.’
Meanwhile, a report from the London School of
Economics and Political Science (LSE) says that
international policy drug policy needs radical reform to
‘remove outmoded, unscientific thinking’. Empirical data
showing that the current system has failed is
‘overwhelming’, says
The global drug wars
, with the
human cost of many international policies – which
governments pursue through a mix of ‘bureaucratic and
ideological inertia’ – rendering them ‘unjustifiable’.
Available at www.ukdpc.org.uk and www2.lse.ac.uk
4 |
drinkanddrugsnews
| November 2012
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Time for a ‘fresh approach’
to policy, says UKDPC
News |
Round-up
NEWS IN
BRIEF
Scots consider methadone evidence
The Scottish Government has commissioned an
independent expert group to ‘objectively consider the
evidence’ supporting the role of opiate replacement
therapy in treating problematic drug use.
The panel will make recommendations to the government
to ensure that ‘such medical interventions are being used
appropriately and in line with the international evidence base’.
The move follows the announcement of a record number
of drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2011 (
DDN
, September,
page 4), of which methadone was ‘implicated in, or
potentially contributed to’, 47 per cent. Although it was not
known how many of the deaths were among people who
had been prescribed the substitute medication, the
Daily
Record
newspaper ran a number of articles highly critical of
methadone prescribing and demanding a public inquiry.
The expert group will be led by chief medical officer
Harry Burns, in collaboration with the independent Scottish
Drugs Strategy Delivery Commission, and is expected to
deliver its recommendations next spring.
‘I highly value and respect the important work being
done across Scotland by clinicians and professional
practitioners in treating people seeking to tackle their own
drug addictions,’ said minister for community safety and
legal affairs Roseanna Cunningham. While prescribed drug
treatment had saved ‘many thousands of lives in Scotland’,
however, it was the responsibility of professionals to
‘determine the most appropriate treatment for each person
seeking medical help with addiction problems’, she added.
‘The Scottish Government is clear that prescribed drug
treatment is not, and cannot be, the only treatment option
available on the pathway to recovery. People have a right to
a full range of treatment and support options and to decide,
in consultation with professionals, what is best for them.’
The chief medical officer’s intervention could hopefully
‘help to establish a consensus’, said Scottish Drugs Forum
(SDF) director David Liddell. However, it was unfortunate that
methadone had become a ‘political football’, he added, with
the numbers on substitute prescriptions used as evidence
that Scotland’s drug strategy was not working – a ‘simplistic’
analysis. ‘We need to have our best politicians thinking more
deeply about why people use substances and what responses
can be made,’ he said. ‘Methadone is merely a response to a
large-scale problem and it does not seek to address the cause.
Politicians realise this fact in private but sadly their public
utterances would sometimes suggest otherwise.’
SDF 2011/12 annual report available at www.sdf.org