 | |
 | |
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | ||||||||||
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| |
 | | New penalties for cannabis users announced Jacqui Smith said that those caught with cannabis for a second time would be fined £80 and after three strikes would be arrested. The drug was downgraded to class C in 2004, but fears over the increased use of stronger "skunk" strains among young people prompted a policy review and U-turn. Smith said she was "extremely concerned" about skunk, and its impact on mental health, especially if young people started to use it at an early age or "binge smoke". Skunk contains higher levels of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. "While cannabis has always been illegal, reclassifying it to a class B drug reinforces our message to everyone that it is harmful and should not be taken," she said. "Fewer people are taking cannabis, but it is crucial that this trend continues. I am extremely concerned about the use of stronger strains of cannabis, such as skunk, and the harm they can cause to mental health. Smith announced last May that she would go against the recommendations of the government's scientific experts, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which was asked by the home secretary to take its third look at cannabis classification in recent years. The council's advice was that cannabis should remain class C. Under current rules, anyone caught twice with cannabis can still walk away with a warning. Smith said she had accepted police chiefs' calls for escalating penalties for possession in England and Wales. Smith said: "This is the next step towards toughening up our enforcement response - to ensure that repeat offenders know that we are serious about tackling the danger that the drug poses to individuals and, in turn, communities. "We need to act now to protect future generations." Prosecutions and jail sentences for using and supplying cannabis plummeted after the then-home secretary David Blunkett downgraded cannabis in January 2004. But police began to report that drugs seizures were much more likely to involve skunk than resin or lower strength marijuana. Humberside chief constable Tim Hollis, who speaks on drugs for the Association of Chief Police Officers, promised a "harder line" on drug users. "Where cannabis use is repeated or where there are aggravating circumstances locally, officers will take a harder line on enforcement and escalate their response accordingly. "Every encounter at street level provides intelligence and helps us to act against the criminal gangs who seek to profit from cannabis production and distribution." Danny Kushlick from the Transform Drug Policy Foundation condemned the move, accusing ministers of "populist posturing". He said: "Escalating penalties for possession only serve to further marginalise and criminalise millions of otherwise law-abiding people. "Criminalisation of cannabis possession is discriminatory and disproportionate when compared with tobacco and alcohol possession and counterproductive in so far as it gifts the market to organised criminals and drives the trade underground." Driving after taking illegal drugs could mean year's ban and £5,000 fine The Government is considering a new offence under which police would need to prove only that drivers had taken a banned drug. As traces of drugs can stay in the body for several weeks, drivers could find themselves convicted of the new offence long after taking a substance. The DfT, however, said there would be safeguards in any new drug driving offence to prevent drivers from being prosecuted for having "inactive metabolites of cannabis in their system". There are very few prosecutions for drug-driving under the current law because it requires proof both that a drug was taken and that the driver was impaired by it. The Home Office is preparing to approve handheld devices that can be used to detect a range of drugs from a saliva sample given at the roadside. Philips, the Dutch electronics company, announced yesterday that it will start deliveries to police next year of a machine that detects five different drug groups, including cocaine, heroin and cannabis, in just 90 seconds from a single saliva sample. A Department for Transport consultation paper said the problem of drug driving was “serious and increasing” and largely going unpunished. In the past decade, there has been a six-fold increase in the proportion of road deaths in which the victim was found to have taken cannabis. As a first step, the Government intends to strengthen police powers to require a suspected drug driver to give a biological sample. In addition, the document says: “A driver could be convicted of a new offence if an appropriate test showed an illegal drug... our ultimate aim would be to treat in this way any illegal drug capable of impairing driving.” Rob Gifford, director of the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, said: “This is a very difficult area for legislation because you cannot say that the joint a person smoked four weeks ago caused him to have an accident today. The document concludes: “We accept that much more work will be needed to develop a workable solution to a complex problem.” Warning over early exposure to alcohol The new study, by the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), suggests that parents may have got it wrong. It found that if young people have their first taste of alcohol before the age of 15, it sharply raises their risk of becoming alcohol dependent later in life. Deborah Lawson, a research scientist at the NIAAA, said: "We can see for the first time the association between an early 'age of first drink' and an increased risk of alcohol disorders that persist into adulthood." The study involved data gathered from more than 22,000 young Americans over three years, which matched the age when a first alcoholic drink was taken with first incidence of alcohol abuse or dependence. The NIAAA's associate director, Howard Moss, said the study showed that it was important to delay the onset of drinking behaviour for as long as possible. The findings have emerged amid concern over the level of binge drinking among teenagers in Britain. In Scotland, a recent survey of 13-year-olds found 20% had had a drink in the previous week. Among 15-year-olds, 40% of boys and 46% of girls said they had had an alcoholic drink in the past week. Until now, it has been argued that exposing young teenagers to alcohol by giving them watered-down drinks is the best way them to educate them to consume alcohol responsibly. But the NIAAA study suggests early exposure to alcohol even in small quantities is a risk in itself. It means that giving children alcohol to prevent problems may have the opposite effect. One theory is that teenagers' brains are developing so fast that exposure to intoxicants can create a link between alcohol consumption and pleasure. Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, a cognitive neuroscience researcher at University College London, said: "The young brain is very malleable and changes fast in response to new influences." UK top of European cocaine league Annual figures from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction showed that 7.7% of Britons aged 15-64 had taken cocaine. The Home Office said the statistics and other figures suggested the overall use of drugs in the UK had stabilised. The figures suggested 11.2% of Britons aged 15-24, and 12.7% of those aged between 15-34, had taken cocaine. An estimated 12 million EU citizens aged 15-64 had taken cocaine at some point, 11 million had used amphetamines and 9.5 million had taken ecstasy. Some 71 million European citizens - about one in four people - had tried cannabis. The figure for cannabis in the UK was 30.1% of the 15-64 age group, topped only by France (30.6%) and Denmark (36.5%). The report also said ecstasy use had remained consistently higher in the UK compared to other countries. It added: "Data from a few countries suggest that cocaine could be replacing amphetamines and ecstasy among some sectors of the drug-using population. "This may be the case in the UK and Denmark, and to some extent in Spain." A Home Office spokesman said: "Home Office figures published last week show overall drug use in the UK is at an all time low and the number of seizures is up 15% on the last annual statistics. "Alongside this, new figures today show the number of problem drug users has remained stable. We continue to focus our efforts on reducing the harm caused by illegal drugs through tough enforcement, education and treatment." Doctors call for warnings on caffeine drinks The warning follows research into 28 energy drinks that found some had up to 14 times the caffeine as a can of cola, or the same as seven cups of strong coffee. The market for caffeine-rich energy drinks has exploded in recent years, causing some doctors concern at the lack of regulations on safe consumption. In the UK drinks with more than 150mg caffeine a litre must be labelled as "high caffeine content", but there is no upper limit, nor do drinks need to carry warnings about the potential risks of caffeine overdose. Roland Griffiths, at Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland, surveyed caffeine levels in energy drinks in the US and found they varied from 50mg for Whoop Ass to 505mg for Wired X505. A can of cola has around 35mg and coffee around 75mg. Cocaine Energy Drink, which was launched in the UK last month, contains 280mg while Red Bull has 80mg. Griffiths said: "These drinks are being very aggressively marketed, often to kids interested in extreme sports." People who drink tea and coffee regularly build up a tolerance, but Griffiths said younger people are at risk of overdosing. Writing in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Griffiths calls for energy drinks to carry the same warnings as caffeine pills, pointing out risks such as anxiety attacks, rapid heartbeats and nausea. Jamey Kirby, of Redux Beverages, in Las Vegas, which makes the Cocaine Energy Drink, said: "Energy drinks are coming under attack because of the branding and marketing strategies. If we were hurting people, we'd be having our ass sued off." One in five young people say they think parents have taken drugs The Addaction YouGov and Dubit surveys, which questioned almost 2000 adults and 500 young people selected at random in England and Scotland about their attitudes towards drugs and alcohol, reveals signs that the generation gap is closing between parents and their children on drugs. The majority of parents surveyed were between 35-44 years and grew up with the ‘rave generation’ of drug and dance culture. The majority of young people (59 per cent) say their parents ‘understand about drugs’. Nearly one in five (19 per cent) say they think their parents have taken drugs in the past and of those, one in ten say they think parents still take drugs. But while two thirds of parents (63 per cent) are concerned about the impact of media stories about celebrities taking drugs on their children, only one in ten (9 per cent) young people think celebrities make taking drugs seem ‘cool’. Young people showed a sophisticated approach to drugs, with nine in ten young people saying they feel under ‘little or no pressure’ to take drugs when with friends and almost all young people questioned (90 per cent) describing themselves as being ‘against’ drugs . Parents were more likely to think other people’s children were using drugs than their own, with the majority of adults saying parents ‘don’t take enough responsibility’ for their children’s behaviour (83 per cent). And while parents think children in their local neighbourhood take drugs (22 per cent) and drink alcohol (42 per cent), hardly any parents think their own children are using drugs (one per cent) or consuming alcohol (six per cent). Revealingly, only one in ten young people (eight per cent) said they would be most likely to tell their parents if they were using drugs. When asked what they would do if they found their child was taking drugs, well over half of parents (56 per cent) said they would manage problems within the family, rather than calling a helpline or turning to local support services. Record number treated for drug addiction But only 7,300 addicts, or 3.6% of the total, left the programmes drug-free, the National Treatment Agency found. More people than ever before were in treatment, said the agency, which oversees the £500m-a-year programme. But services must now "raise their game" and be more ambitious as they try to help addicts come off drugs, the agency said. The figures were a "watershed" and "over-achieved" the government's target of doubling those on the programme, the agency added. More than 82,000 people started treatment in 2007/08, of whom more than 64,000 (78%) remained in structured treatment for 12 weeks, according to the agency. Responding to the 3.6% figure, a spokeswoman said two-thirds of people remained in treatment at the end of each year, so could not be counted as having either "completed" or "failed" treatment. Of the 69,612 individuals who were discharged from treatment in 2007/08, more than 35,000 were "successful completions", she said. The agency said drug treatment services have used a variety of interpretations on how they measure the success of individuals completing and leaving the treatment system and a more robust system was needed. A system which ensures services return data in the same way will be implemented from April 2009, it said. This will define treatment completed "drug free" as no longer using heroin and crack cocaine, or any other drugs for which treatment is being received. Liberal Democrat shadow health secretary Norman Lamb said the government was losing the fight against drugs and called for a National Audit Office investigation into the cost-effectiveness of current treatment. "The current record of failure is disastrous both for those in treatment and the wider community who are placed at risk because of the close links between drug addiction and crime," he said. Why girls are far more likely to abuse drugs like speed, Ecstasy and cocaine than boys The report by a leading youth drugs agency found girls and young women are more likely than boys to have taken almost every recreational drug, including Ecstasy, cocaine, LSD and amphetamines. A quarter of females questioned admitted taking speed and Ecstasy, almost a half had used cannabis and more than one in five had tried cocaine. Ten per cent had taken the dance drug ketamine, 18 per cent had tried hallucinogenic mushrooms and more than 55 per cent had smoked. The figures for males were lower, with about 15 per cent admitting to taking amphetamines, Ecstasy, cocaine and magic mushrooms, 6.9 per cent trying ketamine, 45 per cent using cannabis and less than a third smoking. Researcher said the difference could be explained by girls and young women being exposed to drugs culture from an earlier age, both through older boyfriends and from being allowed into nightclubs. It was claimed door staff are likely to "turn a blind eye" to under-age girls who are heavily made-up and dressed for clubbing, especially if they were in groups or accompanied by an older boyfriend. The annual survey by Crew 2000, an Edinburgh-based drugs advice centre, which looked at 18 drugs, found two-thirds of girls had accessed more drugs than males. The findings supported those of the latest Scottish Schools Adolescent Lifestyle and Substance Use Survey report in 2006 which found girls were accessing drugs in clubs and discos more than boys. Carla Ellis, the project's operation manager, said: "Girls mature at an earlier age and are subjected to a range of role models from celebrities like Kate Moss to other adult influences around them in everyday life. "They are likely to have boyfriends who are a couple of years older and are able to get into clubs where they can access drugs. They reach a stage, earlier than boys, where they want to be mature and be accepted as part of that older group. Peer pressure can have an incredibly powerful effect on girls, contributing to the feeling that nothing can happen to them. Behaving as they do is a way of sticking two fingers up at society." Graeme Walker, 20, a PR and media student at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, said: "You are more likely to see under-age girls in clubs where they can get speed, Ecstasy and coke. I still get (asked for identification] on the door because bouncers are more likely to check a boy's ID than a girl's. But, at the same time, they will let in an under-age girl in a low-cut top with no questions." Rowdy Yates, senior research fellow in Scottish Addiction Studies at the University of Stirling, added: "One of the areas I've studied is heroin, and the majority of women have tended to become involved through older boyfriends and will continue that for many years." NHS alcohol services 'struggling' The National Audit Office said local health bosses did not have a clear idea of the scale of the problem and as a result were not co-ordinating services. In particular, the report called on GPs to take more responsibility as the NHS was struggling to reach those at the early stages of alcohol abuse. But the government said it was doing "more than ever" to tackle the problem. The criticism comes after the number of alcohol-related deaths has doubled since the early 1990s to nearly 9,000 a year. Hospital admissions for conditions such as liver disease have also soared, leaving the NHS bill for alcohol abuse at £2.7bn a year. The NAO quizzed primary care trusts (PCTs), which are in charge of local services, GPs and a host of experts providing alcohol services. It found that a quarter of PCTs had not carried out assessments of the problem locally, four in 10 did not have a strategy in place and a third did not know what they were spending on the problem. Where evidence on investment was available, just £600,000 a year - or 0.1% of the budget - was spent on average. The report said, because of the lack of co-ordination, the services were not providing value for money. It said most of the responsibility was being placed on drug and alcohol action teams, which were often run jointly with councils, but these tended to focus on the most serious cases that required detox and counselling programmes. It meant that too little was being done for the estimated 7m hazardous drinkers - those drinking above the recommended limits but who were not yet seeing their health affected. The NAO said GPs were in the ideal position to help these groups of people through the use of brief advice during consultations on how to reduce drinking levels. But the report added that currently this only happened sporadically. Mark Davies, who oversees health at the NAO, said: "The NHS is just not getting to grips with the issue. It needs to take a much wider approach and improve the way it is delivering it services." Don Shenker, chief executive of Alcohol Concern, added: "There is a clear case for urgent improvement to treatment services, if we want to see an end to spiralling costs of alcohol misuse to the NHS." But a Department of Health spokesman said the government was doing "more than ever" to tackle alcohol-related problems. He added: "Most PCTs with high levels of hospital admissions have already decided to tackle this as a local NHS priority. "We have appointed regional alcohol managers to support the local NHS and develop regional strategies to reduce alcohol misuse." Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, said there were moves to encourage more brief interventions. But he added: "Patients often tend to underestimate their consumption and underplay any problems." Cigarette drink aims to beat smoking ban Dutch suppliers United Drinks and Beauty Corporation, hopes the drink will be on sale here before Christmas as they aim to target the opposite end of the energy drinks market. The manufacturers say it does not contain the drug nicotine, but rather a mix of roots from South African plants which is said to give "a slight energising effect, followed by a euphoric sense of calming and relaxation." It has less than 21 calories per 275ml can and would cost £1.50 in the shops. Although there will be no lower age limit to buy it, the makers believe it should not be drunk by anyone under 15. United Drinks Chief Executive Martin Hartman said: "The product we have developed has got similar properties to nicotine, so we are trying to help people out who are affected by the ban on nicotine People might use this instead of a cigarette or tobacco to help the cravings. He added: "It will take the edge off of a need for nicotine for between one to four hours. "I think it will help people who feel the need for nicotine in bars, restaurants, long-haul flights and on the train." Anti-smoking groups have already expressed their concern however. Amanda Sanford, from Action on Smoking and Health said: "Although we welcome anything which is a genuine alternative [to nicotine], many of these are totally unregulated and we only have the manufacturer's word about what they contain. "We would be concerned about any health claims that are unsubstantiated, and at this stage we wouldn't encourage people to buy them." A Third of routine Drinkers Get Potentially Fatal Liver Damage Professor Rajiv Jalan, head of the liver failure group at University College London hospitals and one of the authors of the study, said: "These are people working in offices who we routinely encounter.They are representative of working people in our society and they are at risk." The study looked at results from more than 1,000 men and women, mostly aged 36 to 55, who used home testing kits to measure liver damage. The kits measure specific enzymes in the blood, high levels of which indicate liver abnormalities. More than 70 per cent of those involved in the study said they regularly drank more than the government's recommended limit of 14 units of alcohol a week for women and 21 units for men, and 41 per cent of them said they drank every day. The results showed at least 30 per cent of the people tested had liver abnormalities. The worrying findings will be published in the medical journal Hepatology and come as the government considers the introduction of national screening to counter rising levels of liver disease. Up to two million people in Britain have chronic liver disease and many are unaware of their illness. Deaths from the disease have increased by eight times in men aged 35 to 44 and by seven times in women over the past 30 years. Doctors warn that symptoms of liver disease are not felt until too late and by that time patients have up to a 50 per cent chance of dying early. A Medical Research Council study found that intelligent people can be at greater risk of alcohol problems as they seek to cope with stressful jobs. ‘Getting Hammered: Young People and Alcohol and ‘Stoned Again? Working with Cannabis Users Courses: The ‘Getting Hammered’ course will be taking place in Cardiff, Swansea, Abergele in January and in Manchester, Liverpool and Blackburn in March 2009. The ‘Stoned Again?’ course is being held in Newquay on December 15th 2008 and then in Portsmouth, Southampton and Bournemouth in April 2009. If you would like to receive information about a seminar near you, and a booking form, then please e-mail us at: office@drugstraining.com Drugs 'cost UK £110bn in ten years' The sum, which is the total health and crime costs of Class A drug use, is published in a new report by drug and alcohol treatment charity Addaction. The report claims that just 3% (£3bn) of total spending on drug-related issues has gone to actually tackling drug addiction in the UK. The report claims that since the start of the current ten-year plan, which began in 1998, the cost of drug related crime has risen to £100bn, with health costs contributing a further £10bn to the total. It suggests that last year alone, these costs came to £16.4bn, with each person who remained dependant on illegal drugs costing the UK around £44,000. This includes the costs of providing medical treatment and crime-related problems. The document concludes that the total cost of providing medical treatment to Class A drug users in the last 12 months was £560m while the cost of processing drug users through the criminal justice amounts to £2.6bn a year. Addaction chief executive Deborah Cameron said: "Illegal drug use is costing the UK taxpayer £16.4 billion a year, which is more than one and a half times the cost of holding the Olympic Games in 2012. "Many of the millions spent by the Government on dealing with the consequences of the hugely profitable drugs trade in this country could be recovered if drug users were given a better route out of a life dependent on drugs." Sharp rise in cocaine use by workers Employers conducting random drug tests found a 34 per cent increase in positive tests for cocaine in 2007, according to Concateno, the UK’s largest drug and alcohol testing company. Last year one in 145 employees tested positive for cocaine, meaning they had consumed it in the previous two days. In 1997 the figure was one in 1,000. The new data suggest cocaine use is no longer limited to bankers working long hours. Suspicions of widespread drug use in the City are common, but few firms conduct random drug tests. Iain McNicol of the drugs charity Druglink said: “Cocaine is now the recreational drug of choice . The cost has come down dramatically in the past few years. “Whereas people might have previously smoked a joint at the weekend to relax, they now go for coke on a Friday night.” Positive test results for other drugs and alcohol are also on the rise, albeit at a considerably slower rate. About 5 per cent of workers tested positive for drugs and alcohol last year, a 5.4 per cent increase on 2006, according to Concateno. Testing positive does not necessarily indicate that employees were incapacitated at work. Most drugs are eliminated from the system within two days, but cannabis use can be detected for up to one month. The proportion of employers testing staff for drug and alcohol use is also rising, according to a survey carried out by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Some 22 per cent of employers test their employees for drug and alcohol use, either randomly or when hiring new recruits. A further 9 per cent said they were planning to introduce testing. According to the same survey, 31 per cent of employers had dismissed staff because of alcohol abuse in the past two years and 15 per cent because of drug problems. The steady increase in the number of positive drugs tests – up by a fifth over a decade – will encourage opponents of random testing, who say it does little to dissuade workers from taking drugs. Hugh Robertson, a health and safety policy officer with the Trades Union Congress, said: “There’s no evidence at all that drugs testing makes the workplace any safer or healthier. “We don’t condone people putting themselves at risk because they’re impaired by drugs, but we don’t see what someone’s Saturday night habits have to do with their employers.” Most drug testing in the UK is conducted in safety-critical industries such as shipping, railways and construction, where pre-employment and random drug testing is mandatory. | ||||||||||
Edition 20 | ||||||||||||
New penalties for cannabis users announced Driving after taking illegal drugs could mean year's ban and £5,000 fine Warning over early exposure to alcohol UK top of European cocaine league Doctors call for warnings on caffeine drinks One in five young people say they think parents have taken drugs Record number treated for drug addiction Why girls are far more likely to abuse drugs like speed, Ecstasy and cocaine than boys NHS alcohol services 'struggling' Cigarette drink aims to beat smoking ban A Third of routine Drinkers Get Potentially Fatal Liver Damage ‘Getting Hammered: Young People and Alcohol and ‘Stoned Again? Working with Cannabis Users Courses: Drugs 'cost UK £110bn in ten years' Sharp rise in cocaine use by workers | ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||
| | | | | | | | | | | | |
| |
| |