Daily news - 17th September 2015

UK news

On a high: why Britain is back on ecstasy

Ecstasy, along with its dance music soundtrack, is enjoying a resurgence with a new generation of clubbers. Are they responding to the crackdown on legal highs or the fact that the quality of the drug is better than ever? | Guardian, UK

Alcohol protects against heart attacks but increases cancer risk, study finds

Reseach reveals drinking alcohol was associated with a 24 per cent reduced risk of heart attack but increases the risk of cancer | Telegraph, UK

Legal Highs Ban Could Stop Incense From Being Used In Church Services, Groups Warn

The government's attempt to ban "legal highs" could criminalise priests who use incense during services, churches have warned | Huffington Post, UK

Evaluation report helps understand barriers to employment

Blenheim has published an evaluation of the drug and alcohol Education, Training and Employment service it provides in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The report contains key messages from service users about their needs and the barriers they face in gaining employment | Blenheim CDP, UK

Consultation for the development of a Quality Mark

We are seeking the opinions of educators about the development of a national quality mark to support the teaching of resilience | Mentor - ADEPIS, UK

New look at antidepressant suicide risks from infamous trial

You may never have heard of it, but Study 329 changed medicine. It was the first trial to highlight serious problems with a common class of antidepressants, but only now have the full results been opened up to independent scrutiny. They show that one drug is even more likely to trigger suicidal behaviour than we thought | New Scientist, UK

Coffee has secret trick to stop sleep

A cup of coffee in the evening may be keeping you awake for more reasons than you realise, scientists say | BBC, UK

Profit from drugs inside prisons feeding crime outside, police leaders warned

Police forces have been told to face up to the “fall-out” from Britain’s burgeoning prison population as the Government sets out a bold new-for-old building programme | Police Professional, UK

Six on trial in Wales' largest heroin haul worth £5m

Five men and a woman are on trial over Wales' largest heroin seizure, where 40kg of the drug worth nearly £5m was recovered by police | BBC, UK

Hunt for white van man after drugs haul

A white-van man is sought by investigators in connection with a multi-million pound drug-smuggling racket | BBC, UK

International news

Announcement: The 1st Joint Call for Proposals of ERANID - the ERA-Net on Illicit Drugs - is online!

The European Research Area Network on Illicit Drugs, is an ERA-NET scheme which consists of 9 organisations in 6 different EU Member States (BE, FR, IT, NL, PT & UK). The network aims to improve cooperation in drug research in order to allow well-founded policy decisions. A first Joint call was launched on 15 September 2015 and aims at funding multidisciplinary transnational research in “Understanding drug use pathways” | EURANID, Netherlands

Fighting Heroin Addiction - BBC World service

Will a photo of an Ohio mum and her small children posing next to her dead heroin addict partner's casket change attitudes? | BBC, UK

China's drug habit fuels return of the Golden Triangle

By the end of this year Myanmar should have been free of narcotics. Instead, production of opium is soaring and the East Asian country, once part of the fabled Golden Triangle, is the second largest producer in the world. Axel Kronholm investigates why | BBC, UK

Bathtub booze and knock-off whisky: inside China's fake alcohol industry

Drinkers are unwittingly knocking back fake alcohol brewed in bathtubs, which could lead to potentially serious health issues | Guardian, UK

Marseille in spotlight once again as La Castellane drug trial begins

City that has tried to shed image of corruption is hosting the trial of one of France’s most lucrative drug rings, which operated from a tower block ‘fortress’ | Guardian, UK

Jeb Bush admits he smoked marijuana in high school – video

Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush is outed as a former weed smoker during the Republican debate on Wednesday night. Kentucky senator Rand Paul was discussing drug laws when he said there was at least one prominent politician on stage who used to smoke marijuana. ‘He was talking about me’, Bush says, explaining he smoked the drug ‘40 years ago’ | Guardian, UK

Man suffers fractured neck, third degree burns and has hole blown through the roof of his mouth after e-cigarette explodes

A 23-year-old man suffered a fractured neck and finger, burns to his hand and eyes and had a hole blown through his palate after an e-cigarette blew up in his face | Telegraph, UK

Colorado's cannabis taxes go up in smoke for a day

Legal quirk prompts US state to suspend most taxes on recreational cannabis for the day | Guardian, UK

Lessons from a marijuana conference: stay in school and be nice to mom

For growers and retailers in Oregon’s soon-to-be-legal medical marijuana industry, there’s a world of opportunity. Here are their secrets to success | Guardian, UK

Trio jailed for 30 years each for trying to smuggle 400kg of cocaine into Australia

Court told three men tried to bring cocaine into Australia in 2010 via a drug-laden catamaran sailed over from South America | Guardian, UK

Directory of training courses

This Directory contains information about courses and training programmes on drug misuse for individuals and agencies interested in developing their knowledge, skills and capacity in this field | NDCDU, Ireland

Methadone increases death risk in first four weeks of treatment for opioid dependence

Patients who start treatment for dependence on opioids are five times as likely to die in the first four weeks when they are prescribed the most commonly used treatment, methadone, than with an alternative treatment, buprenorphine, a study by researchers at the University of Bristol, King's College London and the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW in Australia has found | Medical Xpress, USA

Crime ties are relative in youth offenders' substance abuse

A new UT Dallas study has found that having family or friends involved in crime was the best predictor of whether a youth offender would become a long-term marijuana user or heavy drinker | EurekAlert, USA

Blogs, comment and opinion

Blog: what does Recovery Month mean to you?

National Recovery Month is in full swing and at Phoenix we have seen the launch of the Recovery Street Film Festival, the Voyage of Recovery set sail, and hundreds of people take part in the UK Recovery Walk in Durham to kick off the celebrations. We asked a couple of Phoenix staff and supporters what the awareness-raising month means to them | Phoenix Futures, UK