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Contact Jackie to advertise here - £75/month

 

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Advance programme

 

Reduce intimate partner violence perpetration in the context of substance use 

 

4 in 10 men in substance use treatment abuse their partners. We developed the ADVANCE-D Programme to address the complex interplay between substance use and intimate partner violence perpetration.

Register for a free virtual information session about the ADVANCE-D Programme on 15 May @ 12-13pm presented by Professors Gail Gilchrist from King's College London and Liz Gilchrist from the University of Edinburgh.

Learn about this innovative programme that can be offered locally as an in-person, virtual or hybrid intervention. Visit reduceipv.co.uk for more details

 

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Exchange Supplies Low Dead Space Syringes

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University West of Scotland Contemporary Drug & Alcohol Studies 

UWS’s Postgraduate Programme in Contemporary Drug & Alcohol Studies (CDAS) is a fantastic course for people looking to work and research in this area, and for practitioners looking to develop their practice. The course is grounded in the UK and global in outlook.

Students are supported to:

- examine social, cultural, and political influences on drug/alcohol use and policies,

- explore the evidence for responses that reduce harms and support recovery,

- undertake a work-based placement to apply learning into practice.

We offer a range of study options and a supportive student-centred learning environment. For more information email April Shaw, Programme Lead or click here

 

If you want to hear more, please join our Online Open Evening on Wednesday May 21st at 7pm.

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Talk About Trust logo

 

The 5th Alcohol, Drugs and Nicotine Education Conference

18th June Bournemouth University

Join the Talk About Trust and experts in prevention, early intervention and harm reduction on the 18th June.  The conference’s aim is to ensure professionals working with young people are equipped with recent facts and trends, best practice, case studies and resources to enable the delivery of age/ability appropriate drug, alcohol and nicotine education in schools and alternative settings. The afternoon offers a choice of practical workshops – including accredited CPD options with resources and lesson plans to take away.

 

For further information and to book, please click here

 

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ESH

ESH Community – maintaining last year’s prices for the start of 2025!

We’re a small not-for-profit residential drug and alcohol rehab centre providing professional medically assisted detox and rehabilitation services, and although everyone’s costs to provide services are increasing we’ve decided to maintain last year’s prices for the start of 2025. 

 

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Give us a call to see how we can help.

Comments / sponsorship

If you have any comments about DrugWise Daily or to find out about sponsorship please contact the Editor: Jackie Buckle

 

 

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DrugWise Daily, X, BlueSky and Facebook are intended purely as current awareness resources. DrugWise Daily does not endorse nor guarantee the accuracy of the information provided by external sources/links, and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such data. See our editorial policy here

 

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DrugWise Daily

16th May 2025

 

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UK news

People with more nature in their neighbourhood smoke and drink less, study finds

A new international collaboration led by the University of Exeter has found residential greenspace is associated with a significant reduction in health risk behaviours such as smoking and everyday drinking. The study found people living in the greenest neighbourhoods were 13 per cent less likely to be current smokers and 31 per cent less likely to drink alcohol every day than those in less green areas | University of Exeter, UK

Share your thoughts on making referrals to residential rehab and post-rehab support

IFF Research is conducting research on behalf of Public Health Scotland (PHS) to understand how the landscape has changed since early 2023 for professionals referring individuals experiencing difficulties with drugs and/or alcohol to residential rehabilitation and for providers of post-rehabilitation support. We conducted some baseline research in 2023 to assess the organisation, accessibility, and effectiveness of residential rehabilitation services for individuals with substance use issues across Scotland. We are now seeking to find out how organisations involved in the referral to residential rehabilitation and the delivery of post-rehab support have changed, to identify any evidence of improvements, successes and challenges faced | IFF Research, UK

Faculty of Public Health publishes call to action ahead of Scottish Parliament election

The Committee of the Faculty of Public Health in Scotland (CFPHS) has published a call to action for a healthier, fairer and more productive Scotland ahead of the May 2026 Scottish Parliamentary election | FPH, UK

Minister alarmed by ketamine use after man's death

A Home Office minister has told a coroner the government is "concerned" that harm caused by ketamine abuse "may be significantly underestimated" by users | BBC, UK

NHS in-patient addiction unit set to close

The only NHS-run inpatient drug and alcohol unit in the west is to close despite a campaign to save it. The Acer Unit, based in the grounds of Southmead Hospital in Bristol, will close its doors at the end of June this year | BBC, UK

What is popcorn lung? The serious and irreversible disease linked to vaping

Vaping is especially popular among teenagers and young adults, but fruity, candy-like flavours come with a chemical cost | Independent, UK

The Family Drug and Alcohol Court Working Group

Will the Counsel General provide an update on the work of the family drug and alcohol court working group | They work for you, UK

Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder: Diagnosis

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve early diagnosis of foetal alcohol spectrum disorder | They work for you, UK

Electronic Cigarettes: Prescriptions

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to make e-cigarettes available on prescription for smoking cessation | They work for you, UK

Locals fight 24/7 booze licence on Otley Run route

It is feared that if a Nisa Local shop in Headingley, close to the notorious Otley Run, is allowed to sell alcohol after midnight it would lead to rowdy student parties and "friction" between families and the area's younger residents | BBC, UK

Driver high on nitrous oxide struck pedestrian

A teenager high on nitrous oxide knocked down a pedestrian before her car overturned and ended up on its side in the road | BBC, UK

 

International news

Lower taxes on Heated Tobacco Products are subsidising tobacco industry – new research

Governments which impose lower taxes on heated tobacco products in the hope of encouraging smokers away from (combustion) cigarettes are effectively subsidising the tobacco industry, missing out on much-needed tax revenues and hampering their own public health initiatives, new research from the University of Bath and Johns Hopkins University shows | University of Bath, UK

Monitoring the opioid epidemic via social media discussions

The opioid epidemic persists in the U.S., with over 80,000 deaths annually since 2021, primarily driven by synthetic opioids. Responding to this evolving epidemic requires reliable and timely information. One source of data is social media platforms. We assessed the utility of Reddit data for surveillance, covering heroin, prescription, and synthetic drugs. We built a natural language processing pipeline to identify opioid-related content and created a cohort of 1,689,039 Reddit users, each assigned to a state based on their previous Reddit activity. We measured their opioid-related posts over time and compared rates against CDC overdose and NFLIS report rates | Nature, UK

Psilocybin better preserves depressed patients' emotional response to music than standard drug, study finds

Researchers at Imperial College London's Center for Psychedelic Research recently carried out a study aimed at better understanding the effects of psilocybin treatment on the processing of music and the experience of emotions, comparing them to those of escitalopram, a widely used SSRI | Medical Xpress, USA

Canadian cannabis use climbs slightly while curbing misuse under legalization

Researchers from McMaster University observed a modest increase in cannabis use frequency and a concurrent decrease in cannabis misuse among adults in Canada over five years of recreational cannabis legalization. Frequent users before legalization exhibited the largest reductions in misuse and frequency | Mediical Xpress, USA

Props for Public Drug-Checking, From Someone Who Sold MDMA in the ’90s

In 1997 I went off to college, at an East Coast Jesuit school where everyone was really into athletics. The other students liked to drink and party, but no one really cared about the rave scene except me | Filter Magazine, USA

New research highlights hidden patterns of harm associated with intimate partner violence involving alcohol and other drugs

A new study has found ambulance attendance rates for alcohol or drug-related intimate partner violence are higher in Victoria's most disadvantaged areas and regional or remote communities | Monash University, Australia

Reassuring new evidence about the safety of smoking cessation pharmacotherapies during pregnancy

A multinational cohort study led by Australian researchers finds no clear evidence that prenatal exposure to smoking cessation pharmacotherapies causes congenital malformations in babies | MJA Insight, Australia

 

Blogs, comment and opinion

The experiences of perinatal care for women who use and are in treatment for drug use

Women who use drugs during pregnancy have complex health and social needs. Stigma can be a barrier to their engagement with services. The Stepping Stones study aimed to identify way to provide care for this group of women to encourage engagement and improve health outcomes. The study was funded by the National institute for Health Research (NIHR130619) and was conducted by researchers from King’s College London and the Universities of Stirling and Huddersfield. Researchers worked with an advisory group made of health and social care practitioners, and people with lived experience of substance use treatment | Inspire the Mind blog, UK

National Children’s Day (15 May): Seeing the child in every adult and the adult in every child

This was a crucial conversation during the development of the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood’s ‘Shaping Us’ Framework. It was a privilege to be part of this project. However, it also means that I need to make sure we are committed to this in our work with both children and adults at The Forward Trust | Forward Trust blog, UK