DS Daily - 27th July 2010

National Treatment Agency to join Public Health Service

Treatment for addiction to drugs will form a core part of the new Public Health Service, the Government announced yesterday, as the Department of Health publishes plans to move the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse into the new body by April 2012 [NTA, UK]

Review of arm’s length bodies to cut bureaucracy

The review has assessed whether the work of each of the Department of Health’s 18 Arm’s Length Bodies’ remains essential nationally - including: Alcohol Education and Research Council and National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse [Department of Health, UK]

Liberating the NHS: Report of the arms-length bodies review

PDF Download of the report [Department of Health, UK]

DrugScope responds to government's decision to abolish National Treatment Agency

The announcement that the NTA’s functions will be transferred to the new public health agency and not abolished is encouraging – it is vital that drug treatment continues to be championed. The transfer is likely to mean a greater and welcome focus on tackling alcohol related harms and on drugs as a public health issue [DrugScope, UK]

Blenheim CDP responds to government’s decision to transfer the NTA functions to the new Public Health Service

Blenheim CDP welcomes the announcement from the Secretary of State for Health that the National treatment Agency’s function’s will be transferred to a new Public Health Service in April 2012 [Blenheim CDP, UK]

Alliance response to abolition of the National Treatment Agency

The Alliance then, regrets the plan to lose the independence of the National Treatment Agency. However, given that it is to be abolished, the merger of its functions into a Public Health Service would appear to be a logical place for those functions to sit for the future [The Alliance, UK]

Methadone works. Stop the interfering

Opioid substitutes are a key tool in the drug treatment box. Their use should not be restricted for political reasons - Chris Ford [Guardian, UK]

Drug users 'should face penalties'

Professor David Nutt, who was sacked as the Labour government's top drugs adviser after saying ecstasy was less harmful than alcohol, said simply waging war against users will not work [Daily Express, UK]

PinkPaper.com editor speaks at UK Drug Policy Commission study launch

A major study conducted by the UK Drug Policy Commission, which suggests that gay men and women are more likely to use drugs than straight people, launched yesterday at the Houses of Parliament in London [PinkPaper.com , UK]

New Highway

The Bath Area Drugs Advisory Service have grown beyond their original geographic location they are now changing their name to New Highway and they provide new and more varied routes to recovery [New Highway, UK]

Stop this prison-bashing. Sometimes community sentences don't work

We cannot fix our broken society piecemeal. About 5 million people live in overlapping worlds of crime, poverty, unemployment, no qualifications, poor housing and health, addictions of alcohol and drugs, and broken families [Guardian, UK]

Crackdown on drugs sparks furious protest by prisoners

A crackdown on the smuggling of drugs and mobile phones into the country's biggest prison has sparked a furious backlash from inmates [Independent, Ireland]

Fighting Drug Trafficking With a Substance-Oriented Approach

This paper discusses the “substance-oriented approach” Dutch authorities implemented to to scare off potential small-scale cocaine smugglers. The focus was on the drugs, rather than the couriers, and on incapacitating the smuggling route, rather than deterrence by incarceration - Report PDF [Transnational Institute, Netherlands]