Publications

Key findings

In 2016:

The Drug Addiction and Opioid Crisis

The primary goal of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis is to develop an effective set of recommendations for the President to combat the opioid crisis and drug addiction in our nation.

Online course moves on to the whole-system level, where treatment and harm reduction services working in synergy are the best hope for reversing the hepatitis C epidemic - but can any feasible local or national system succeed in this daunting task?

Indonesia's anti-drug agency, BNN, produced its national drug use survey in collaboration with the University of Indonesia.  Released in February 2017 and covering data from 2016, this report reports on drug use among 11 to 27 year olds.  The report is only available in Bahasa.

Summary

Nearly 10 million individuals in the United States are estimated to live with a diagnosable psychiatric condition sufficiently serious to impair their personal, social and economic functioning. Hardly a day goes by without a study, headline, court case or legislative action calling for reform of the mental health system to better serve this population. Often, these calls to action end in two words: “More beds.”

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND

Although the opioid epidemic is a national issue, states shoulder the majority of the financial and social burden caused by addiction. Fortunately, there are many actions that states can take to effectively address the opioid epidemic and the larger public health crisis of addiction.  

This interactive game lets you look into the brain of mice under the influence of different drugs. You can study the different brain mechanisms that are triggered with various common illicit substances. 

ABSTRACT

Fentanyl and its analogues are potent synthetic opioids, which are liable to abuse. They are often sold under the guise of heroin or prescription medicines, such as oxycodone, and this exacerbates the risk of overdose and associated fatalities. An increasing number of deaths have been associated with the use of fentanyl and its analogues, particularly in North America.

This study set out to explore the effect of non-dependent parental drinking on children, making a direct link between parental drinking habits and the attitudes, behaviours and impacts reported by their children.

On-line course moves up to the level of the organisation and its influence on drug-related harm. Learn how in methadone clinics and needle exchanges, misguided ‘good intentions’ placed service users at risk.

The Brain Under Construction – A Window into the Developing Brain is a new debriefing paper by Mentor-Adepis. It forms part of a mini-series on the ‘Brain Under Construction’, which is geared towards helping professionals to better-understand the young people that they support. A Window into the Developing Brain examines the function and structuring of the brain, in particularly the uniqueness of the adolescent brain.

School-Based Alcohol and Drug Education and Prevention – What Works? is a new briefing paper published by Mentor-Adepis. It outlines several approaches that have been shown to work effectively, and issues cautions about those that have not.

In the absence of greater obstacles to availability, widespread screening to identify and then briefly advise risky drinkers has been the great hope for improved alcohol-related public health.

Explores how harm reduction impacts are affected by the management of the service and of the intervention. Highlights the studies which showed that treatment-termination and needle-exchange policies can mean life or death for service users, and the dilemmas of squaring this responsibility with maintaining a safe and therapeutic environment and satisfying community concerns over discarded needles.

Especially due to its large sample size and incorporation into the CPS survey, the TUS provides a unique opportunity for tracking long-term trends in tobacco use, cessation attempts, and tobacco-related policies; evaluation of tobacco control programs/interventions; study of tobacco-related health disparities; and conduct of other tobacco control research. TUS-CPS data can be analyzed at the U.S.

Second cell of the Drug Treatment Matrix explores key studies on the impact of the practitioner on reducing harms associated with illegal drug use, in which trust emerges as a fundamental ingredient. Reconceptualise needle exchanges as safe havens in a largely rejecting world, and explore why a Philadelphia methadone counsellor stood out - for the wrong reasons.

ABSTRACT

Tobacco use remains the nation’s leading cause of preventable premature death, including death from cancer, and progress in reducing tobacco use and related disease and death has not been equally distributed across population groups. This monograph examines the current evidence surrounding tobacco-related health disparities (TRHD) across the tobacco use continuum—initiation, secondhand smoke exposure, current use, frequency and intensity, cess

Key Points

- There is significant common ground between public health bodies and publicans, and scope to develop policies approved of by both groups

- Many publicans are deeply concerned about harmful alcohol consumption

Initiates a fortnightly course on the evidence base for harm reduction and treatment in relation to illegal drugs. Comprehensively updated, the cell explores key research on interventions to reduce the harms to the user as a result of their drug use.