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| Hot topics May/June 2015 | ||
| A selection of important issues or interventions which
sometimes generate heated debate over the facts or their interpretation.
First how to construct a benchmark for assessing the success of alcohol
policies, then three treatment-related entries, the first two about
promoting recovery and reintegration, the last challenging assertions that
cocaine and especially crack is uniquely addictive. To see all four hot topics click the button below or scroll down and click titles for individual topics. | ||
| View hot topics | ||
| See hot
topics archive for all 40 hot topics to date | ||
| Measuring and reducing alcohol-related harm | ||
| Alcohol-related harm is said to cost the UK £21 billion, but the assumptions behind this calculation and decisions about what to include mean the figure can vary wildly. Even a seemingly simple statistic like alcohol-related hospital admissions has been redefined, cutting the total in England by over a third. In the mix for reducing this burden are universal prevention, price rises, screening and brief advice, and treating the worst cases. | ||
| Also see this other hot topic on the arguments and politics of setting a minimum per unit price for alcohol. | ||
Promoting recovery through employment | ||
| Just about wherever you look among British national drug policies, employment is seen as both a bulwark against relapse and an obligation on drug users who can work and contribute to society rather than living on benefits. But how realistic is competitive employment for addicts who have often spent a decade or more not honing their CVs, but chasing drugs and gaining a criminal record? | ||
Do ‘wrap-around’ services help or hinder addiction treatment? | ||
| At the moment in the UK it seems unclear whether treatment services will be pared down to narrow drug-focused objectives, or flower in to holistic providers of (or gateways to) the constellation of ‘wrap-around’ services which seem demanded by the recovery agenda. Do these services really help, and how can they be provided? | ||
No reason for pessimism over treating cocaine problems | ||
| April 1989 and US drug detective Robert Stutman set about waking up the UK to the imminent threat of crack. His stories of the unmatched addictiveness of the drug chimed with the failure to find a medicine or specific psychosocial therapy. Run this hot topic and you will find that rather than ‘nothing works’, controlling cocaine use is not uniquely difficult, even when it comes in the form of crack. | ||
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