Category Archives: General debate

Qwitter – will Web 2.0 bring ATOD benefits?

I noticed an interesting post on lifehacker about the use of Twitter in smoking cessation, hence the name Qwitter.

The premise of the approach is that Twitter allows an individual to type short snippets about their progress with quitting and it all sits there nicely for others to view as well as providing a history for the quitter to hopefully motivate themselves with. Your progress is actually tracked by Qwitter who add your information to an individual progress chart.

It’s an innovative approach to smoking cessation and that’s interesting on its own. What’s even more interesting is the growth of Web 2.0 technologies in the health field. In the ATOD field we usually don’t have the luxury of considering new technologies to assist us in our work but if government doesn’t start funding such research and development, we’re going to find a lot of for-profit Qwitters populating the landscape.

And for those of you out there working in the field that think things like Qwitter are ‘gimicky’ – you’re right, but only partly. Web 2.0 technologies and whatever comes after it are going to shape what we do as health and welfare professionals in significant ways. Whether it happens in two years or ten years, we need to start thinking about our approach.

Drug Free Australia launches unreferenced cannabis assault

I noticed the below information posted on the ADCA Update list. For those of you who don’t know, the ADCA update list is primarily an announcement list for ATOD professionals. Putting aside the quality of the below information aside – why would Drug Free Australia believe that providing unreferenced text to professionals would give any sense of credibility to their cause?

There ARE references cited in the text but these are obviously not viewable in the email nor could I find them on the web. Unbelievable.

The email in question:

“Marijuana Use ˆ
Some Effects
By Fred J. Payne, M.D., M.P.H.
February 2008

Part 1
Background

Marijuana, or cannabis, is a crude preparation of flowering tops, leaves, seeds, and stems of female plants of the Indian hemp Cannabis sativa; and it is usually smoked as a “recreational” drug. The intoxicating constituents of hemp are found in the resin exuded by the tops of the plants, particularly the females. Male plants produce only a small amount of resin. The resin itself, when prepared for smoking or eating, is known as “hashish.”

Various cannabis preparations are used as intoxicants throughout the world, with potency varying with the amount of resin present. The tops contain the most resin; stems, seeds, and lower leaves the least. The intoxicants in the resin are called cannabinoids, the most active of which is delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).Although marijuana use in the United States dates back to the 19th century, its early use was confined predominantly to certain groups such as Mexican laborers, inner city Blacks, and some “Bohemian” groups.

Restricted by increasingly severe legal penalties imposed during the 1930s, its use in those relatively small groups was not a major cause for public concern. Following the widespread popularity and use of the hallucinogen LSD during the 1960s, an explosion in marijuana use took place, at first on college campuses, followed by downward spread to secondary schools and upward to portions of the middle class. Public alarm grew over the hazards to the general public posed by the rapidly growing use of marijuana and other mind-altering drugs. Marijuana, plus other drugs like heroin, had a high potential for abuse with limited or no potential for medical use, and they were designated as schedule I drugs ˆ making their use and possession illegal.

The scheduling of dangerous drugs is done by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), but only after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) decides that a new drug is a suitable medication, albeit one needing to be scheduled because of its abuse potential. The agencies work closely together, as required by law, and a routine scheduling action cannot be taken by one of the agencies without the concurrence of the other.Recent developmentsDuring the past two decades in the United States, there has been a steady increase in the number of people entering treatment for marijuana related problems.

According to one report, two-thirds of those admitted for treatment were young ˆ between the ages of 12 and 25 years (1). The majority of those admissions were from either the justice or educational systems.Marijuana use is associated with impaired educational attainment (2), reduced workplace productivity (3), and plays a major role in motor vehicle accidents (4). Marijuana is increasingly recognized as a cause, along with tobacco, of both lung cancer and emphysema (5) (6). In spite of this, an editorial in a major medical journal, the Lancet, stated as recently as 1995 that “the smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health.”(7).In the United States, marijuana use remained stable at about 4% during the decade between 1991-1992 and 2001-2002, according to two large national surveys conducted 10 years apart (8). Marijuana use disorders among adults, however, increased significantly during that decade. The potency of THC in confiscated marijuana increased by 66% between 1992 and 2002, and this may have contributed to the problem.

The disorders included marijuana abuse, that is, use under hazardous conditions or impairment in social, occupational, or educational functioning related to use. Another marijuana use disorder is dependence, defined as increased tolerance, compulsive use, impaired control, and continued use despite physical and psychological problems caused by its use.A major focus for concern has been the extent to which marijuana use leads to the use of and dependence on “hard” drugs. There has been a longstanding debate over whether this association is due to the criminalization of marijuana use, forcing the user to seek suppliers who deal in other illicit drugs, or whether marijuana conditions the user to try other drugs.A study was reported from Australia of a volunteer sample of 311 young, adult, monozygotic and dizygotic, same sex twins discordant for early cannabis use i.e. less than 17 years (1). The outcome measures included subsequent non-medical use of prescription sedatives, hallucinogens, cocaine or other stimulants, and opioids leading to abuse or dependence on these drugs. Abuse and/or dependence on cannabis or alcohol were also outcome measures.

Twins who used cannabis by age 17 had odds of other drug use or alcohol dependence plus drug abuse from two to five times higher than those of their discordant twin. These associations did not differ between monozygotic and dizygotic twins. The findings indicate that early use of cannabis is associated with increased risks of progression to other illicit drug use. Since the subjects were twins neither genetic nor environmental factors were likely to have produced the results. However, since marijuana use is illegal in Australia the study was unable to establish whether having to obtain the drug from dealers involved with other illegal drugs exposes the marijuana user to other illicit drugs.A similar study was conducted in the Netherlands, where out of a group of 6000 twins, 219 same sex pairs were chosen, one of whom had begun using marijuana before age 18 while the other twin had not (9). The study showed that the twin who used marijuana before the age of 18 had a significantly greater risk of using hard drugs and of drug dependence.

Since marijuana is legal and widely available in the Netherlands, the findings from both studies clearly indicate that marijuana serves as a gateway for use and abuse of other addictive drugs in adolescents whose central nervous system is still not fully developed.”

Kevin Rudd’s binge drinking obsession

I thought the write up on Crikey summed up the issue perfectly:

“Bernard Keane writes:

Booze. Gambling. P-rn. It’s everywhere, at epidemic levels, apparently, but luckily our politicians are on the case, ready to shake their heads in dismay and demand tougher regulation of stuff that’s nobody else’s business.

Even under the crusty conservatives of the Coalition, it’s hard to recall a moral panic being whipped up as fervently as Kevin Rudd, Steve Fielding and Nick Xenophon are managing at the moment.

Rudd is claiming binge drinking is a “worsening epidemic” that is “getting out of hand” and needs to be urgently addressed. Steve Fielding, best known for using his PC in Parliament House to Google for p-rn, also thinks it’s a “huge” and “growing” problem, and has got up a Senate committee to consider his private member’s bill to restrict alcohol advertising.

But as Richard Farmer pointed out yesterday, there’s no evidence for any of this. Indeed, in historical terms the early twenty-first century is probably one of the most sober periods in western history in the last five hundred years. But you won’t hear any of that in the mainstream media’s reporting – inevitably replete with footage of inebriated teenagers – of Rudd’s dire warnings.

With a similar lack of interest in evidence, Minister for Zeroes and Ones Stephen Conroy has been busy trying to get Labor’s plan to regulate the internet up and running via ISP-level filtering to block child p-rn and “violent websites”. Conroy’s plan, which makes the previous Government’s unworkable Netalert program for PC-level filters look benign, should do wonders for Australia’s already quicksilver broadband speeds. But according to the Minister, the only people opposed to it are kiddy fiddlers.

And incoming senator Nick Xenophon isn’t waiting until July to get stuck into gambling (or, as it should be known, taxation for innumerates), pushing for a new set of restrictions on poker machines and gambling venues. Not to be outdone, Steve Fielding wants to impose a tax on them too.

All this is music to the ears of pressure groups and lobbyists who rely on public funding. Leading the charge on binge drinking was Professor Margaret Hamilton from the National Council on Drugs, an anti-drug body established and funded by the Howard Government and currently headed by former Liberal senator John Herron. According to Hamilton, the mere act of having a drink on a Friday evening sends the wrong signal to Australia’s youth. Daryl Smeaton of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation – of which anti-gambling campaigner Tim Costello is a director — also backed Rudd’s binge drinking warning.

These people doubtless do fine work in addressing the impact of alcohol abuse (however defined) or gambling addiction, but are also beneficiaries of the funding that will inevitably flow from Government efforts to be seen to Do Something. They have a vested interest in encouraging state interventionism in their chosen fields.

Then again the media also has an interest in hyping social problems. Drunken teenagers and gambling addicts make for great copy. Everyone loves a moral panic”.

Needle and Syringe Programs and Bleach in Prisons: Reviewing the Evidence

I noticed this interesting synopsis on the Update list yesterday and though it was worth passing on – the debate over NSP has raged non-stop for over twenty years now – is there likely to ever be a ceasefire?

“Full URL
http://www.aidslaw.ca/publications/interfaces/downloadFile.php?ref=1285

Conclusions

A substantial amount of scientific evidence has shown that NSPs in the community are the most effective intervention available to prevent HIV transmission associated with injecting drug use. As well, NSPs have been associated with increases in access to care and treatment among people who use such programs, and with substantial cost-savings. The concerns raised about NSPs have been shown to be unfounded. NSPs have not led to increased levels of risk behaviour among people who use the programs or increased drug use by people who inject drugs.

An important and growing body of evidence demonstrating the success of prison-based NSPs also exists. Since the early 1990s, the number of NSPs established in prison settings has steadily grown. There are now in excess of 60 prisonbased NSPs in nine countries. While existing quantitative evaluations of NSPs have some limitations, overall the program evaluations have been highly and consistently favourable. NSPs in prison have been associated with a substantial reduction in needle and syringe sharing, and there have been no recorded cases of HIV infection among prisoners participating in an NSP.

Additional benefits observed include reductions in overdose incidents and deaths, an increase in referral to drug treatment programs, increased awareness of infections transmission and risk behaviours, and a reduction in injection-site abscesses. Significantly, none of the adverse consequences projected by some have been found. In particular, there have been no incidents in which syringes or needles from NSPs were used as weapons against guards or inmates, drug use has been stable or has decreased, and there has been no increase in injecting drug use among prisoners. In general, NSPs have been accepted by prison staff, including staff that was initially opposed to such programs. Bleach programmes should be available in prisons where authorities continue to oppose the introduction of NSPs, and to complement NSPs. However, because of bleach’s limited effectiveness, such programmes can only be regarded as a second-line strategy to NSPs and cannot replace NSPs.47

From a public health perspective, piloting and rapidly expanding NSPs is a priority for responding to the dual epidemics of injecting drug use and HIV infection among prisoners. To date a number of outbreaks of HIV among prisoners in the fSU have been documented.Given the evidence of entrenched epidemics of injecting drug use and HIV infection in prisons in many countries in Eastern Europe and the fSU, it is clear that further inaction on the part of prison officials will result in increased morbidity, including HIV infection, and mortality among people who inject drugs in prison. Moreover, the failure to implement NSPs could result in spread of HIV infection among the prison population as a whole, and could potentially lead to generalized epidemics among people in communities into which prisoners are released. Such further spread of HIV would lead not only to greater suffering for affected individuals and their families, but also would result in substantial, avoidable health care costs”.

The ATOD sector responds to the apology

“NIDAC welcomes the apology to Indigenous Australians for the Stolen Generation

The National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee (NIDAC) applauds the new Australian Government for their step today in acknowledging the harm caused by the policies of the past that created the Stolen Generation.

The long awaited formal apology from the Australian Government today in Parliament is a crucial step that paves the way for Indigenous people who were taken from their families. This will enable Indigenous Australian to regain their dignity and to walk alongside other Australians in creating a better future for all of our children.

Associate Professor Ted Wilkes Chair of NIDAC says “It has been over 10 years since the report Bringing Them Home revealed the extent of forced removal, which lasted into the early 1970s; its consequences and impact on families were devastating for those who lost not only their children, but had their physical and mental health, their connection to land, their culture and language destroyed, causing enormous distress to many victims today.

It is a day where all Australians can share their sorrow. In doing so, it provides hope to unite efforts in helping Indigenous Australians achieve their goals and aspirations.

This apology and yesterday’s first welcome to country by the Australian Parliament demonstrates the Australian Government and the Parliament as a whole understands the need for a commitment to Indigenous Australians to provide a safe, meaningful and promising future for all Australian children. It is a step we must all take as parents and as a community.”

NIDAC, as the leading voice in Indigenous drug and alcohol policy remains committed to working with the Australian Government to continue this journey by addressing the drug and alcohol problems that seriously impact on Indigenous families today.

Information on NIDAC can be found on www.ancd.org.au/nidac“

Finally – an accurate viewpoint on Heath Ledger’s death

I saw this well-put summary of the circumstances surrounding Health Ledger’s death and it’s a view the mainstream media are unlikely to take the time to explore:

“The New York City Chief Medical Examiner’s Office found that Heath Ledger died of an accidental overdose of prescription medications including painkillers (oxycodone, hydrocodone (not available in Australia, but widely abused in the US as Vicodin and other brand names), sleeping pills and antianxiety pills (temazepam, alprazolam, diazepam), and doxylamine, an antihistamine used to treat insomnia, and available over-the-counter.

The New York Times quotes Dr VG THakkar, a psychiatrist at NYU Medical Center as saying “Six different sedative drugs in Heath Ledger’s system show something was amiss. Whether that was in taking combinations of drugs without proper medical guideance or sloppy prescribing, it was an unfortunate situation and with a tragic outcome.”

As many Update list participants would know, combinations of tranquillisers, hypnotic drugs and opioid analgesics account for many accidental drug-related deaths in people using pharmaceutical drugs inappropriately.

Don’t we need a national strategy to address this distinctive and complex problem?”

2008 predictions for Australian Drug Policy

I thought I’d add yet another predictions blog post to all those already out there. In 2008 I believe the following will occur in relation to ATOD policy in Australia:

1. There won’t be much change at all. At a federal level I still remain hopeful that there’ll be some change in policy direction but I don’t believe the basic structures or approach will change. Prevention services may see a little more money but law enforcement will remain the golden child. I’d be surprised if there was any significant change to the ANCD.

2. NGOs will get more scrutiny. Organisations like Drug Free Australia will hopefully be looked at a little more closely in regard to outcomes and evidence-based practice.

3. Business interest in prevention will grow. Large organisations are finally starting to get the message that keeping their employees healthy is a productivity enhancing thing. ATOD prevention initiatives will increasingly form part of the picture – 2008 will see that evolution continue although there’s a long way to go yet.

4. Drugs in sport will gets lots of attention. Given 2008 is an Olympics year, this is a no-brainer.

5. Crystal Meth will dominate tabloid media on ATOD. Another easy prediction.

What are your predictions for the coming year? What do you think will come to pass that we’ll look back on as significant in a year’s time?

Year in review from one perspective

“DrugSense FOCUS Alert #357 – Monday, 31 December 2007

2007 saw almost fifteen thousand new news clippings added to the www.mapinc.org archives.

Over a half million different readers from about 125 countries accessed the clippings during the year. Based on a formula which recognizes that older clippings may have been accessed more than the more recent ones, selections of the 600 most read clippings by areas of the world are provided at the following links:

http://mapinc.org/find?369 2007 in Review – Australasia

http://mapinc.org/find?370 2007 in Review – Asia

http://mapinc.org/find?366 2007 in Review – Canada

http://mapinc.org/find?368 2007 in Review – South America

http://mapinc.org/find?367 2007 in Review – United Kingdom

http://mapinc.org/find?365 2007 in Review – United States

The year 2007 was good for our Letter to The Editor writing activists, with about 2,230 letters printed that we know of as shown at http://mapinc.org/lte/

The year also saw a nice upgrade in the online look of the DrugSense Weekly http://www.drugsense.org/current.htm

Among the best kept secrets in the reform community is the 30,000 plus record Media Contact On Demand database, which received a facelift during 2007 for ease of use and for which the data is continuously crawled – computer programs are checking the web for changes – and updated http://www.mapinc.org/mcod/

During the year DrugSense switched from using Paltalk to TeamSpeak for on line voice chats because the server software resides on our own server and because the program works as well on MAC and Linux computers as on Windows PCs. Besides MAP/DrugSense meeting rooms, both Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and the Ohio Patient Network have meeting rooms. Details about the software are at http://www.mapinc.org/resource/teamspeak/

It has also been a busy year for the DrugSense webmastering/website hosting team supporting 125 reform websites and over 200 email lists and forums. Among the major projects of the year were these:

– Major upgrades of The Drug Truth Network http://www.drugtruth.net and the LEAP websites http://www.leap.cc

– Adding new websites http://thepotlawhasfallen.ca/, http://compassionatecanadians.com/, http://www.illinoisnorml.org/, and http://chemicalbigotry.org/, with others in the works.

Oh, we have probably left out something we did during the past year that is important to you, but it is hard to keep on top of all that happens at DrugSense.

On behalf of the MAP/DrugSense family of activists we wish you all the best for the New Year!

**********************************************************************

Prepared by: The MAP/DrugSense Family of Activists”

Rudd and Drugs

Now the election is done, coming weeks will see some clarity come to the policy positions adopted by the incoming government. I’d like to make some predictions that are as staid and conservative as I believe the Rudd government will be in the ATOD area:

1. ‘Tough on Drugs’ will remain, perhaps with a rebranding.
2. No further liberalisation of drug laws will occur.
3. There will be no Federal support for other injecting room trials.
4. Drug Free Australia may be treated with a little more scepticism than currently.
5. There’ll be some increased expenditure around alcohol and tobacco prevention initiatives.

WHat are your thoughts? Am I being too cynical? I have a feeling I’m not.