Global

2016

Do no harm. Health, human rights and people who use drugs.

UNAIDS. (2016) Geneva ,UNAIDS

The health and social effects of nonmedical cannabis use.

Hall, Wayne and Renstrom, Maria and Poznyak, Vladimir, eds. (2016) World Health Organization

2015

HIV and young people who inject drugs. Technical brief.

World Health Organization. (2015) World Health Organization, Geneva .

Key populations at higher risk of HIV include people who sell sex, men who have sex with men, transgender people and people who inject drugs. Young people who belong to one or more of these key populations – or who engage in activities associated with these populations – are made especially vulnerable to HIV by widespread criminalisation, discrimination, stigma and violence, combined with the particular vulnerabilities of youth, power imbalances in relationships and, sometimes, alienation from family and friends. These factors increase the risk that they may engage – willingly or not – in behaviours that put them at risk of HIV, such as frequent unprotected sex and the sharing of needles and syringes to inject drugs.

This brief aims to catalyse and inform discussions about how best to provide health services, programmes and support for young people who inject drugs. It offers a concise account of current knowledge concerning the HIV risk and vulnerability of young people who inject drugs; the barriers and constraints they face to appropriate services; examples of programmes that may work well in addressing their needs and rights; and approaches and considerations for providing services that both draw upon and build the strengths, competencies and capacities of young people who inject drugs.

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World Health Organization. (2015) Preventing youth violence: an overview of the evidence. World Health Organization, Geneva .

Twenty-one strategies to prevent youth violence are reviewed, including programmes relating to parenting, early childhood development, and social skills development, as well as policies related to the harmful use of alcohol, problem oriented policing, and urban upgrading.

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2015 global reference list of 100 core health indicators.

World Health Organization. (2015) World Health Organization, Geneva.

Report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2015: raising taxes on tobacco.

World Health Organization. (2015) World Health Organization, Geneva.

Alcohol advertising and sponsorship in formula one: a dangerous cocktail. 

Eurocare, Institute of Alcohol Studies, Monash University. (2015) Eurocare. 18 p.

Effectiveness of bystander naloxone administration and overdose education programs: a meta-analysis.

Giglio, R. E. and Li, G. and DiMaggio, C. J.  (2015) Springer. Injury Epidemiology, 2 (10) 10.1186/s40621-015-0041-8

2014

Community management of opioid overdose.

World Health Organization. (2014) World Health Organization. 

An estimated 69 000 people die each year from opioid overdose. Opioid overdose is easily reversed with the opioid antidote naloxone and with basic life support. Such care is generally only available in medical settings, however. These guidelines recommend that people who are likely to witness an opioid overdose, including people who use opioids, and their family and friends should be given access to naloxone and training in its use so that they can respond to opioid overdose in an emergency if a medical response is not available. 

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Determining the impact of opioid substitution therapy upon mortality and recidivism among prisoners: A 22 year data linkage study.

Gisev, N., Larney, S., Kimber, J., Burns, L., Weatherburn, D., Gibson, A., Dobbins, T., Mattick, R., Butler, T. and Degenhardt, L. [NDARC] , (2014) National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. 45 p. NDARC Technical report no. 330

Prisoners experience very high rates of drug dependence, health problems and premature mortality. Without intervention they are highly likely to come into further contact with the criminal justice system, creating further health risk. Opioid dependence is a common problem among prisoners, and opioid substitution therapy (with methadone and buprenorphine) for opioid dependence may be an effective intervention in preventing morbidity, mortality and offending. Using retrospective data linkage, this study evaluated engagement with treatment, patterns of offending, incarceration and mortality among opioid-dependent people who received OST in New South Wales, Australia, at some time between 1985-2010. We linked all OST records with data on all court appearances 1993-2011, custody episodes 2000-2012, and mortality 1985-2012. 

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The impact of alcohol use disorders on family life: a review of the empirical literature.

Hutchinson, D. M. & Mattick, R. P. & Braunstein, D. & Maloney, E. & Wilson, J. (2014) National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. 110 p. NDARC technical report number: 325

This report aimed to review the empirical literature on the impact of parental alcohol use disorders on family life. The report focused specifically on harms inflicted by the problematic consumption of alcohol on members of the family, particularly spouses and children, and on the functioning of the family unit as a whole. 

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World drug report 2014.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. (2014) United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Vienna 

The World Drug Report provides an annual overview of the major developments in drug markets for the various drug categories, ranging from production to trafficking, including development of new routes and modalities, as well as consumption.

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Ending the drug wars: Report of the LSE expert group on the economics of drug policy

LSE Expert Group on the Economics of Drug Policy (2014) The London School of Economics and Political Science, London

This report asserts that a new and effective international strategy could emerge if two approaches are followed. First, resources should be drastically reallocated away from law enforcement and repressive policies towards proven public health policies of harm reduction and treatment, with governments ensuring that these services are fully resourced to meet requirements. Second, rigorously monitored policy and regulatory experimentation should be encouraged. States should be allowed to pursue new initiatives, the report argues, in order to determine which policies work and which don't. The places that legalise cannabis first will provide an external benefit to the rest of the world in the form of knowledge regardless of how the experiments turn out. As a result, pioneering jurisdictions should be accepted as long as they take adequate measures to prevent ‘exports’.

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Global status report on alcohol and health 2014

 World Health Organization (2014)

The Global status report on alcohol and health 2014 presents a comprehensive perspective on the global, regional and country consumption of alcohol, patterns of drinking, health consequences and policy responses in Member States

Regional drug strategies across the world.

Ballotta, Danilo (2014) Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.

This paper offers a comparison of the drug strategies and plans adopted over the last five years by six intergovernmental organisations engaging 148 countries in four continents. It informs decision-makers, professionals and researchers working in the area of international drug policy about the way in which countries of the same region have decided to strategically approach drug-related security, social and health problems.

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2013

UNAIDS report on the global AIDS epidemic 2013.

Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). (2013) UNAIDS; World Health Organization, Geneva.

The 2013 report on the global AIDS epidemic contains the latest data on numbers of new HIV infections, numbers of people receiving antiretroviral treatment, AIDS-related deaths and HIV among children.

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WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2013. Enforcing bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship

World Health Organization. (2013)

2010

Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol

World Health Organisation, 2010