Authors: Gunderson E, Kirkpatrick MG, Willing LM, Holstege CP

There is a growing concern about the availability of a new generation of “designer drug” stimulants that are marketed as “bath salts” and other household products. The products are not true bath salts and contain substituted cathinone stimulant substances, such as  ethylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) and mephedrone. Calls to the American Association of Poison Control Centers regarding “bath salts” consumption began in 2010 and have continued since that time.

Authors: Caitlin Hughes and Alex Stevens

Two observers and scholars of the 2001 Portuguese drug policy reform consider divergent accounts of the reform which viewed it as a ‘resounding success’ or a ‘disastrous failure’. Acknowledging from their own experience the inherent difficulties in studying drug law reform, Caitlin Hughes and Alex Stevens take the central competing claims of the protagonists and consider them against the available data.They remind us of the way all sides of the drug policy debates call upon and alternatively use or misuse ‘evidence’ to feed into discussions of the worth, efficacy and desirability of different illicit drug policies.In doing so they provide pause for thought for those of us who operate as drug policy researchers and drug policy advocates.

Full title: Under the influence: 4. Election prospects triumph over public health.

Paper by Jonathan Gornall. Published in BMJ in January 2014.

Author: WHO - Regional Office for Europe

People in the WHO European Region consume the most alcohol per head in the world. In the European Union (EU), alcohol accounts for about 120 000 premature deaths per year: 1 in 7 in men and 1 in 13 in women.

Most countries in the Region have adopted policies, strategies and plans to reduce alcohol-related harm. In 2012, the WHO Regional Office for Europe collected information on alcohol consumption and related harm, and countries policy responses to contribute to the Global Information System for Alcohol and Health; this report presented a selection of the results for 35 countries – EU Member States and candidate countries, Norway and Switzerland – individually and in groups distinguished by their drinking patterns and traditions.

Economics and Public Health Policy

Based on a simulation model, OECD analyses show that several alcohol policies have the potential to reduce rates of heavy drinking, regular or episodic, and alcohol dependence, in three countries, by 5% to 10%. This would take those countries a long way towards achieving the voluntary target of reducing harmful alcohol use by 10% by 2025, a target adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2013 as part of the NCD Global Monitoring Framework. The OECD analysis found that governments’ ability to design and implement wide-ranging prevention strategies, combining the strengths of different policy approaches, is critical to success.