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Il detenuto, un corpo rifugiato nel suo sacco di pelle... vede il suo spazio carcerario invaso. Il suo corpo è la sua ultima prigione, ma non il suo ultimo rifugio. Al recluso, quale estremo ricorso, non resta che indirizzare al medico la sua istanza d'evasione, per proiettarsi fuori da questo luogo che credeva personale, intangibile: il proprio corpo. Una prescrizione di psicotropi può essere sufficiente per dargli l'illusione di evadere (Daniel Gonin, Il corpo incarcerato) |
Droghe - riduzione del danno (e del rischio)...
616 documenti | info@antoniocasella.eu
|
- Che mi dici di Pelikan Bay? - C'è da non crederci. Iniettano odio nelle vene. Fabbricano mostri, là dentro. - E' proprio quello che vogliono, quegli imbecilli. - Sono convinti che fermeranno il crimine adottando il pugno di ferro. - Già. Non riesco proprio a crederci, voglio dire al modo che hanno scelto di costruire le prigioni. Poi le riempiono con dei fottuti coglioni che scontano pene per storie di droga da quattro soldi. Li trasformano in pazzi criminali, e poi li rimettono fuori tra la gente normale. E' come se allevassero dei pazzi criminali in serra... (Edward Bunker, Cane mangia cane...) |
| Mark Motivans # Heroin, Fentanyl, and Other Opioid Offenses in Federal Courts, 2021 https://bjs.ojp.gov/ February 2024 |
| OISED - Osservatorio
sull'Impatto Socio-Economico delle
Dipendenze # Impatto socio sanitario ed economico delle dipendenze in Italia. I risultati della prima annualità dell'osservatorio https://www.quotidianosanita.it/ 11 ottobre 2023 |
|
Presidenza
del Consiglio dei Ministri -
Dipartimento per le Politiche
Antidroga #
Sintesi |
UNODC
#
World
Drug Report 2023
www.unodc.org/ June 2023
| Grazia
Zuffa, Franco Corleone, Stefano Anastasia,
Leonardo Fiorentini, Marco Perduca, Maurizio
Cianchella (eds) # La traversata del deserto. Quattordicesimo Libro Bianco sulle droghe, Gli effetti della legge antidroga. Edizione 2023 sui dati 2022 La società della ragione, forum droghe, Antigone, CNCA, ALC, CGIL, ARCI, LILA, Legacoopsociali |
UNODC
#
Global
report on Cocaine 2023 – Local
dynamics, global challenges
United Nations publication,
March 2023
| UNODC # World Drug Report 2022 UN New York, June 2022 |
|
DCSA - Direzione Centrale per i
Servizi Antidroga |
|
Stefano Anastasia, Franco
Corleone, Leonardo Fiorentini, Marco
Perduca, Grazia Zuffa (a cura di) |
| Osservatorio
europeo delle droghe e delle
tossicodipendenze - EMCDDA # Relazione europea sulla droga 2022: tendenze e sviluppi www.emcdda.europa.eu/ 14 giugno 2022 |
|
Anna Paola Lacatena |
| Maria
Pia Scarciglia # Cannabis, un referendum per svuotare le carceri e le aule di tribunale https://ilmanifesto.it/ 15.02.2022 |
| Dipartimento
Politiche Antidroga della Presidenza del
Consiglio dei Ministri # Relazione annuale al Parlamento sul fenomeno delle tossicodipendenze in Italia. Anno 2021 (Dati 2020) http://www.politicheantidroga.gov.it/ 30.06.2021 |
| Osservatorio
europeo delle droghe e delle tossicodipendenze # Relazione europea sulla droga 2021: tendenze e sviluppi www.emcdda.europa.eu/ 9 June 2021 |
| European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction # New benzodiazepines in Europe – a review www.emcdda.europa.eu/ June 2021 |
| Alexander
Söderholm # Prisons and COVID-19: Lessons from an ongoing crisis www.ohchr.org/ idpc march 2021 The world’s overcrowded and under-resourced pris ons are simply not able to protect the health and rights of people deprived of liberty. This is especial ly true at times of COVID-19, but the issue of prison overcrowding pre-dated and will most likely outlive the global pandemic. Furthermore, prisons are not an appropriate or just environment to address the caus es for people´s involvement in illegal drug activities. Therefore, the recommendations provided in this pa per must be interpreted within a broader set of efforts to reduce prison populations worldwide. As such, measures aimed at curbing the number of people in prison should be prioritised |
|
Mattha Busby
# Prisons should
trial free cannabis, says UK's former
chief drug adviser |
www.theguardian.com/ Sat 27 Feb 2021 Mattha Busby, Eric Allison # Dozens of prison staff sacked over prohibited items, MoJ figures show | www.theguardian.com/ 24 dec 2020 David Nutt, # “Groundhog decade not brave new world” | January 6, 2020 |
| Council
of the European Union # EU Drugs Strategy 2021-2025 Brussels, 18 december 2020 |
| Dipartimento
Politiche Antidroga della Presidenza del
Consiglio dei Ministri # Relazione annuale al Parlamento sul fenomeno delle tossicodipendenze in Italia. Anno 2020 (Dati 2019) http://www.politicheantidroga.gov.it/ novembre 2020 |
|
Leana S Wen, Nakisa B Sadegh |
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Rick Lines, Olivia Howells,
Daniel Webb |
|
Elisa Martino, Laura Rondello,
Luana Oddi, Orietta Venturi, Raffaella
Campalastri |
|
Guy Hindley, Katherine Beck,
Faith Borgan, Cedric E Ginestet, Robert
McCutcheon, Daniel Kleinloog, Suhas
Ganesh, Rajiv Radhakrishnan, Deepak Cyril
D’Souza, Oliver D Howes |
|
Nana Wilson, Mbabazi Kariisa, Puja
Seth, Herschel Smith IV, Nicole L. Davis |
|
David J Nutt |
| Presidenza
del Consiglio dei Ministri - Dipartimento per
le politiche antidroga # Relazione annuale al Parlamento sul fenomeno delle tossicodipendenze in Italia. Anno 2019 (dati 2018) www.politicheantidroga.gov.it/ 2019 |
|
Transform - Drug Policy Foundation |
|
Forum Droghe | CNCA | CTCA |
| Commission
globale de politique en matiere de drogues # Politique des drogues et privation de liberté http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/ Juin 2019 La prison est la plus criante expression des échecs des politiques en matière de drogues: échec quant à la réduction de la demande de stupéfi ants, malgré l’exigence d’en punir la consommation adoptée il y a trente ans déjà par les États; échec quant à la réduction de l’offre de stupéfi ants et la répression des organisations criminelles, malgré la mise en place depuis plus d’un siècle d’un régime international de contrôle des drogues. La prison est surtout le concentré du coût humain de ces politiques |
| Teresa
Garcia Castro # Prisión preventiva en América Latina: el impacto desproporcionado en mujeres privadas de libertad por delitos de drogas https://www.gub.uy/ Junio de 2019 Una de las principales causas del aumento de las tasas de prisión preventiva es su utilización obligatoria para delitos relacionados con dro-gas.33 En varios países, la legislación sobre dro-gas caracteriza a toda infracción relacionada con drogas—incluyendo la posesión para consumo personal—como delitos graves para los cuales se aplica automáticamente la prisión preventiva, imposibilitando de esta manera el uso de alternativas al encarcelamiento u otros beneficios... |
|
UNODC |
| Bryce
Pardo # Illicit Supply of Fentanyl and Other Synthetic Opioids. Transitioning Markets and Evolving Challenges www.rand.org/ July 2019 Provisional numbers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention demonstrate a slowdown in total overdose deaths in recent years. Still, today’s drug overdose crisis, which now claims some 70,000 lives a year, surpasses major public health epidemics of prior generations, including the HIV/AIDS epidemic, which peaked at 50,000 deaths a year in the mid-1990s... |
| Silvia
De Napoli # La dipendenza tra patologia e giurisprudenza. Il dipendente chi lo cura? La dipendenza in carcere: mentre i criteri diagnostici e i trattamenti sono cambiati, la stessa evoluzione sembra non esserci stata in ambito giuridico www.stateofmind.it/ 23 luglio 2019 Realtà consolidata, la denominazione di “Dipendenza Patologica” sopraggiunta con l’ultima versione del DSM-V, va a sostituire la classica dicitura “Tossicodipendenza”, infatti nell’ultima versione del DSM-V troviamo nella categoria “Disturbi correlati a sostanze e disturbi da addiction”, importanti novità, oltre che elementi di continuità. Preme sottolineare questi elementi di novità per una maggiore comprensione: nell’ultima versione sparisce la differenza tra abuso e dipendenza, dando risalto ad un continuum su tre livelli di gravità; in sostanza viene eliminato il concetto di abuso, precedentemente inquadrato come “lieve o iniziale”. |
|
Bernardo Parrella |
|
D. Mark Anderson, Benjamin
Hansen, Daniel I. Rees, Joseph J. Sabia |
|
Grazia Zuffa, Franco Corleone,
Stefano Anastasia, Leonardo Fiorentini,
Marco Perduca (a cura di) |
|
Aaron L. Sarvet,
Melanie M. Wall, David S. Fink, Emily
Greene, Aline Le, Anne E. Boustead, Rosalie
Liccardo Pacula, Katherine M. Keyes,
Magdalena Cerdá,Sandro Galea, Deborah S.
Hasin www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Addiction,
113, 1003–1016, 2018 |
| Christopher
Ingraham (The Washington Post) # L'anno peggiore nella crisi degli oppioidi Internazionale, 7 dicembre 2018 |
| Hassan
Bassi # Cannabis, il Messico marcia verso la legalizzazione www.fuoriluogo.it/5 dicembre 2018 Non siamo favorevoli alla liberalizzazione totale delle droghe, ma siamo a favore della libertà e dei diritti, (…) all’autodeterminazione, e per liberare coloro che sono sotto la minaccia del crimine organizzato”, queste sono le parole usate dalla senatrice nel presentare la proposta al Parlamento e che ha aggiunto: “non vogliamo più morti, non importa che siano poliziotti, militari o narcotrafficanti, non vogliamo più vittime collaterali... Il Messico è infatti uno dei paesi più martoriati dalle guerre causate dal narcotraffico e solo lo scorso anno gli omicidi sono stati 31.000 secondo l’Istituto Nazionale di Statistica messicano, mentre da quando l’esercito è stato impegnato nella “guerra alla droga” 12 anni fa, i morti sarebbero 235.00. |
|
Gianni Santucci Centoquarantotto morti con la siringa in vena nel 2017. Centotrentotto fino ai primi di novembre 2018 (dati raccolti da geoverdose.it, progetto della Società italiana tossicodipendenze). Sono tre anni che questa cifra aumenta. Aumenterà ancora. Il cadavere numero 134 di quest'anno era accasciato dieci giorni fa in un bagno della stazione Centrale di Milano. Maschio, italiano, 43 anni. |
|
Michael Curtis, Paul
Dietze, Campbell Aitken, Amy Kirwan, Stuart
A. Kinner, Tony Butler, Mark Stoové Harm Reduction Journal (2018) 15:48 People who inject drugs (PWID), including opioids, are disproportionately represented among the approximately 41,200 people incarcerated at any one time in Australian prisons. It is estimated that almost half of prison entrants have ever injected drugs and that approximately one quarter have injected in the month prior to incarceration. People released from prison have significantly higher rates of mortality than the general population, with opioid overdose responsible for a considerable proportion of excess risk, both in Australia and internationally... |
|
Presidenza del Consiglio dei
Ministri. Dipartimento Politiche Antidroga Le attività economiche connesse al mercato delle sostanze psicoattive illegali rappresentano circa il 75% di tutte le attività illegali e pesano per circa lo 0,9% sul PIL. Il consumo di tali sostanze è stimato valere 14,4 miliardi di euro, in aumento di oltre un punto percentuale rispetto all’anno precedente. Il 40% è attribuibile alla spesa per il consumo di cocaina... Sono state denunciate 35.190 persone per reati in violazione del DPR n. 309/1990, dato in crescita rispetto al biennio precedente.Il 71% dei soggetti è in stato di arresto, il 28% in libertà e l‘1% è irreperibile. Il 4% dei soggetti segnalati è minorenne. La sostanza per cui sono state effettuate più denunce è stata la cocaina. |
|
John Harris www.theguardian.com/ Sat 29 Sep 2018 |
| Loretta
T. Ford, Jonathan D. Berg # Analytical evidence to show letters impregnated with novel psychoactive substances are a means of getting drugs to inmates within the UK prison service Annals of Clinical Biochemistry, 2018, Vol. 55(6) 673–678 Legal highs also referred to as novel psychoactive sub stances (NPS), are designer drugs that mimic effects of classic drugs such as cannabis, cocaine and amphet amine. Typically, NPS are many times more potent than the drugs they mimic, and this increases the risk of overdose.1 Clinical presentation as a result of NPS misuse varies, with mostly neurological symptoms reported.1,2 NPS use in UK prisons especially is a con cern, as it is now considered endemic, fuelling violence, aggression and disruptive behaviour, and is also putting a strain on ambulance and hospital resources for prisoners requiring medical treatment |
| Arianna
Giunti # Droghe. Colla, coca, eroina: in Italia l'emergenza comincia a 8 anni L'Espresso, 26 settembre 2018 Dal 2013 sono raddoppiati i ragazzi tossici. E l'età media è sempre più bassa: bambini che sperimentano i solventi, tredicenni che si prostituiscono per una dose, adolescenti sottoposti a Tso. Un'emergenza alla quale il nostro Sistema sanitario nazionale non riesce più a stare dietro |
|
Nicholas Lintzeris, Jessica Driels,
Natalie Elias, Jonathon C Arnold, Iain S
McGregor, David J Allsop |
|
Sarah C. Haight, Jean Y. Ko, Van
T. Tong, Michele K. Bohm, William M.
Callaghan |
| #
Assessment of the Potential Impact
of Regulated Marijuana in New York State www.health.ny.gov/ July 2018 Historically, marijuana criminalization has had a profound impact on communities of color and has led to disproportionate targeting of certain populations for arrest and prosecution. The over-prosecution of marijuana has significant negative economic, health, and safety impacts that have disproportionately affected low-income communities of color. Legalization of marijuana will address this important social justice issue. |
| Grazia
Zuffa, Stefano Anastasia, Franco Corleone (a
cura di) | Società della Ragione, Forum
Droghe, Antigone, Cnca # Nono Libro bianco sulle droghe. Edizione 2018 sui dati 2017 i dossier di Fuoriluogo.it, Giugno 2018 |
|
Osservatorio europeo delle droghe e
delle tossicodipendenze |
|
European Monitoring Centre for
Drugs and Drug Addiction |
| Anders
Håkansson, Virginia Jesionowska # Associations between substance use and type of crime in prisoners with substance use problems – a focus on violence and fatal violence Substance Abuse and Rehabilitation 2018:9 Crime and substance use are known to be closely associated, and substance use disorders are common in criminal justice settings; in a systematic review of studies in prison populations, alcohol abuse and dependence were reported in 18%–30% of males and 10%–24% of females, whereas drug abuse and dependence were reported in 10%–48% and 30%–60% of male and female clients, respectively. Also, substance use disorders are known to be associated with violent crimes... |
| Veronica
Manca # I detenuti tossicodipendenti vanno curati in comunità Il Dubbio, 2 giugno 2018 Mentre la comunità scientifica si trova al centro di un significativo cambiamento di paradigmi e modelli di cura, il diritto rimane silente e - come spesso accade - impreparato al progresso (e all'ingresso nel suo tessuto del fenomeno delle neuroscienze)... I progetti promossi spaziano dalla mappatura cerebrale delle aree deputate alla dipendenza tramite la simulazione magnetica transcranica e neurotraining, allo studio neuro- biologico delle complesse alterazioni dovute all'uso degli stupefacenti. A completare il quadro, si aggiungono le ricerche con strumenti di ultima generazione sul sistema immunitario e genetico e sui disturbi psichiatrici correlati... |
|
Puja Seth, Lawrence Scholl, Rose A.
Rudd, Sarah Bacon From 1999 to 2015, the drug overdose epidemic resulted in approximately 568,699 deaths. In 2015, 52,404 drug overdose deaths occurred; 63.1% (33,091) involved an opioid. From 2014 to 2015, the age-adjusted opioid-involved death rate increased by 15.6%; the rapid increase in deaths was driven in large part by synthetic opioids other than methadone (e.g., fentanyl). |
| Jeffrey
Fudin, Mena Raouf, Erica L Wegrzyn, Michael E
Schatman # Safety concerns with the Centers for Disease Control opioid calculator Journal of Pain Research 2018 Morphine milligram equivalence (MME) and other comparable acronyms have been employed in federal pain guidelines and used by policy makers to limit opioid prescribing. There has been controversy regarding the methodology used to develop the CDC opioid prescribing guidelines... MME dosing was designed in an attempt to examine opioids with similar analgesic effects and should not be used to determine an exact mathematical dosing conversion... |
| National
Forensic Laboratory Information System (NFLIS) # NFLIS Brief: Fentanyl and Fentanyl-Related Substances Reported in NFLIS, 2015–2016 www.nflis.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/ October 2017, Revised March 2018 From January 2015 through December 2016, a total of 57,308 fentanyl and fentanyl-related substance reports were identifed by State and local forensic laboratories in the United States... |
|
Gennaro Migliore |
|
Global Commission on Drug Policy |
| European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction # Germany Country Drug Report 2017 www.emcdda.europa.eu/ 2017 |
| Daniel
Ciccarone, Jeff Ondocsin, Sarah G. Mars # Heroin uncertainties: Exploring users’ perceptions of fentanyl-adulterated and -substituted ‘heroin’ International Journal of Drug Policy, 46, 2017 The US is experiencing an unprecedented opioid overdose epidemic fostered in recent years by regional contamination of the heroin supply with the fentanyl family of synthetic opioids. Since 2011 opioid-related overdose deaths in the East Coast state of Massachusetts have more than tripled, with 75% of the 1374 deaths with an available toxicology positive for fentanyl. Fentanyl is 30 – 50X more potent than heroin and its presence makes heroin usemore unpredictable. |
| Miche
Baggio, Alberto Chong, Sungoh Kwon # Helping Settle the Marijuana and Alcohol Debate: Evidence from Scanner Data https://papers.ssrn.com/ Date Written: December 11, 2017 We use data on purchases of alcoholic beverages in grocery, convenience, drug, or mass distribution stores in US counties for 2006-2015 to study the link between medical marijuana laws and alcohol consumption and focus on settling the debate between the substitutability or complementarity between marijuana and alcohol. To do this we exploit the differences in the timing of the of marijuana laws among states and find that these two substances are substitutes. Counties located in MML states reduced monthly alcohol sales by 13 percent. Our findings are robust to border counties analysis, a placebo effective dates for MMLs in the treated states, and falsification tests using sales of pens and pencils. |
|
Raul Gonzalez, Ileana
Pacheco-Colón, Jacqueline C. Duperrouzel,
Samuel W. Hawes |
|
Héctor Abad Faciolince (El Espectador, Colombia) # Le case farmaceutiche hanno un ruolo nell’epidemia degli oppioidi www.internazionale.it/ 2
novembre 2017 |
| P.
Lemmens, H. Dupont, I. Roosen # Migrants, asylum seekers and refugees: an overview of the literature relating to drug use and access to services. Background paper commissioned by the EMCDDA for Health and social responses to drug problems: a European guide http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/ 30 October 2017 In the literature, several circumstances have been noted that could make migrants more vulnerable to substance use or misuse. Traumatic experiences, unemployment and poverty, loss of family and social support, and a more lenient normative setting have been named as factors in alcohol and drug use. Horyniak et al. (2016) found that drinking to cope with trauma, drinking to cope with boredom and frustration, and drinking as a social experience were important drinking motivations for African migrants in Australia. In a commentary, Pearce at al. (2004) convincingly argue that the social situation of migrants and people from ethnic minorities, and the differences between immigrant groups or groups with specific ethnic backgrounds, are more important determinants of health outcomes than genetic or ‘racial’ make-up. In terms of Zinberg’s trilogy of ‘drug, set and setting’ (1984), research seems to indicate that setting factors are more important than set factors in explaining the drug and alcohol use patterns of migrants. |
|
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention CDC |
|
Susan E. Collins, Heather S.
Lonczak, Seema L. Clifasefi |
|
Irene Valotti |
|
Leonardo Fiorentini |
|
Zachary Siegel |
|
Joseph J. Palamar, Alberto
Salomone, Enrico Gerace, Daniele Di Corcia,
Marco Vincenti, Charles M. Cleland |
|
Richard J. Bonnie, Morgan A.
Ford, Jonathan K. Phillips (eds) | The
National Academies of Sciences Engineering
and Medicine |
|
Adrián Viudez-Martínez, María
S. García-Gutiérrez, Carmen María
Navarrón, María Isabel Morales-Calero,
Francisco Navarrete, Ana Isabel
Torres-Suárez, Jorge Manzanares |
| CILD
- Coalizione Italiana Libertà e Diritti
Civili # I diritti del consumatore di cannabis. Know Your Rights https://cild.eu/ ottobre 2017 |
| Alberto
Cisterna # Lo Stato deve intervenire sul mercato delle droghe Il Dubbio, 4 ottobre 2017 Esiste una "cifra oscura" dei reati connessi alle tossicodipendenze che nessuno rivela al Paese nelle sue esatte dimensioni. Eppure la pratica delle aule di giustizia è chiara ogni giorno e consegna un quadro drammatico... La distribuzione controllata di alcuni tipi di stupefacente avrebbe il risultato di deprimere il contatto, talvolta quotidiano, di tanti giovani assuntori con malviventi della peggiore specie e di porre un freno alla "cifra oscura" dei drug oriented crimes.. |
|
Grazia Zuffa (a cura di) # Antonella Camposeragna, Indagine sulla percezione degli operatori sul consumo di NPS, Settembre 2017 # Riccardo De Facci, NPS tra diffusione e intervento, Settembre 2017 |
|
David Abernathy The legal cannabis industry accelerated at a remarkable pace in 2016. North American consumers spent $6.7 billion on legal cannabis products, up 34% from 2015... One key reason support for legalization is spreading so rapidly is that it is accomplishing a key goal: the illicit market is shrinking. The illicit market grew steadily throughout the last 40 years of the War on Drugs to what Arcview estimates was a North American total of $46.8 billion when adult-use sales first began in 2014 in Colorado and Washington... |
| Dipartimento
Politiche Antidroga # Relazione annuale al Parlamento 2017 sullo stato delle tossicodipendenze in Italia www.politicheantidroga.gov.it/ 2 agosto 2017 |
|
National Academy of Sciences Drug overdose, driven largely by overdose related to the use of opioids, is now the leading cause of unintentional injury death in the United States. The ongoing opioid crisis lies at the intersection of two public health challenges: reducing the burden of suffering from pain and containing the rising toll of the harms that can arise from the use of opioid medications. Chronic pain and opioid use disorder both represent complex human conditions affecting millions of Americans and causing untold disability and loss of function. |
|
Osservatorio europeo delle droghe e
delle tossicodipendenze (EMCDDA) # Comunicato dell'agenzia europea delle droghe di Lisbona, 6.6.2017 |
| Stefano
Anastasia, Maurizio Cianchella, Franco Corleone,
Leonardo Fiorentini, Marco Perduca (a cura di) # Libro Bianco sulle droghe. Dalla semina americana al deserto italiano Edizione 2017 sui dati 2016 -- Giugno 2017 ... Nonostante autorevoli prese di posizione di della magistratura e della cultura, e nonostante le continue sollecitazioni internazionali a un cambio di rotta, dagli Stati uniti al Canada, in questi quattro anni, in Italia, la politica sulle droghe non è cambiata. Il massimo sforzo di innovazione, paradossalmente affidato alla giurisprudenza costituzionale, è stato assorbito con qualche ritocco alla vecchia legge Iervolino-Vassalli, cui si deve l’impianto punitivo della normativa vigente. |
|
# Canada - Cannabis Act - 2017 The objectives of the Act are to prevent young persons from accessing cannabis, to protect public health and public safety by establishing strict product safety and product quality requirements and to deter criminal activity by imposing serious criminal penalties for those operating outside the legal framework. The Act is also intended to reduce the burden on the criminal justice system in relation to cannabis. |
| Deborah
S. Hasin, Aaron L. Sarvet, Magdalena Cerdá,
Katherine M. Keyes, Malka Stohl, Sandro Galea,
Melanie M. Wall # US Adult Illicit Cannabis Use, Cannabis Use Disorder, and Medical Marijuana Laws 1991-1992 to 2012-2013 JAMA Psychiatry. 2017;74(6):579-588 Over the last 25 years, illicit cannabis use and cannabis use disorders have increased among US adults, and 28 states have passed medical marijuana laws (MML). Little is known about MML and adult illicit cannabis use or cannabis use disorders considered over time and the public should be educated on risks of cannabis use and benefits of treatment, and prevention/intervention services for cannabis disorders should be provided... |
| Meredith
Cusick # Mens Rea and Methamphetamine: High Time for a Modern Doctrine Acknowledging the Neuroscience of Addiction Fordham Law Review, Vol. 85, No. 2417, 2017 Neuroscience research reveals that drug addiction results in catastrophic damage to the brain resulting in cognitive and behavioral deficits. Methamphetamine addiction is of particular interest to criminal law because it causes extensive neural destruction and is associated with impulsive behavior, violent crime, and psychosis. Furthermore, research has revealed important distinctions between the effects of acute intoxication and addiction. These findings have implications for the broader doctrine of mens rea and, specifically, the intoxication doctrines. This Note argues for the adoption of an addiction doctrine that acknowledges the effect of addiction on mens rea that is distinct from doctrines of intoxication. |
|
Faul M, Bohm M, Alexander C. Methadone MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2017;66:320–323. |
|
Molly Walker |
|
Holly Hedegaard, Margaret Warner,
Arialdi M. Miniño |
|
Michael L. Barnett, Andrew R.
Olenski, Anupam B. Jena |
| Christine
Hancock, Heidi Mennenga, Nikki King, Holly
Andrilla, Eric Larson, Pat Schou # Treating the Rural Opioid Epidemic www.ruralhealthweb.org/ February 2017 The abuse of prescription and non-prescription opioids is one of the greatest threats facing public health in the United States today. It is estimated that as many as 2.5 million people in the US are suffering from opioid addiction related to prescriptions, and an additional 467,000 are addicted to heroin. Factors such as increased quantities of opioids prescribed, increased social acceptance around prescription medications, and aggressive marketing by pharmaceutical companies have all led to the dramatic upsurge in opioid abuse. As many as 80% of those who are currently addicted to opioids are estimated to have begun their addiction with prescription pain medications. |
|
Luigi Manconi, Antonella Soldo, # La tragedia del proibizionismo, L'Unità, 15 febbraio 2017 Domenico "Megu" Chionetti,
# Sorvegliare e
punire a 16 anni?, Il Manifesto, 15
febbraio 2017 |
| Lloyd D.
Johnston, Patrick M. O’Malley, Richard A. Miech,
Jerald G. Bachman, John E. Schulenberg # Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975-2016: Overview, key findings on adolescent drug use Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan, January 2017 The 2016 MTF survey involved about 45,500 students in 8th-, 10th-, and 12th grades enrolled in 372 secondary schools nationwide. The first published results based on the 2016 survey are presented in this report. Recent trends in the use of licit and illicit drugs are emphasized, as well as trends in the levels of perceived risk and personal disapproval associated with each drug. This project has shown these beliefs and attitudes to be particularly important in explaining trends in use... |
|
Giacomo Galeazzi, Raphaël Zanotti |
|
Maria Katselou, Ioannis Papoutsis,
Panagiota Nikolaou, Chara Spiliopoulou,
Sotiris Athanaselis |
|
Seena Fazel, Isabel A. Yoon, Adrian
J. Hayes |
|
The National Academies of Sciences,
Engineering, Medice The committee notes the existence of “cannabimimetic agents” (often referred to as “K2” or “spice”) which are made up of dried plant matter sprayed with synthetic chemicals that mimic the effect of THC by interacting with cannabinoid receptors in the brain... |
|
Rose A. Rudd, Puja Seth, Felicita
David, Lawrence Scholl, |
|
Olivia Solon |
| Dipartimento
Politiche Antidroga # Relazione sui dati relativi allo stato delle tossicodipendenze in Italia (Anno 2015 e primo semestre 2016) Comunicata alla Presidenza del Senato il 6 dicembre 2016 |
| Alberto
Cadoppi, Benedetta Scarcella # California Dreamin'. Per una legalizzazione della cannabis e dei suoi derivati www.penalecontemporaneo.it/ 21 dicembre 2016 Col referendum dell’8 novembre 2016 in California si è introdotta una legalizzazione della produzione, del commercio e del consumo di marijuana. La riforma californiana, già attuata anche in altri stati USA, fa riflettere sull’opportunità di introdurre anche da noi una legalizzazione della cannabis e suoi derivati. Una proposta di legge in tal senso (n. 3235) è stata presentata al Parlamento, e si spera possa essere esaminata a breve. Nell’articolo si discute sulla legittimazione dell’approccio proibizionista alle “droghe leggere”, e si giunge a negarla, attraverso il riferimento al classico parametro penalistico continentale del bene giuridico e a quello del “principio del danno” di matrice angloamericana: la legalizzazione appare, de iure condendo, la soluzione migliore. |
|
Global Commission on Drug Policy |
|
June H. Kim, Julian
Santaella-Tenorio, Christine Mauro, Julia
Wrobel, Magdalena Cerdà, Katherine M. Keyes,
Deborah Hasin, Silvia S. Martins, Guohua Li |
|
Federica Lamanna Prima di arrivare alla scelta proibizionista di politica legislativa, sul finire dell’ottocento, anche in Italia, in linea con lo spirito liberale di quegli anni, l’assunzione di allucinogeni o stimolanti veniva “considerata una scelta non sindacabile del singolo individuo, senza interferenze dello Stato o dell’autorità pubblica”. Si riteneva, infatti, che il codice Zanardelli del 1889, che vietava la vendita e la circolazione di “cose pericolose per la salute umana”, non si riferisse alle droghe... |
|
Harald Klingemann Harald Klingemann |
| Department
of Criminal Justice Services - Virginia # Report of the Health and Criminal Justice Data Committee October 15, 2016 The rise in opioid overdose fatalities is being driven by a sharp rise in two particular drugs: fentanyl and heroin. The rise in fentanyl fatalities is due to illicitly produced fentanyl and fentanyl analogs. Overdose fatalities for heroin and fentanyl (combined) increased 34% in 2015, while overdose fatalities for prescription opioids other than fentanyl dropped 21%. |
|
ASAM American Society of Addiction
Medicine |
| Grazia
Zuffa (a cura di) # Consumi di Alcol nell’approccio di Riduzione del danno. Culture del bere, politiche pubbliche. Fascicolo di documentazione www.fuoriluogo.it/ Summer School 2016 | Firenze, 8-9-10 settembre |
|
Andrea Baiguera Altieri |
|
Angus C, Holmes J, Pryce R, Meier P,
Brennan A |
|
Liana Jacobi, Michelle Sovinsky Maurizio Ricci # Aumento dei consumatori ma risparmi per tre miliardi: ecco quanto vale la cannabis di Stato www.repubblica.it/ 19 agosto 2016 Camilla Doninelli # Legalizzazione cannabis: quanto ci guadagna lo Stato? www.lindro.it/ 12 agosto 2016 |
|
ASAM American Society of Addiction
Medicine Valeria Pini # Eroina, boom di vittime negli Stati Uniti: 28 mila morti in un anno www.repubblica.it/ 17 agosto 2016 |
| Drug
Policy Alliance # Marijuana and Opiates www.drugpolicy.org/ August 2016 Accidental overdose deaths are now the leading cause of accidental death in the United States, exceeding even motor vehicle accidents among people ages 25 to 64. In 2014, there were 14,000 overdose deaths due to opiates in the United States with about 78 people impacted per day. The United States holds about 25% of the world’s population but ingests 99% of the world’s hysdrocodone... |
|
Franco Corleone, Stefano Anastasia,
Leonardo Fiorentini (a cura di) # Camera dei deputati, Proposta di Legge n. 3235 presentata il 16 luglio 2015 |
|
Osservatorio europeo delle droghe e
delle tossicodipendenze (EMCDDA) |
|
Council of the European Union |
|
Castlight Health |
| Wilson M.
Compton, Christopher M. Jones, Grant T. Baldwin # Relationship between Nonmedical Prescription-Opioid Use and Heroin Use The New England Journal of Medicine, 2016 In 2014, a total of 10.3 million persons reported using prescription opioids nonmedically (i.e., using medications that were not prescribed for them or were taken only for the experience or feeling that they caused).2 Emergency department visits involving misuse or abuse of prescription opioids increased 153% between 2004 and 2011, and admissions to substance-abuse treatment programs linked to prescription opioids more than quadrupled between 2002 and 2012 |
|
SIAPAD | Regione Lombardia |
|
Drug Policy Alliance |
|
Luca Morassutto |
|
United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime UNODC It is estimated that 1 in 20 adults, or a quarter of a billion people between the ages of 15 and 64 years, used at least one drug in 2014. Roughly the equivalent of the combined populations of France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, though a substantial amount, it is one that does not seem to have grown over the past four years in proportion to the global population. Nevertheless, as over 29 million people who use drugs are estimated to suffer from drug use disorders, and of those, 12 million are people who inject drugs (PWID), of whom 14.0 per cent are living with HIV, the impact of drug use in terms of its consequences on health continues to be devastating. |
|
Carlo Bray |
|
Louis Appleby, Nav Kapur, Jenny Shaw,
Pauline Turnbull, Kirsten Windfuhr, Saied
Ibrahim, Cathryn Rodway, Su-Gwan Tham |
|
Sameer Imtiaz, Jürgen Rehm |
|
Dan Baum |
| Karen
Dugosh, Amanda Abraham, Brittany Seymour, Keli
McLoyd, Mady Chalk, David Festinger # A Systematic Review on the Use of Psychosocial Interventions in Conjunction With Medications for the Treatment of Opioid Addiction J Addict Med Volume 10, Number 2, March/April 2016 Opioid use and overdose rates have risen to epidemic levels in the United States during the past decade. Fortunately, there are effective medications (ie, methadone, buprenorphine, and oral and injectable naltrexone) available for the treatment of opioid addiction. Each of these medications is approved for use in conjunction with psychosocial treatment... |
| David
Bewley-Taylor (GDPO), Martin Jelsma (TNI), Steve
Rolles (TDPF), Walsh (WOLA) # Cannabis Regulation and the UN Drug Treaties Strategies for Reform Briefing Paper, April 2016 |
|
Luisa Romano # Ancora dubbi sulla legittimità costituzionale dell’art. 75-bis d.P.R. n. 309 del 1990 www.penalecontemporaneo.it/ 28 Aprile 2016 # Giud. di pace Chioggia, 14 dicembre 2015, ord. (G.U. n. 15 del 13.04.2016) |
| Ministero
della Salute - Ccm Centro nazionale per la
prevenzione e il controllo delle malattie # Relazione al Parlamento su alcol e problemi alcol correlati, anno 2015 www.ccm-network.it/ aprile 2016 |
|
Cassazione Penale Sez. 1
# Sentenza
n. 14008 del 2016 |
|
Francesco Machina Grifeo |
| Colorado
Department of Public Safety # Marijuana Legalization in Colorado: Early Findings. A Report Pursuant to Senate Bill 13-283 http://cdpsdocs.state.co.us/ March 2016 |
| Seema L.
Clifasefi, Heather S. Lonczak, Susan E. Collins # LEAD Program Evaluation: The Impact of LEAD on Housing, Employment and Income/Benefits University of Washington, March 31, 2016 Findings indicated improvements for LEAD participants across housing, employment, and income/benefit outcomes. Case management appears to play a significant role in ameliorating housing outcomes. Secondary analyses showed that better housing and employment outcomes are associated with reduced recidivism among LEAD participants. |
| Filippo
Lombardi # Coltivazione di stupefacenti, grado di maturazione della pianta e principio di offensività www.giurisprudenzapenale.com/ 29 marzo 2016 Cassazione Penale, Sez. VI, 21 gennaio 2016 (ud. 21 ottobre 2015), n. 2618 - Presidente Ippolito, Relatore Fidelbo - La condotta di coltivazione, per essere punita, deve essere in grado in concreto di mettere in pericolo la salute pubblica e ciò può accadere se la pianta ha una effettiva e attuale capacità drogante. Non è pertanto corretto operare un giudizio sulla futura esistenza di principi attivi e, dunque, sulla capacità drogante della ostanza estraibile dalle piantine, in quanto in questo modo si perverrebbe ad un accertamento ipotetico che fonda il riconoscimento della responsabilità penale con riferimento ad una condotta di coltivazione di cui non risulta dimostrata la capacità di mettere in pericolo il bene tutelato. |
|
Giorgio Bignami |
|
Arthur Robin Williams, Mark Olfson,
June H. Kim, Silvia S. Martins, Herbert D.
Kleber |
|
Mariagrazia Fasoli, Alessandra Ramera,
Patrizia Furba Mariagrazia Fasoli, Alessandra Ramera |
|
Gen Sander Gen Sander |
| David
Scott, Helena Gosling # Before Prison, Instead of Prison, Better Than Prison: Therapeutic Communities as an Abolitionist Real Utopia? www.crimejusticejournal.com IJCJ&SD 2016 5(1) In this article we consider whether Therapeutic Communities (TCs) can be promoted for substance using lawbreakers as part of a wider abolitionist strategy aiming to reduce social harms and challenge social and economic inequalities. The article starts by outlining the normative framework of an abolitionist real utopia before moving on to critically explore the historical and theoretical contexts of TCs. The discussion then turns to the existing literature on TCs as an alternative to penal custody as before, instead of, and better than, a prison sentence. |
|
Nora D. Volkow, James M. Swanson, A.
Eden Evins, Lynn E. DeLisi, Madeline H. Meier,
Raul Gonzalez, Michael A. P. Bloomfield,H.
Valerie Curran, Ruben Baler |
| NIH
National Institute on Drug Abuse # Synthetic Cathinones ("Bath Salts") www.drugabuse.gov/ January 2016 Synthetic cathinones are included in a group of drugs that concern public health officials called "new psychoactive substances" (NPS). NPS are unregulated psychoactive (mind-altering) substances that have become newly available on the market and are intended to copy the effects of illegal d rugs. Some of these substances may have been around for years but have reentered the market in altered chemical forms or due to renewed popularity. |
| International
Centre for Science in Drug Policy # A Call for A Reprioritization of Metrics to Evaluate Illicit Drug Policy January 21, 2016 In 2016, the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs (UNGASS) will convene to reflect on the impacts of the past two decades of global drug policy, and to chart a course for the future. This process, which was last undertaken in 1998, comes at a time of significant changes in drug policies across countries and regions. The 2016 UNGASS represents a rare opportunity to reassess the global approach to drugs and to move towards drug policies informed by health concerns and that effectively address the three UN pillars of peace and security, human development and human rights. |
|
Harm Reduction International |
| Lorenzo
Miazzi # Il “nuovo” V comma T.U. n. 309/1990: dal reato di quantità al reato di condotta? www.questionegiustizia.it/ 18 gennaio 2016 |
|
Rose A. Rudd, Noah Aleshire, Jon E.
Zibbell, R. Matthew Gladden |
| Andrea
Affaticati, Maria Lidia Gerra, Andrea Amerio,
Maria Inglese, Carlo Marchesi # The Controversial Case of Biperiden. From Prescription Drug to Drug of Abuse Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology • Volume 35, Number 6, December 2015 Anticholinergic drugs such as biperiden are commonly used in psychiatry for the prophylaxis and treatment of extrapyramidal symptoms caused by antipsychotics, as well as for tremors in Parkinson disease. Anticholinergic abuse has been reported in nonpsychotic patients probably because of inducing mild euphoria with increased sociability and energy through an increase of dopaminergic activity... Further studies are needed to estimate the impact of biperiden as a substance of abuse, especially among marginalized people. Concerning Italy, the preliminary data presented in Table 1 support that biperiden is particularly abused by prisoners coming from North-African countries. |
|
HM Inspectorate of Prisons | Rachel
Prime, Helen Ranns, Majella Pearce,Sigrid
Engelen, Paul Roberts |
|
National Institute on Drug Abuse |
|
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of
Public Health More than 100,000 people in the United States have died — directly or indirectly — from prescribed opioids since prescribing policies changed in the late 1990’s... |
|
Carta di Milano 2015 |
|
Ministero della Salute | Decreto 9
novembre 2015 |
|
Luisa Romano Viene rimessa al vaglio della Corte costituzionale una tra le più controverse modifiche del Testo unico delle leggi in materia di stupefacenti e sostanze psicotrope introdotte dalla cd. legge "Fini-Giovanardi", con cui si è previsto un inedito e variegato sistema di misure restrittive della libertà personale e della libertà di movimento nei confronti di diverse categorie di tossicodipendenti ed assuntori di sostanze stupefacenti che, «in relazione alle modalità od alle circostanze dell'uso» di queste ultime, possano rappresentare un «pericolo per la sicurezza pubblica» |
|
Sari Horwitz |
|
Sam Taxy, Julie Samuels, and William
Adams | Bureau of Justice Statistics |
|
Deborah S. Hasin, Tulshi D. Saha, Bradley T. Kerridge, Risë B. Goldstein, S. Patricia Chou, Haitao Zhang, Jeesun Jung, Roger P. Pickering, W. June Ruan, Sharon M. Smith, Boji Huang, Bridget F. Grant
# Prevalence
of Marijuana Use Disorders in the United
States Between 2001-2002 and 2012-2013 |
| Dipartimento
politiche antidroga # Relazione annuale al Parlamento 2015 sullo stato delle tossicodipendenze in Italia www.politicheantidroga.it/ 2015 Il processo di stesura della Relazione è iniziato il 24 novembre 2014, con l'istituzione di un Tavolo interistituzionale e interdisciplinare, coordinato dal Dipartimento Politiche Antidroga della Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri, che ha a sua volta designato un Gruppo redazionale, formato da: Ministero della Salute - Ministero dell'Interno - Ministero della Giustizia - Ministero della Difesa - Coordinamento delle Regioni e delle Province autonome - ISTAT - CNR - Istituto Superiore di Sanità - INAIL - Esperti e rappresentanti degli organismi del privato sociale e dei servizi pubblici territoriali... |
|
Piero David, Ferdinando Ofria |
|
Luigi Marini |
|
Lloyd D. Johnston, Patrick M. O’Malley,
Richard A. Miech, Jerald G. Bachman, John E.
Schulenberg |
|
Lloyd D. Johnston, Patrick M. O’Malley,
Jerald G. Bachman, John E. Schulenberg, Richard
A. Miech Marijuana was seen as the least risky of the illicit drugs, although sharp distinctions were made between different levels of marijuana use. In 2014, experimental use of marijuana was perceived as being of great risk by only 8– to 10% of all high school graduates ages 19–30, whereas regular use was perceived to carry great risk by a considerably higher percentage (35–to 36%). Since 2006 there have been very substantial declines in perceived risk for regular marijuana use... |
| Jordan
Bechtold, Theresa Simpson, Helene R. White, Dustin
Pardini # Chronic Adolescent Marijuana Use as a Risk Factor for Physical and Mental Health Problems in Young Adult Men Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, August 2015 Over the past decade, U.S. policies have increasingly shifted toward a deregulation of marijuana for medical and recreational use. Recent legislation in several states (i.e., Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska) and Washington, D.C., has legalized recreational marijuana use for individuals 21 and older. More states (e.g., California) are likely to follow suit in future elections... |
|
Home Office - National Statistics |
Deborah Lader (ed) |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs
and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) |
|
Penal Reform International |
|
Lorenzo Mantelli Con la marijuana libera, 10 mld di beneficio per i conti pubblici. E Pil in crescita. Mentre calerebbe la spesa che il governo stanzia per la lotta alle droghe leggere. |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs
and Drug Addiction |
|
UNODC |
| Mary Jane
England, Adrienne Stith Butler, Monica L. Gonzalez
(eds) # Psychosocial Interventions for Mental and Substance Use Disorders: A Framework for Establishing Evidence-Based Standards www.nap.edu/ Board on Health Sciences Policy; Institute of Medicine; 2015 Mental health and substance use disorders affect approximately 20 percent of Americans and are associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Although the current evidence base for the effects of psychosocial interventions is sizable, subsequent steps in the process of bringing a psychosocial intervention into routine clinical care are less well defined. The data from research supporting these interventions have not been well synthesized, and it can be difficult for consumers, providers, and payers to know what treatments are effective. This report details the reasons for the gap between what is known to be effective and current practice and offers recommendations for how best to address this gap by applying a framework that can be used to establish standards for psychosocial interventions. |
| Luigi
Ripamonti # Le nuove droghe quello che c’è da sapere (e anche da fare). Scuola, famiglia, politica: ognuno deve informare, evitando di rimuovere o falsare il problema www.corriere.it/ 28 luglio 2015 Ha ancora ragione d’essere un dibattito fra proibizionismo e antiproibizionismo sulle droghe «tradizionali»? Il fronte si è spostato. Bisogna prenderne atto. E anche parlare solo di «droghe sintetiche» rischia di essere una semplificazione. Non si tratta di capire soltanto quali sono le nuove sostanze e di impostare una strategia per arginarle secondo schemi consolidati, di maggiore o minore successo. Non sono cambiati solo gli stupefacenti. Sono cambiati anche i canali di diffusione e il mercato, sempre più fluidi, destrutturati e parcellizzati... |
|
Intergruppo parlamentare per la
legalizzazione della cannabis # Camera dei deputati, Proposta di Legge n. 3235 presentata il 16 luglio 2015 |
| David
Powell, Rosalie Pacula, Mireille Jacobson # Do Medical Marijuana Laws Reduce Addictions and Deaths Related to Pain Killers? https://bluedoor.org/ June 2015 The fact that opioid harms decline in response to medical marijuana dispensaries raises some interesting questions as to whether marijuana liberalization may be beneficial for public health. Marijuana is a far less addictive substance than opioids and the potential for overdosing is nearly zero. However, it remains unclear from our current analysis whether the findings we observe are short term or persist. In addition, we ultimately need to weigh any potential indirect benefits from medical marijuana dispensary provisions in terms of its implied reductions in opiate misuse (or other positive outcomes) against any potential negative impacts of these provisions on other factors, such as tobacco use and drugged driving. |
| La società
della ragione | Forum droghe | Antigone | CNCA # 6° Libro Bianco sulla legge sulle droghe. Dopo la Fini-Giovanardi: un anno di transizione e contraddizioni | # ... in pillole I dossier di Fuoriluogo.it Giugno 2015 ... Il 2016 sarà un anno decisivo sul piano internazionale perché è convocata a New York nel mese di aprile una sessione straordinaria dell’assemblea generale delle Nazioni Unite sulle droghe per approfondire i cambiamenti avvenuti in molte parti del mondo, ma soprattutto in Sud America, dalla Bolivia all’Uruguay alla quale vorremmo che il nostro Paese arrivasse avendo abbandonato definitivamente la compagine repressiva degli stati proibizionisti e partecipe di un impegno europeo per la modifica delle Convenzioni internazionali. |
|
Luisa Romano |
| Bjoern
Moosmann, Leslie A. King, Volker Auwarter # Designer benzodiazepines: a new challenge World Psychiatry 14:2 - June 2015 |
| Lynn E.
DeLisi, W. Wolfgang Fleischhacker # The problem of substance abuse in people with schizophrenia Curr Opin Psychiatry 2015, 28:199–200 Future studies need to clearly examine the content of marijuana patients use and also how each component interacts with genetic risk factors to produce a psychotic illness. With the widespread legalization of marijuana, this should serve as a natural experiment, which will allow for evaluating large-scale population-derived findings of cannabinoid use in both the general and the at-risk populations. |
|
Paolo Pontoniere # cfr. Kimberly R. Urban, Wen-Jun Gao Performance enhancement at the cost of potential brain plasticity: neural ramifications of nootropic drugs in the healthy developing brain, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ frontiers in systems neurosciences, 13 may 2014 |
|
Beau Kilmer |
|
Mélissa Prud’homme, Romulus Cata,
Didier Jutras-Aswad |
| Pew
Research Center # In Debate Over Legalizing Marijuana, Disagreement Over Drug’s Dangers. In Their Own Words: Supporters and Opponents of Legalization www.pewresearch.org/ April 14, 2015 Public opinion about legalizing marijuana, while little changed in the past few years, has undergone a dramatic long-term shift. A new survey finds that 53% favor the legal use of marijuana, while 44% are opposed. As recently as 2006, just 32% supported marijuana legalization, while nearly twice as many (60%) were opposed... |
|
FederSerd Aprile 2015 |
|
Pietro Fausto D’Egidio - FederSerd |
|
The Centre for Social Justice |
| Sarah G.
Mars, Jason N. Fessel, Philippe Bourgois, Fernando
Montero, George Karandinos, Daniel Ciccarone # Heroin-related overdose: The unexplored influences of markets, marketing and source-types in the United States Soc Sci Med, 2015 September; 140: 44–53 Heroin overdose, more accurately termed ‘heroin-related overdose’ due to the frequent involvement of other drugs, is the leading cause of mortality among regular heroin users. Heroin injectors are at greater risk of hospital admission for heroinrelated overdose (HOD) in the eastern United States where Colombian-sourced powder heroin is sold than in the western US where black ‘tar’ heroin predominates. |
|
Tista S. Ghosh, Michael Van Dyke, Ali
Maffey, Elizabeth Whitley, Dana Erpelding, Larry
Wolk |
|
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche –
News |
|
Maurizio Ricci # Leonid Bershidsky, Big Tobacco's Future: Big Pot, www.bloombergview.com/ Feb 20, 2015 |
|
Grazia Zuffa |
| Gregory
Midgette, Beau Kilmer # The Effect of Montana's 24/7 Sobriety Program on DUI Re-arrest Insights from a Natural Experiment with Limited Administrative Data www.rand.org/ March 2015 Analysis provides additional support for the claim that 24/7 is an effective way to deter drinking among individuals with histories of alcohol-related crime. While the majority of individuals are sanctioned at least once while on the program, more than 95% of scheduled tests are taken and passed. Results from bivariate probit models which instrument with 24/7 availability provide suggestive evidence that 24/7 reduced the probability of re-arrest for DUI in Montana (perhaps on the order of 45% to 70% when considering both our main results and sensitivity analysis findings), but large amounts of missing criminal history information preclude us from making stronger inferences about causality... |
|
Andrew Kubas, Poyraz Kayabas, Kimberly
Vachal |
| Antigone |
A cura di Elia De Caro e Gennaro Santoro # Yes We Cannabis. Strumenti di tutela, approfondimenti, prospettive antiproibizioniste www.associazioneantigone.it/ marzo 2015 L'economia della droga (400 miliardi di dollari di fatturato annuo) è la prima al mondo. Vietata quasi ovunque è la merce più reperibile del mondo. Il mercato della droga è nelle mani della malavita e foraggia le attività del crimine organizzato. Il proibizionismo ha fallito in Italia, come nel resto del mondo. Ad accorgersene sono stati proprio gli inventori di tale guerra, gli americani, che in 14 stati federali hanno legalizzato l’uso terapeutico della cannabis, in altri (Colorado) anche l’uso ludico... |
|
Marta Di Forti, Arianna Marconi, Elena Carra, Sara Fraietta, Antonella Trotta, Matteo Bonomo, Francesca Bianconi, Poonam Gardner-Sood, Jennifer O’Connor, Manuela Russo, Simona A Stilo, Tiago Reis Marques, Valeria Mondelli, Paola Dazzan, Carmine Pariante, Anthony S David, Fiona Gaughran, Zerrin Atakan, Conrad Iyegbe, John Powell, Craig Morgan, Michael Lynskey, Robin M Murray #
Proportion
of patients in south London with first-episode
psychosis attributable to use of high potency
cannabis: a case-control study |
|
David Nutt |
|
Transnational Institute drugs and
democracy |
|
Roberto Saviano |
|
Dirk W. Lachenmeier, Jürgen Rehm |
| SIRUS
Norwegian Institute for Alcohol and Drug
Research # The Drug Situation in Norway 2014 - Annual report to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction - EMCDDA http://wpstatic.idium.no/ Oslo 2015 In 2012, clonazepam was for the first time the second most commonly found substance (38 % of all cases) after alcohol. Clonazepam maintained its “top position” in 2013, together with THC, each accounting for 35 per cent of the cases (Table 10). This may be partly explained by the lowering of the detection limit. This means that clonazepam is now found in some cases where the substance would not previously have been detected. The NIPH most often finds clonazepam in combination with illegal substances (methamphetamine/amphetamine etc.), which indicates that thesubstance is increasingly being sold and used as a drug. Othersubstances that were frequently found wereamphetamine (32 %) followed by methamphetamine (29 %) and diazepam (20 % of all cases). |
|
Lael Reinstatler, Nagy A. Youssef |
|
San Francisco Department of Public
Health |
|
Roger H. Peters, Harry K. Wexler,
Arthur J. Lurigio |
|
Penny F. Whiting, Robert F.Wolff,
Sohan Deshpande, Marcello Di Nisio, Steven
Duffy, Adrian V. Hernandez, J. Christiaan
Keurentjes, Shona Lang, Kate Misso, Steve
Ryder, Simone Schmidlkofer, Marie
Westwood, Jos Kleijnen |
|
Christy K. Scott, Michael L.
Dennis, Arthur J. Lurigio |
|
Hans Wolff |
|
T. P. Freeman, A. R. Winstock |
| Sara
Reardon # Rave drug tested against depression. Companies and clinicians turn to ketamine to treat mental-health disorder as pipeline of new drugs dries up www.nature.com/ 8 january 2015 Ketamine, a psychoactive ‘party drug’ better known as Special K, has pharmaceutical companies riding high. Used clinically as an anaesthetic in animals and humans, it has proved an extremely effective treatment for depression, bipolar disorder and suicidal behaviour. It also works incredibly fast. Unlike conventional antidepressants, which generally take weeks to start working, ketamine lifts depression in as little as two hours. |
|
Francesco Sanna |
| Dipartimento
Politiche Antidroga # Uso di sostanze stupefacenti e tossicodipendenze in Italia. Dati relativi all’anno 2013 e primo semestre 2014 - elaborazioni 2014 www.politicheantidroga.it/ |
|
Faculty of Addictions Psychiatry, Royal
College of Psychiatrists | Owen Bowden-Jones,
Chris Fitch, Christopher Hilton, Joel Lewis,
Grace Ofori-Attah |
|
Ezio Manzato, Fabio Lugoboni, Cristina
Biasin, Sara Rosa, Giuseppina Cifelli, Gisella
Manzato, Felice Nava Nella pratica clinica è stato evidenziato che la prognosi con una disintossicazione da BDZ lenta è solitamente abbastanza buona, con due terzi di pazienti che raggiungono la cessazione completa; altri soggetti invece riescono a ottenere solo una riduzione del dosaggio dell’agente farmacologico: questo è un outcome del trattamento inadeguato in quanto tali pazienti ricadono in percentuale alta. Infatti i soggetti che falliscono l’interruzione completa delle BDZ hanno una prognosi scarsa e ripetono i fallimenti. |
|
Gill Bradbury, Danny Morris, Neil Hunt |
| Anil G.
Suryaprasad, Jianglan Z. White, Fujie Xu, Beth-Ann
Eichler, Janet Hamilton, Ami Patel, Shadia Bel
Hamdounia, Daniel R. Church, Kerri Barton, Chardé
Fisher, Kathryn Macomber, Marisa Stanley, Sheila
M. Guilfoyle, Kristin Sweet, Stephen Liu, Kashif
Iqbal, Rania Tohme, Umid Sharapov, Benjamin A.
Kupronis, John W. Ward, Scott D. Holmberg # Emerging Epidemic of Hepatitis C Virus Infections Among Young Nonurban Persons Who Inject Drugs in the United States, 2006–2012 Clinical Infectious Diseases, 2014;59(10):1411–9 These data indicate an emerging US epidemic of HCV infection among young nonurban persons of predominantly white race. Reported incidence was higher in 2012 than 2006 in at least 30 states, with largest increases in nonurban counties east of the Mississippi River. Prescription opioid abuse at an early age was commonly reported and should be a focus for medical and public health intervention. |
|
RCPsych in Wales |
|
Maurizio Fea |
|
Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of
Prisons # HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales - Annual Report 2013–14 |
| Marcus A.
Bachhuber, Brendan Saloner, Chinazo O.
Cunningham, Colleen L. Barry # Medical Cannabis Laws and Opioid Analgesic Overdose Mortality in the United States, 1999–2010 JAMA Intern Med. 2014 October ; 174(10): 1668–1673 Opioid analgesic overdose mortality continues to rise in the United States, driven by increases in prescribing for chronic pain. Because chronic pain is a major indication for medical cannabis, laws that establish access to medical cannabis may change overdose mortality related to opioid analgesics in states that have enacted them... Medical cannabis laws are associated with significantly lower state-level opioid overdose mortality rates. Further investigation is required to determine how medical cannabis laws may interact with policies aimed at preventing opioid analgesic overdose... |
| Theodore J.
Cicero, Matthew S. Ellis, Hilary L. Surratt,
Steven P. Kurtz # The Changing Face of Heroin Use in the United States. A Retrospective Analysis of the Past 50 Years JAMA Psychiatry, 2014;71(7):821-826. In recent years, there have been a number of mainstream media reports that the abuse of heroin has migrated from low- ncome urban areas with large minority populations tomore affluent suburban and rural areas with primarily white populations. Large-scale epidemiological studies have documented significant increases in heroin use9,10 and overdoserelated hospitalizations nationwide, particularly over the past 10 years... |
|
Global Commission on Drug Policy |
|
California Budget Project |
|
UNODC, Global SMART Update.
Methamphetamine manufacture: |
|
The Pew Charitable Trusts |
|
Mayor's press releases A year-long pilot of the scheme begins today in the South London Local Justice Area, covering the Croydon, Lambeth, Southwark and Sutton. It is anticipated that between 100-150 offenders will be sentenced by the courts to an ‘alcohol abstinence monitoring requirement' where they will be banned from drinking any alcohol for up to 120 days and tested constantly using the new ankle tag.
Keith Humphreys |
| Annalisa
Pastore, Luigi Levita # La disciplina degli stupefacenti alla luce della recente giurisprudenza costituzionale Gazzetta Forense, Luglio-agosto 2014 L’avvenuta trasformazione della fattispecie prevista dall’art. 73, comma 5, d.P.R. 9 ottobre 1990, n. 309, da circostanza attenuante ad ipotesi autonoma di reato non ha comportato alcun mutamento nei caratteri costitutivi del fatto di lieve entità, che continua ad essere configurabile nelle ipotesi di minima offensività penale della condotta, deducibile sia dal dato qualitativo e quantitativo, sia dagli altri parametri richiamati dalla disposizione (mezzi, modalità, circostanze dell’azione), con la conseguenza che, ove uno degli indici previsti dalla legge risulti negativamente assorbente, ogni altra considerazione resta priva di incidenza sul giudizio. |
|
Jesse Wegmam |
| United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime # World Drug Report 2014 www.unodc.org/ June 2014 |
| WACD Wuest
Africa Commission on Drugs # Not Just in Transit. Drugs, the State and Society in West Africa. An Independent Report of the West Africa Commission on Drugs www.wacommissionondrugs.org/ June 2014 3 .Develop, reform and/or harmonise drug laws on the basis of existing and emerging minimum standards and pursue decriminalization of drug use and low-level non-violent drug offences. 3.1 Ensure that efforts to develop, reform and/or harmonise drug laws are carried out on the basis of existing and emerging minimum standards in which the protection of the security, health, human rights and well-being of all people is the central goal. 3.2 Pursue decriminalisation of drug use and low-level non-violent drug offences through reform of national legislation as a means to reduce the enormous pressures on overburdened criminal justice systems and protect citizens from further harms. |
|
LSE Expert Group on the Economics of
Drug Policy |
| U.S.
Department of Justice # The Dangers and Consequences of Marijuana Abuse www.dea.gov/ May 2014 |
|
Symeon Brown |
|
Global Drug Survey GDS2014 |
| Nora D.
Volkow, Ruben D. Baler, Wilson M. Compton, Susan
R.B. Weiss # Adverse Health Effects of Marijuana Use N Engl J Med 2014;370:2219-27 The regular use of marijuana during adolescence is of particular concern, since use by this age group is associated with an increased likelihood of deleterious consequences. Although multiple studies have reported detrimental effects, others have not, and the question of whether marijuana is harmful remains the subject of heated debate. Here we review the current state of the science related to the adverse health effects of the recreational use of marijuana, focusing on those areas for which the evidence is strongest. |
| College of
Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia # Methadone Maintenance Program: Clinical Practice Guideline www.cpsbc.ca/ February 2014 (Revised July 2014) Alcohol use poses unique concerns in methadone maintenance patients. The risk of overdose is increased, given the synergistic respiratory depressant effect alcohol has with methadone. In addition, alcohol interferes with the metabolism of methadone. In its early stages, problem drinking has the potential to induce hepatic enzymes which can accelerate methadone metabolism. At later stages, liver failure can precipitously reduce a patient’s tolerance to methadone. These complicated interactions underscore the need for physicians to appropriately screen and monitor for alcohol use disorders and provide intervention and treatment. |
|
Betty Tai, Steven Sparenborg, Udi E
Ghitza, David Liu |
| Beau Kilmer # Taking a Sober Look at Legalizing Marijuana San Francisco Chronicle on July 12, 2014 | The Rand Blog California and a handful of other states will probably vote on legal pot in 2016. Whether it passes will depend on several factors, including the quality of the proposal, how much money is involved in the campaigns, and how things play out in Colorado, Washington and other places that have legalized production and sales... |
|
Corte Suprema di Cassazione - Quarta
Sezione Penale |
| La società
della ragione | Forum droghe | Antigone | CNCA # 5° libro bianco sulla legge Fini-Giovanardi I dossier di Fuoriluogo.it Giugno 2014 Intanto, però, è bene ricordare che la strage continua: continuala criminalizzazione dei consumatori (solo attenuata dal ritorno a pene più miti per la detenzione di droghe leggere) e continua scandalosamente la detenzione di condannati a pene giudicate illegittime dalla Corte costituzionale e che meriterebbero, secondo la giurisprudenza della Corte di cassazione, di vedersi rideterminata la pena dal giudice dell’esecuzione: alcune migliaia di detenuti abbandonati a se stessi dal cinismo con cui le istituzioni politiche si rifiutano di prendere decisioni che possano essere delegate alla magistratura. Per evitare l’esecuzione di pene illegittime si sarebbe potuto intervenire per decreto o addirittura approvare un indulto ad hoc, e invece i singoli detenuti sono stati lasciati a se stessi, con il risultato che o gli uffici giudiziari saranno intasati dal ricalcolo delle pene o molte persone finiranno di scontare in carcere la loro pena ingiusta. |
|
Mandy Stahre, Jim Roeber, Dafna Kanny,
Robert D. Brewer, Xingyou Zhang |
| CEWG
Community Epidemiology Work Group | NIH National
Institute on Drug Abuse # Epidemiologic Trends in drug Abuse. Proceedings of the Community Epidemiology Work Group www.drugabuse.gov/ June 2014 |
|
Nicholas B. King, Veronique Fraser,
Constantina Boikos, Robin Richardson, Sam Harper |
| Jennifer E.
Murray, Ruth Dilleen, Yann Pelloux, Daina
Economidou, Jeffrey W. Dalley, David Belin, Barry J. Everitt # Increased Impulsivity Retards the Transition to Dorsolateral Striatal Dopamine Control of Cocaine Seeking Biol Psychiatry 2014; 76:15-22 The results demonstrate that high impulsivity is associated with a delayed transition to DLS-dopamine-dependent control over cocaine seeking. This suggests that, if impulsivity confers an increased propensity to addiction, it is not simply through a more rapid development of habits but instead through interacting corticostriatal and striato-striatal processes that result ultimately in maladaptive drug-seeking habits. |
|
Corte di Cassazione | Ufficio del
Massimario | Settore Penale | a cura di
Vittorio Pazienza |
|
Luisa Romano 1. Introduzione. - 2. L'art. 73, co. 5, del d.P.R. n. 309 del 1990: ancora una modifica. - 3. Il restyling dell'art. 75 del d.P.R. n. 309 del 1990: la non punibilità "dell'uso personale". - 4. segue: Il restyling dell'art. 75 del d.P.R. n. 309 del 1990: in particolare, il nuovo comma 1-bis. - 5. segue: Il restyling dell'art. 75 del d.P.R. n. 309 del 1990: riflessi sull'art. 75-bis. - 6. Un paio di modifiche "non innovative". - 7. La sorte degli atti amministrativi adottati sulla base della legge cd. "Fini-Giovanardi". |
|
Osservatorio europeo delle droghe e
delle tossicodipendenze (EMCDDA) Tra i carcerati si segnalano tassi di consumo di stupefacenti complessivamente più alti di quelli riscontrati tra la popolazione generale e modelli di consumo più dannosi; studi recenti indicano infatti che una percentuale di detenuti compresa tra il 5 % e il 31 % ha assunto stupefacenti per via parenterale almeno in un’occasione. Con l’ingresso in carcere, la maggior parte dei consumatori riduce o interrompe il consumo di stupefacenti; non è raro tuttavia che le sostanze illecite riescano a entrare nelle prigioni, cosicché alcuni carcerati continuano o cominciano a consumare droghe durante il periodo di detenzione. |
|
Fabrizio Ricci (ed) | Regione Umbria |
|
C Chérrez-Bermejo, R Alás-Brun |
| Anene
Ukaigwe, Paras Karmacharya, Anthony Donato # A Gut Gone to Pot: A Case of Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome due to K2, a Synthetic Cannabinoid www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ Case Reports in Emergency Medicine, Volume 2014 Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome (CHS) was first described in 2004. Due to its novelty, CHS is often unrecognized by clinicians leading to expensive workup of these patients with cyclical symptoms. It may take up to 9 years to diagnose CHS. CHS is characterized by cyclical nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain, and an unusual compulsion to take hot showers in the presence of chronic use of cannabinoids. Cannabicyclohexanol is a synthetic cannabinoid, popularly known as K2 spice. It is a popular marijuana alternative among teenagers and young adults since it is readily available as herbal incense. Unlike marijuana, many users know that K2 is not detected in conventional urine drug screens, allowing those users to conceal their intake from typical detection methods. Serum or urine gas chromatography mass spectrophotometry is diagnostic, though not widely available. |
| Francesco
Viganò # Convertito in legge il d.l. n. 36/2014 in materia di discipina degli stupefacenti, con nuove modifiche (tra l'altro) al quinto comma dell'art. 73 www.,penalecontemporaneo.it/ 19 Maggio 2014 |
|
Isabelle Giraudon, Guillermo Mena, João
Matias, Julian Vicente | European Monitoring
Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) |
|
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention - CDC Washington |
| NACD
Research Advisory Group # Study on the prevalence of drug use, including intravenous drug use, and blood-borne viruses among the Irish prisoner population National Advisory Committee on Drugs and Alcohol (NACDA) April 2014 Over the past two decades the presence of illicit drugs and the associated harm from their problematic use has changed considerably the reality of prisons throughout Europe and the rest of the world (WHO, 2005). Prison populations are well known to have personal histories of drug use and have a high concentration of injecting drug use when compared to the general population. For example, in a major national survey of a random sample of all 131 prisons in England and Wales, Boys et al. (2002) found the prevalence of heroin use in UK prisons was approximately forty times what would be expected from a random population sample... |
| Jacques
Besson, Thilo Beck, Gerhard A. Wiesbeck, Robert
Hämmig, André Kuntz, Sami Abid, Rudolf Stohler # Opioid maintenance therapy in Switzerland: an overview of the Swiss IMPROVE study Swiss Med Wkly. 2014;144 Switzerland’s drug policy model has always been unique and progressive and is based on “four pillars”, consisting of measures in the following four areas: prevention, therapy, harm reduction and law enforcement. The first European supervised drug-consumption room was established in Bern in 1986. In the years that followed, more of these facilities were established all over the country, which gave status to medical institutions in Switzerland. A great deal of the evidence base on opioid substitution treatment was collected from these settings. |
|
Mattick RP, Breen C, Kimber J, Davoli M
|
|
Monica Bawor, Brittany B Dennis,
Rebecca Anglin, Meir Steiner, Lehana Thabane,
Zainab Samaan |
|
Adam Miller # Government of Canada | Correctional Service of Canada, New Approval Criteria for Quetiapine, Feb 07 2011 |
|
Joseph A. Messina |
| U.S.
Department of Justice | Office of Justice Programs
| Bureau of Justice Assistance # Swift and Certain Sanctions (SAC) Training and Technical Assistance Resource Center FY 2014 Competitive Grant Announcement www.bja.gov/ April 15, 2014 The 24/7 Sobriety project, initiated in South Dakota in 2005, was created in reaction to the state having the highest rates of drunken driving and roadside fatalities in the United States. 24/7 Sobriety requires individuals arrested for or convicted of alcohol-involved offenses to submit to breathalyzer tests twice per day or wear an alcohol monitoring bracelet at all times. Positive tests result in swift and certain, though modest, penalties, such as a day or two in jail. |
|
Francesco Sanna In Italia "i piani di azione sulla droga non hanno associato budget", "non ci sono recensioni sulle spese esecutive" e "le stime per le spese correlate al tema sono molto limitate". Ma soprattutto "uno studio recente (il Report annuale 2011 del Dipartimento antidroga) che mirava a stimare i costi sociali del consumo di droga, ha incluso la stima della spesa pubblica, ma non ha dettagliato la metodologia utilizzata". |
| Claudia
Astarita # La Nuova Zelanda e la legalizzazione delle droghe sintetiche, un modello da seguire. Se il proibizionismo non funziona, meglio bandire gli eccitanti più pericolosi e promuovere gli altri www.panorama.it/ 29 marzo 2014 |
|
Corte di Cassazione (Sezione Sesta
Penale, Presidente F. Ippolito, Relatore G.
Paoloni) Reviviscenza del previdente trattamento sanzionatorio più favorevole - Conseguenze. La Sesta Sezione della Corte di cassazione ha affermato che il principio dell’applicazione della disciplina più favorevole, determinatasi per effetto della sentenza della Corte costituzionale n. 32 del 2014 con riferimento al trattamento sanzionatorio relativo ai delitti previsti dall’art. 73 d.P.R. n. 309 del 1990 in relazione alle “droghe leggere”, ed il conseguente dovere di rideterminare la pena, opera necessariamente non solo quando il giudice di merito, applicando la più rigorosa normativa dichiarata incostituzionale, abbia individuato una pena base superiore al massimo previsto dalla previgente legge più favorevole, ma anche quando abbia ritenuto di attenersi ai minimi edittali in vigore prima della dichiarazione di incostituzionalità. |
|
Nature Neuroscience - Editorial |
| Tara Gomes,
Muhammad M. Mamdani, Irfan A. Dhalla, Stephen
Cornish, J. Michael Paterson, David N. Juurlink # The burden of premature opioid-related mortality Addiction, 109, 1482–1488 (2014) We reviewed 5935 opioid-related deaths in Ontario between 1991 and 2010. The overall rate of opioid-related mortality increased by 242% between 1991 (12.2 per 1 000 000 Ontarians) and 2010... Rates of opioid-related deaths are increasing rapidly in Ontario, Canada, and are concentrated among the young, leading to a substantial burden of disease... |
| Peggy van
der Pol, Nienke Liebregts, Tibor Brunt, Jan van
Amsterdam, Ron de Graaf, Dirk J. Korf,
Wim van den Brink, Margriet van Laar # Cross-sectional and prospective relation of cannabis potency, dosing and smoking behaviour with cannabis dependence: an ecological study Addiction (Society for the Study of Addiction) 2014 Cannabis users titrate their delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol intake by inhaling lower volumes of smoke when smoking strong joints, but this does not fully compensate for the higher cannabis doses per joint when using strong cannabis. Thus, users of more potent cannabis are generally exposed to more delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. Smoking behaviour appears to be a stronger predictor for cannabis dependence severity than monthly delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol dose. |
|
Carla Rossi |
|
Francesco Viganò Decreto-legge 20 marzo 2014, n. 36 |
| Corte
Suprema di Cassazione IV sezione penale # Sent. 28 febbraio 2014 (dep. 24 marzo 2014), n. 13903, Pres. Zecca, Est. Dovere, Ric. Spampinato La Corte ribadisce che il vigente comma 5 dell'art. 73 t.u., nel testo sostituito dal d.l. 146/2013 (nel frattempo converito in l. n. 10/2014), configura una fattispecie autonoma di reato, e non più (come in precedenza) una mera circostanza attenuante... Ribadisce, altresì, che tale norma deve considerarsi ancora vigente, nonostante l'intervento ablatorio compiuto sul testo dell'art. 73 dalla sent. n. 32/2014 della Corte costituzionale... Ribadisce, ancora, che la nuova norma - pur prevedendo un trattamento sanzionatorio indifferenziato per i fatti di lieve entità concernenti droghe 'pesanti' e 'leggere' - non può considerarsi irragionevole al metro dell'art. 3 Cost. |
|
Vittorio Manes, Luisa Romano
#
L’illegittimità costituzionale
della legge c.d. “Fini-Giovanardi”: gli
orizzonti attuali della democrazia penale.
Nota a Corte
cost., sent. 25 febbraio 2014, n. 32, Pres.
Silvestri, Est. Cartabia 1. L'incostituzionalità per violazione dell'art. 77, secondo comma, Cost. e l'istanza di democrazia discorsiva. - 1.1. Il progressivo restraint sulla decretazione d'urgenza e sulla emendabilità in sede di conversione. - 1.2. La legge di conversione come "legge funzionalizzata": i criteri di controllo del necessario "nesso di omogeneità". - 1.3. Le ulteriori censure assorbite e quelle dichiarate inammissibili. - 2. Gli effetti immediati della sentenza: la reviviscenza della previgente disciplina. - 2.1. La caducazione della "fonte" impugnata e degli effetti abrogativi. - 2.2. L'obiter dictum sull'insistenza di obblighi di penalizzazione di fonte europea: prospettive in punto di "giustiziabilità" del c.d. inadempimento statale sopravvenuto. - 2.3. La "primavera silenziosa" delle sentenze con effetti in malam partem. - 3. Gli effetti mediati della sentenza: le vicende intertemporali. - 3.1. Il postulato di base: la delega delle questioni intertemporali al giudice a quo. - 3.2. Gli effetti sui procedimenti in corso. - 3.3. Gli effetti sui procedimenti passati in giudicato. |
|
Dave Bewley-Taylor, Tom Blickman,
Martin Jelsma Faced with particular challenges and democratic decisions, a number of jurisdictions are moving beyond merely tolerant approaches to the possession of cannabis for personal use to legally regulating markets for the drug. |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
#
Regional
drug strategies across the world |
| Kristin
Finklea, Lisa N. Sacco, Erin Bagalman # Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs http://fas.org/ Congressional Research Service March 24, 2014 In the midst of national concern over illicit drug use and abuse, prescription drug abuse has been described by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as an epidemic in the United States.Nearly 7 million individuals aged 12 or older (2.6% of this population) were current (past month) nonmedical users of prescription—or psychotherapeutic—drugs in 2012, and 16.7 million individuals aged 12 or older (6.4% of this population) had used prescription drugs for a nonmedical purpose in the past year (2012). Over 1.2 million emergency department visits involved nonmedical use of pharmaceuticals in 2011. |
|
European Monitoring Centre for
Drugs and Drug Addiction |
|
Robert G. Morris, Michael
TenEyck, J. C. Barnes, Tomislav V.
Kovandzic |
| Laurent
Karila, Perrine Roux, Benjamin Rolland,
Amine Benyamina, Michel Reynaud,
Henri-Jean Aubin, Christophe Lançon # Acute and Long-Term Effects of Cannabis Use: A Review Current Pharmaceutical Design, 2014 Cannabis can frequently have negative effects in its users, which may be amplified by certain demographic and/or psychosocial factors. Acute adverse effects include hyperemesis syndrome, impaired coordination and performance, anxiety, suicidal ideations/tendencies, and psychotic symptoms. Acute cannabis consumption is also associated with an increased risk of motor vehicle crashes, especially fatal collisions. Evidence indicates that frequent and prolonged use of cannabis can be detrimental to both mental and physical health. Chronic effects of cannabis use include mood disorders, exacerbation of psychotic disorders in vulnerable people, cannabis use disorders, withdrawal syndrome, neurocognitive impairments, cardiovascular and respiratory and other diseases. |
|
Mario Centorrino, Pietro David e
Ferdinando Ofria |
|
Sherrica Tai, William E. Fantegrossi |
| United
Nations | Economic and Social Council # Draft Joint Ministerial Statement of the 2014 high-level review by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the implementation by Member States of the Political Declaration and Plan of Action on International Cooperation towards an Integrated and Balanced Strategy to Counter the World Drug Problem http://www.unodc.org/ 12 March 2014 |
|
Laetitia Clavreul, Pascale Santi # Sandrine Cabut, Alcoolisme:le baclofène au banc d’essai, Le Monde, Samedi 31 mars 2012 |
|
Eric Holder | Department of Justice ... Reduce the average sentence by 11 months, or nearly 18%, according to the Commission. As an added result of the new proposal, the Commission projects that the Bureau of Prisons population would drop by 6,550 inmates at the end of five years.
# Matt Apuzzo, Holder Endorses Proposal to Reduce Drug Sentences in Latest Sign of Shift, www.nytimes.com/ March 13, 2014 |
|
Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri
| Dipartimento Politiche Antidroga |
|
Corte Costituzionale # Sentenza n. 32/2014 - Deposito del 25/02/2014 www.cortecostituzionale.it/ Francesco Viganò |
|
#
Can David Nutt wean us
off the demon drink with his alcohol
substitute? # Sam Wong, Synthetic alcohol substitute could eliminate health risks – and hangovers, http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/ 12 November 2013 |
| London New
Drugs Group / London Medicines Evaluation Network
Review # Nalmefene for alcohol dependence www.medicinesresources.nhs.uk/ October 2013 Nalmefene (Selincro®), is an opioid receptor modulator which is licensed for the reduction of alcohol consumption in adult patients who continue to have a high drinking risk level 2 weeks after initial assessment, without physical withdrawal symptoms and who do not require immediate detoxification. Nalmefene should be prescribed in conjunction with continuous psychosocial support... |
|
Luis Royuela, Linda Montanari, Miriam
Rosa, Julian Vicente European | Monitoring
Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) According to the latest available data on the prison population, on 1 September 2010 there were an estimated 635 000 prison inmates in EU Member States. Most prisoners are from poor communities and vulnerable social groups, with the proportion who are immigrants or from minority ethnic backgrounds on the increase. Drug users form a large part of the overall prison population. Studies show that a majority of prisoners have used illicit drugs at some point in their life, and many have chronic and problematic drug use patterns. |
|
Benoît Gomis |
|
Simona Pichini, Roberta Pacifici (eds)
| ISS |
|
Angela Della Bella,
Francesco Viganò |
|
Christian Hopfer The major findings of the study are that drug abuse is substantially heritable in both males (55%) and females (73%) and that shared environmental factors were present in males but not in females. Socioeconomic status and neighborhood deprivation both predicted drug abuse, and a substantial portion of the shared environmental influence on drug abuse was a community-wide, not household, influence. |
|
Drug Policy Alliance
# Bill
Piper | Drug Policy Alliance, Public
Comments submitted to the United States
Sentencing Commission regarding # Drug Policy Alliance,Approaches to Decriminalizing Drug Use & Possession, February 2013 |
| Federal
Bureau of Prisons | Clinical Practice Guidelines # Detoxification of Chemically Dependent Inmates www.bop.gov/ February 2014 Inmate education regarding the detoxification process is a necessary component of a successful detoxification plan. In addition, clinicians should conduct periodic assessments to detect the development of any psychiatric symptoms such as depression, suicidal thinking, or underlying psychosis. Inmates should be considered for follow-up psychological support through group therapy, individual counseling, 12-step recovery meetings, or similar programs. These services provide alternative methods of coping with the stresses that trigger alcohol or drug abuse. Psychology staff can also determine whether referrals to drug education or to nonresidential or residential drug treatment programs are indicated. |
|
Corte Costituzionale - Ufficio Stampa # Comunicato di Forum droghe www.fuoriluogo.it #
Cannabis,
la Consulta boccia la legge Fini-Giovanardi: no a
equiparazione tra leggere e pesanti |
|
Earl Blumenauer et al. (Congress of the United States) #
Letter
to the Honorable Barack Obama |
| # Trib. Avellino, sent. 11 febbraio 2014 n.
23, GUP Riccardi (Sull'individuazione della versione più favorevole all'imputato dell'art. 73 co. 5 t.u. stup.) |
|
ITARDD Rete Italiana Riduzione del Danno www.itardd.net/ 30 gennaio 2014 È tempo che in Italia il dibattito sulle politiche sulle droghe riparta, e questa volta ispirato alle linee guida europee e libero da tensioni moraliste o ideologiche. In questi anni il Dipartimento Politiche Antidroga si è mosso in maniera totalmente scollegata dalla base, ossia da operatori e studiosi dei fenomeni sociali legati al consumo di droghe in Italia, disegnando una traiettoria oltranzista e giudicante che si fregia di presentare come "verità scientifica". Da anni non viene convocata la Conferenza Nazionale sulle droghe ... |
| Uintah County
Drug Court # Partecipant handbook http://uintahcountydrugcourt.org/ January 2014 The Drug Court is a court-supervised, comprehensive substance abuse treatment program for individuals who have drug-related charges in the Eighth Judicial District Court for Uintah County. This is a voluntary program that includes regular appearances before the assigned Drug Court Judge. The program length is a minimum of one year and a maximum of 30 months. Advancement depends on your progress in recovery. |
|
Francesco Radicioni #
Legislazione sulla
marijuana e cannabis terapeutica nel mondo |
|
Corte Suprema di Cassazione - Sezione I
Penale |
|
Lucia Capuzzi Kevin Sabet, direttore dell’istituto di politiche delle droghe dell’Università della Florida e presidente del gruppo Smart Approaches to Marijuana (Smart), contrario alla legalizzazione, non si stanca di ripeterlo: la nascente industria della marijuana diventerà una nuova Big Tobacco... |
| McLellan AT,
Starrels JL, Tai B, Gordon AJ, Brown R, Ghitza U,
Gourevitch M, Stein J, Oros M, Horton T, Lindblad R,
Jennifer McNeely J. # Can substance use disorders be managed using the chronic care model? Review and recommendations from a NIDA consensus group. Public Health Reviews, January 2014 The chronic illness management approach is still new in the field of addiction and research is limited. However comparative findings suggest that most proactive, team treatment-oriented clinical management practices now used in diabetes management are applicable to the substance use disorders; capable of being implemented by primary care teams; and should offer comparable potential benefits in the treatment of substance use disorders. Such care should also improve the quality of care for many illnesses now negatively affected by unaddressed substance abuse. |
|
Maria L. La Ganga |
| Sandro
Gozi, Luigi Manconi # Cannabis libera. Le ragioni del si l'Unità 9 gennaio 2014 “Siamo pieni di criminali pur non avendo un crimine”, per usare le parole della National Review, storica rivista dei conservatori americani, che ha aperto alla depenalizzazione. Possiamo permetterci di essere più conservatori dei conservatori americani? Noi crediamo di no. |
|
Roberto Saviano Io credo che la legalizzazione, e non la liberalizzazione, sia l'unica strada. Due termini simili che spesso vengono confusi, ma che indicano due visioni completamente diverse. Legalizzare significa spostare tutto quanto riguarda la produzione, la distribuzione e la vendita di stupefacenti sotto il controllo dello Stato. Significa creare un tessuto di regole, diritti e doveri. Liberalizzazione è tutt'altro. È privare il commercio e l'uso di ogni significatività giuridica, lasciarlo senza vincoli, disinteressarsi del problema, zona franca. |
|
Federico Varese |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and
Drug Addiction EMCDDA |
|
Louis E. Baxter, Sr,Anthony Campbell,
Michael DeShields, Petros Levounis, Judith A.
Martin, Laura McNicholas, J. Thomas Payte, Edwin A.
Salsitz, Trusandra Taylor, Bonnie B. Wilford |
| ACMD Advisory
Council on the Misuse of Drugs # Ketamine: a review of use and harm www.gov.uk/10th December 2013 UK population surveys suggest that ketamine use is more common in males and in the 20–24 age group. There was an increase in life-time, last year and last month ketamine use from 2006/7 to 2010/11 in both adults (16–59) and young people (16–24). More recently, there has been a statistically significant decrease in last month prevalence of ketamine use in adults from 2010/11 to 2011/12 and a statistically significant decrease in last year prevalence of ketamine use in adults and young people from 2011/12 to 2012/13. |
|
Public Health England |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA # Co-morbid substance use and mental disorders in Europe: a review of the data www.emcdda.europa.eu/ December 2013 Psychiatric co-morbidity particularly affects vulnerable groups, such as young people, people from ethnic minorities, prisoners and sex workers. Psychiatric co-morbidity in prison settings is a problem affecting a large part of the prison population. A large number of studies have estimated the prevalence of mental disorders as well as substance use in prisons, with prevalence estimates varying widely. In general, studies on the prevalence of mental illnesses in prison show large differences between the prison population and the general population in severe pathologies such as psychosis and personality disorders, as well as problems such as anxiety and depression... |
|
Osservatorio europeo delle droghe e delle
tossicodipendenze (EMCDDA) Il consumo di droga rimane alto rispetto agli standard storici, ma si intravedono alcuni cambiamenti positivi, con livelli record di erogazione del trattamento associati ad alcuni segnali di riduzione per quanto riguarda l’assunzione di droga per via parenterale, il nuovo consumo di eroina, il consumo di cocaina e l’uso di cannabis. A smorzare l’ottimismo tuttavia c’è la preoccupazione che la disoccupazione giovanile e i tagli ai servizi possano far riemergere i “vecchi” problemi. Inoltre, un esame più attento rivela che la situazione delle droghe è in continua evoluzione e i “nuovi” problemi mettono in discussione i modelli e le prassi correnti: nuove droghe sintetiche e nuovi modelli di consumo compaiono sia sul mercato delle sostanze illecite che nell’ambito delle sostanze non controllate. |
| Eleonora Vona # Droga e criminalità: la detenzione come rimedio o come ripiego? www.filodiritto.com - 5 dicembre 2013 Se la criminalità è sinonimo di devianza, non è necessariamente vero il contrario. Il tossicodipendente può essere considerato invece deviante in quanto mette in atto comportamenti non conformi che sfidano il senso comune, in un dato momento storico, in un determinato luogo ed in un particolare contesto sociale. Il tossicodipendente è considerato deviante, in quanto generalmente, la società stigmatizza chi fa uso di sostanze psicotrope. Sostanze, nello specifico, il cui commercio è anche illegale. |
|
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
UNODC Methamphetamine use continues to increase in most countries in East and Southeast Asia. •• The manufacture of illicit amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) continues at high, albeit slightly declining,levels. •• Methamphetamine seizures reached record highs in 2012. •• There has been a resurgence of the ‘ecstasy’ market in East and Southeast Asia. •• The market for new psychoactive substances (NPS) not under international control is growing rapidly in the region... |
| Charles M.
Katz, Lidia Nuňo, David E. Choate, Michael D. White,
Michael Schafer # Medical Marijuana Use and Diversion: Prevalence and Correlates from an At-Risk Sample http://cvpcs.asu.edu/ – Maricopa County Manager’s Office, November 2013 Our findings suggest that most non-authorized medical marijuana users obtain it from individuals whom they already trust. Traditional law enforcement strategies are largely insufficient for addressing these types of issues and a regulatory approach similar to that of pharmacy monitoring systems might be an appropriate strategy for further understanding the scope and nature of this problem and determining appropriate responses. |
|
Marta Pelazza #
Ancora
sulla coltivazione “limitata e domestica” di
marijuana per uso personale: una aperta ribellione
all'insegnamento delle Sezioni Unite |
|
Kofi Annan, Fernando Henrique Cardoso Each year, hundreds of thousands of people around the world die from preventable drug-related disease and violence. Millions of users are arrested and thrown in jail. Globally, communities are blighted by drug-related crime. Citizens see huge amounts of their taxes spent on harsh policies that are not working. |
| Billy T. Chen,
Hau-Jie Yau, Christina Hatch, Ikue Kusumoto-Yoshida,
Saemi L. Cho, F. Woodward Hopf, Antonello Bonci # Rescuing cocaine-induced prefrontal cortex hypoactivity prevents compulsive cocaine seeking www.med.upenn.edu/ Nature 2013 Loss of control over harmful drug seeking is one of the most intractable aspects of addiction, as human substance abusers continue to pursue drugs despite incurring significant negative consequences. Human studies have suggested that deficits in prefrontal cortical function and consequential loss of inhibitory control could be crucial in promoting compulsive drug use. |
|
Tom Decorte, Paul De Grauwe, Jan Tytgat |
| Emiliano
Fittipaldi # Legalize marijuana L'espresso 02/11/2013 Molti considerano la decisione di Montevideo una rivoluzione. L'ideologia proibizionista è in crisi da tempo, e in Occidente si è riaperto il dibattito su quali siano le migliori politiche sui narcotici. Nel 2011 la Commissione globale sulla politica delle droghe, organismo di cui fanno parte esperti in materia e personaggi come l'ex presidente dell'Onu Kofi Annan, ha pubblicato una relazione devastante in cui si spiega che «la lotta alla droga iniziata cinquant'anni fa è fallita», e si sottolineava come in primis per la cannabis, «occorre sperimentare modelli di legalizzazione che colpiscano la criminalità organizzata salvaguardando la salute dei cittadini» |
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Jonathan P. Caulkins, Angela Hawken, Beau Kilmer, Mark A. R. Kleiman, Katherine Pfromer, Jacob Prues, Timothy Shaw # High Tax States: Options for Gleaning Revenue from Legal Cannabis Oregon Law Review, vol. 91 2013 |
|
Thierry Favrod-Coune, Mariem Baroudi,
Alejandra Casillas, Jean-Pierre Rieder, Laurent
Gétaz, Javier Barro, Jean-Michel Gaspoz, Barbara
Broers, Hans Wolff |
|
Azlin Baharudin, Noormazita Mislan, Normala
Ibrahim, Nik Ruzyanei Nik Jaafar |
|
Ugo Adamo |
| Policy Exchange # Sobriety Schemes: Lessons from the US http://www.scotland.gov.uk/ October 2013 Transdermal alcohol monitoring is a relatively new technology in the UK. It allows individuals’ alcohol consumption patterns to be monitored through an ankle bracelet. The bracelet samples an individual’s skin for the presence of alcohol once every thirty minutes (or 48 times a day). Based on the frequency of the testing, this technology is generally accepted as providing Continuous Alcohol Monitoring (CAM). The bracelet has tamper detection alerts which will notify the relevant authorities if the offender attempts to place objects in between the leg and the skin. The system is water resistant. |
|
Keith Humphreys |
|
Addiction Suisse |
| Corte di
Cassazione, Sezione 6 penale # Sentenza 4 ottobre 2013, n. 41090 http://associazionedegliavvocatiromani.it/ La disposizione in tema di reato associativo dimostra che l'ipotesi attenuata di cui all'articolo 73, Legge cit. ben può ricorrere in caso di "reiterazione" nel tempo delle attività di spaccio; e/o di possesso di un "non indifferente" numero di dosi; e/o nel caso in cui lo spaccio sia posto in essere grazie alla organizzazione di più persone e che possa essere definito "professionale"... |
| Charles Doyle # Federal Mandatory Minimum Sentencing: The 18 U.S.C. 924(c) Tack-On in Cases Involving Drugs or Violence Congressional Research Service - October 21, 2013 Section 924(c) requires the imposition of one of a series of mandatory minimum terms of imprisonment upon conviction for misconduct involving the firearm and the commission of a federal crime of violence or a federal drug trafficking offense... Section 104 of the Firearms Owners Protection Act expanded the predicate offenses to include drug trafficking as well as crimes of violence and added a flat 10-year minimum for cases involving machine guns or silencers... |
|
Gallup |
| Avinash Tharoor # Five Things We Can Learn from New Zealand's Innovative Law to Regulate New Drugs September 30, 2013 One of the biggest risks with consuming any illegal substance is the question of purity. Cocaine, MDMA, ketamine, and many of the substances colloquially referred to as ‘bath salts’ all come in the form of an indistinct white powder. The Psychoactive Substance Bill ensures that newly legalized drugs are rigorously tested, have their contents clearly detailed on packaging, and that purity is guaranteed... |
|
Ernesto Grenier, Molly Ryan, Zain Mithani,
Patricia Junquera |
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Lisa K. Brents, Sarah M. Zimmerman, Amanda
R. Saffell, Paul L. Prather, and William E.
Fantegrossi |
|
Lisa J. Merlo, Supachoke Singhakant, Simone
M. Cummings, Linda B. Cottler |
| J.C. Fell, A.S.
McKnight # Transdermal Alcohol Monitoring (TAM) in compliance with abstinence: Records from 250,000 offenders in the United States Proceedings of the 2013 Australasian Road Safety Research, Policing & Education Conference 28th – 30th August, Brisbane, Queensland These monitoring devices have the potential to (a) help judges, court and probation officials monitor the abstinence requirement of various offenders and impose swift sanctions for non-compliance; (b) help offenders with alcohol abuse and addiction issues to remain abstinent while they are receiving professional treatment for their alcohol problem; (c) reduce DUI recidivism and improve public safety; and (d) provide a cost effective alternative to incarceration for many alcohol offenders... |
| Department of
Justice # Smart on Crime. Reforming The Criminal Justice System for the 21st Century www.justice.gov/ August 2013 It is time for meaningful sentencing reform. As a start, the Attorney General is announcing a change in Department of Justice charging policies so that certain people who have committed low-level, nonviolent drug offenses, who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs, or cartels will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences. Under the revised policy, these people would instead receive sentences better suited to their individual conduct rather than excessive prison terms more appropriate for violent criminals or drug kingpins. Reserving the most severe penalties for serious, high-level, or violent drug traffickers will better promote public safety, deterrence, and rehabilitation – while making our expenditures smarter and more productive. |
|
The Guardian | Monday 12 August 2013 Non-violent drug offenders will avoid mandatory minimum sentences under proposals to cut America's soaring prison numbers due to be unveiled on Monday. Attorney general Eric Holder is expected to issue new guidance to prosecutors that could have a dramatic effect on the lengthy jail terms that judges are required to give anyone convicted of possessing more than a proscribed amount of certain drugs. Too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no good law-enforcement reason … Although incarceration has a role to play in our justice system, widespread incarceration at the federal, state and local levels is both ineffective and unsustainable. |
|
Emma Disley, Andrew Mulcahy, Mafalda
Pardal, Jennifer Rubin, Kai Ruggeri |
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Franz Trautmann, Beau Kilmer, Paul Turnbull
|
|
Alexander Constas, Mark Ware |
| Emanuela Rosso # Cannabis è arrivato il primo farmaco www.associazionelucacoscioni.it/ 23 Ago 2013 L'utilità della cannabis nella cura di diversi disturbi e malattie è accertata. «l'efficacia è riferita ad alcuni suoi principi attivi. In particolare al "Thc (tetraidrocannabinolo) e al Cbd (cannabidiolo), per i quali c'è il maggior numero di dati consolidati, sia dalla ricerca scientifica sia dall'esperienza con i malati» specifica il dottor Vidmer Scaioli, specialista in Neurofisiopatologia all'istituto neurologico Besta di Milano. Usati in maniera controllata, tali principi attivi hanno dimostrato di avere effetti benefici sui malati in diversi ambiti. |
|
Lisa N. Sacco, Kristin Finklea |
|
Wendy Swift, Alex Wong, Kong M. Li,
Jonathon C. Arnold, Iain S. McGregor |
|
CDC Vitalsigns |
| American Civil
Liberties Union ACLU # The War on Marijuana in Black and White www.aclu.org/ June 2013 The report finds that between 2001 and 2010, there were over 8 million marijuana arrests in the United States, 88% of which were for possession. Marijuana arrests have increased between 2001 and 2010 and now account for over half (52%) of all drug arrests in the United States, and arijuana possession arrests account for nearly half (46%) of all drug arrests. In 2010, there was one marijuana arrest every 37 seconds, and states spent combined over $3.6 billion enforcing marijuana possession laws. |
|
Icro Maremmani, Massimo Barra, Elizabeth
Burton-Phillips, Isabella Cecchini, Gaetano di
Chiara, Gilberto Gerra, Lorenzo Mantovani, Pier
Paolo Pani, Gail Pitts, Alessandro Rossi, Lorenzo
Somaini, Fabrizio Starace |
|
National Association of Drug Court
Professionals NADCP |
|
Michael Capriola |
|
ACLU Foundation |
|
Ricardo Abduca, Pien Metaal | transnational
institute TNI Series on Legislative Reform of Drug
Policies No. 23, June 2013 |
| Jonathan P.
Caulkins, Susan Andrzejewski, Linden Dahlkemper # How much revenue could the cannabis tax generate, under different scenarios? www.liq.wa.gov/ BOTEC Analysis Corporation June 28, 2013 This report explores various scenarios concerning potential I-502 tax revenues, per year and in total over a decade. The dominant finding is sobering though perhaps not surprising: There is enormous uncertainty. Different plausible scenarios lead to radically different projections for potential revenue. It is not even clear that revenues will trend steadily over time; there are plausible scenarios under which revenues will first rise and then fall. With information currently in hand, it is not possible to set specific bounds on the possible range of tax revenues. |
| Ministère des
Affaires Sociales et de la Santé # Guide des traitements de substitution aux opiacés en milieu carcéral www.sante.gouv.fr/ Juin 2013 En 2001, cinq ans après le lancement du processus de généralisation des traitements de substitution aux opiacés (TSO) en France, la Commission nationale consultative des traitements de substitution, placée sous l’autorité du ministre de la Santé, avait lancé un programme de travail visant à améliorer la prise en charge par les TSO. Ce programme a été adopté lors de la séance du 27 septembre 2001. Un des axes de ce programme concernait la situation en détention. |
|
Amanda C. Cissner, Michael Rempel, Allison
Walker Franklin, John K, Roman, Samuel Bieler, Robyn
Cohen, Carolyn R. Cadoret |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and
Drug Addiction |
|
Global Commission on Drug Policy The silence about the harms of repressive drug policies has been broken – they are ineffective, violate basic human rights, generate violence, and expose individuals and communities to unnecessary risks. Hepatitis C is one of these harms – yet it is both preventable and curable when public health is the focus of the drug response. Now is the time to reform. |
|
New South Wales. Parliament. Legislative
Council. General Purpose Standing Committee No. 4 |
|
Guillermo Garat |
| Mary-Lynn
Brecht, Diane M. Herbeck # Methamphetamine Use and Violent Behavior: User Perceptions and Predictors Journal of Drug Issues 43(4) 2013 The prevention of interpersonal violence has been a public health priority of the U.S. Center for Disease Control for some time; although the cost of violence translates into billions of U.S. dollars spent on premature death, disability, medical care, and law enforcement, the human cost in grief and pain cannot be calculated. Violent behavior and victimization are common among individuals with substance abuse problems , and use of substances is involved in many violent incidents... |
|
Organization of American States General
Secretariat |
| King County
Drug Diversion Court # Policy and Procedure Manual www.kingcounty.gov/ Revised May 2013 The King County Drug Diversion Court (DDC) was implemented in August 1994, the twelfth Drug Court in the country. The DDC is a pre-adjudication program that provides eligible defendants the opportunity to receive drug treatment in lieu of incarceration. Eligible defendants can elect to participate in the program or proceed with traditional court processing. If defendants meet the requirements of each of the four phases of DDC, they graduate from the program and the charges are dismissed. If defendants fail to make progress they are terminated from the program and sentenced on their original charge. Drug courts are built upon a unique partnership between the criminal justice system and drug treatment community, one which structures treatment intervention around the authority and personal involvement of a single drug court judge. Drug courts are also dependent upon the creation of a nonadversarial courtroom atmosphere where a dedicated team of court officers and staff work together toward a common goal of breaking the cycle of drug abuse and criminal behavior. |
|
Nancy C. Bernardy |
| DEA Drug
Enforcement Administration # The DEA Position On Marijuana http://www.dea.gov/ April 2013 There is no uniform drug policy in Europe. Some countries have liberalized their laws, while others have instituted strict drug control policies, which mean that the so called “European Model” is a misnomer. Like America, the various countries of Europe are looking for new ways to combat the worldwide problem of drug abuse. In recent years the European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) has reported a tendency among European countries to make a stronger distinction between those who use drugs and those who sell or traffic drugs. |
|
David C. Peters II |
|
Todd Garvey, Brian T. Yeh |
|
Ushang Desaia, Paras Patel |
|
La Società della Ragione |
|
ISTAT |
|
Robert E. Brutcher |
| Giovanni
Serpelloni, Bruno Genetti, Roberto Mollica, Alessandra
Andreotti, Iulia Alexandra Carpignano, Nadia Balestra,
Maria Alessandra Tullio, Milena Sperotto # I diversi fattori di rischio per l’uso di sostanze illecite tra le adolescenti 15-19 anni e i coetanei maschi Italian Journal on Addiction Vol. 3 Numero 2 2013 Lo studio Italiano evidenzia che per tutte le sostanze illecite analizzate si osservano prevalenze di consumo maggiori tra i maschi rispetto le femmine, dato confermato anche dalla letteratura internazionale. Inoltre, la sostanza stupefacente maggiormente assunta dagli studenti intervistati risulta la cannabis, con prevalenza sempre maggiore tra gli studenti di genere maschile, in relazione a tutti i periodi temporali considerati (almeno una volta nella vita, almeno una volta nell’ultimo anno, almeno una volta nell’ultimo mese). In Europa, in media, il 21% dei maschi tra i 15 e i 16 anni ha sperimentato almeno una sostanza illecita nel corso della propria vita, contro il 15% delle femmine. Inoltre, la stragrande maggioranza dei giovani che hanno sperimentato una droga hanno assunto cannabis, ed è più probabile che questo avvenga tra i maschi rispetto alle femmine. |
| C. Alexander
Paleos, Stephen Ross # Ketamine: A Light in the Darkness MAPS Bulletin Special Edition, spring 2013 Ketamine ha been FDA-Approved for use as an anesthetic in surgical procedures since 1970, an indication for which it continues to be widely used, especially in disaster relief efforts and battlefield operations. In more recent years, it has been increasingly used for the purposes of conscious sedation and analgesia for painful or anxiety-provoking procedures performed in emergency room settings, particularly in pediatric populations. For almost as long, however, ketamine has been earning notoriety as a drug used illicitly for a variety of non-medical purposes. |
| Kim Wolff,
Roger Brimblecombe, J. Colin Forfar, Robert Forrest,
Eilish Gilvarry, Atholl Johnston, Judith Morgan, David
Osselton, Lily Read, David Taylor # Driving Under the Influence of Drugs. Report from the Expert Panel on Drug Driving www.gov.uk/ Department for Transport March 2013 The main challenge in establishing recommendations for driving under the influence of psychoactive drugs is the need to provide an easily‐understood and justifiable scientific rationale for particular drugs being covered by the offence of drug‐driving, whilst recognising that the evidence base is dynamic and will develop as our knowledge and understanding increases. The Panel aimed to establish whether there was sufficient evidence in the scientific literature to be able to determine a relationship between the use of psychoactive drugs and an effect on driving performance in average members of the general public... |
| Pompidou Group
of the Council of Europe |Co-operation Group to Combat
Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs. # Mental Health and Addiction in Prisons. Written controbutions to the International Conference on Mental Health and Addiction in Prisons. 27-28 Febrary 2013, Bucharest - http://www.coe.int/ 2013 Introduction, by Robert Teltzrow, Pompidou Group | Drug use, mental health and drugs in prisons by Prof Heino Stöver | Professional independence of health care workers in the penitentiary system by Dr Jörg Pont | Opiate Substitution Treatment and Harm Reduction in prisons: the Geneva model by Dr Hans Wolff | Mental Health Services in the Belgian prison system by Dr Sven Todts | Romania and illegal drugs at a glance – Trends and services by Dr Mihai Corciova | Drug treatment and risk assessment of drug-using inmates in Serbia: Treating drug users in prison | Prison reforms in the Republic of Macedonia – Drug treatment in Macedonian prisons by Ms Elisaveta Sekulovska | Psychological and medical care for drug users in prison establishments in the Republic of Moldova by Svetlana Doltu and Iuliana Adam | Art Therapy in Prisons by Prof Peter Sinapius | Drugs and mental health in prisons: constant concerns of the Health in prisons Programme (HIPP) of WHO/Europe by Mr Stefan Enggist |
|
Ernest Drucker |
|
Valeria Fraschetti # La rivoluzione dell'Uruguay: marijuana come monopolio di Stato La Repubblica 2 agosto 2013 La legge uruguaiana non solo autorizza i cittadini a coltivare fino a sei piante in casa (99 nel caso di cooperative tra persone): permette anche a società private di darsi alla produzione industriale, a patto che il raccolto sia venduto interamente allo Stato. Il Paese incastonato tra Brasile e Argentina non diventerà però un'oasi del "turismo dello spinello", stile Amsterdam: l'acquisto sarà vietato agli stranieri e permesso ai cittadini maggiorenni (massimo 40 grammi al mese) solo nelle farmacie dotate di licenza. In sostanza: monopolio di Stato, la cannabis come il tabacco. |
|
Dipartimento
Politiche Antidroga Al pari di quanto succede in Europa e come riferito il mese scorso dall'Osservatorio Europeo di Lisbona, prosegue anche quest'anno il trend del calo dei consumi di sostanze stupefacenti nel nostro Paese. L'analisi generale dell'andamento dei consumatori negli ultimi 12 mesi, riferiti alla popolazione generale 15-64 anni, conferma la tendenza alla contrazione del numero di consumatori, già osservata nel 2010 per le sostanze quali eroina, cocaina, allucinogeni, stimolanti e cannabis. Questo il dato generale che emerge dalle indagini campionarie sulla popolazione e dalle analisi delle acque reflue eseguite dal DPA, contenute nell'ultima Relazione al Parlamento 2013 sull'uso di sostanze stupefacenti e tossicodipendenze in Italia, elaborata dal Dipartimento Politiche Antidroga. |
| University of
Michigan Institute for Social Research | Lloyd D.
Johnston, Patrick M. O’Malley, Jerald G. Bachman, John
E. Schulenberg # Monitoring the Future: National Results on Adolescent Drug Use: Overview of Key Findings 2012 # Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975-2012. Volume I: Secondary school students # Monitoring the Future national survey results on drug use, 1975-2012. Volume II: College students and adults ages 19-50 http://monitoringthefuture.org/ 2013 |
|
Mario
Santoro, Livio Triolo, Carla Rossi |
| University of
Florida - Drug Policy Institute # Smarter not softer: Managing drug-related offenders https://com-psychiatry-dpi.sites.medinfo.ufl.edu/ Wednesday, 10 April 2013 While we must ensure that all offenders are held responsible for their crimes, we must do a better job distinguishing between those who can be rehabilitated and those who need to be sanctioned more severely. Low-risk offenders with insignificant criminal histories should be diverted from the system when possible. Jail and prison space is a precious resource purchased at public expense that must be wisely allocated. Drug courts, well established in Florida, offer an attractive, evidence-based alternative to traditional prison time for drug offenders... |
|
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) |
|
United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Recent periods of abstinence (particularly when enforced, such as in a period of incarceration) are a major risk factor for fatal opioid overdose. Substantial evidence from a number of longitudinal studies indicates that the period immediately following release from prison and the period immediately following discharge from a detoxification facility pose a significantly elevated risk of overdose. |
| Wade Berrettini # Opioid Pharmacogenetics of Alcohol Addiction http://perspectivesinmedicine.org/ Cold Spring Harb Perspect Med 2013;3:a012203 Alcohol addiction is one of the most common and devastating diseases in the world. Given the tremendous heterogeneity of alcohol-addicted individuals, it is unlikely that one medication will help nearly all patients. Thus, there is a clear need to develop predictors of response to existing medications. Naltrexone is a μ-opioid receptor antagonist, which has been approved in the United States for treatment of alcohol addiction since 1994. It has limited efficacy, in part because of noncompliance, but many patients do not respond despite high levels of compliance. There are reports that a missense single nucleotide polymorphism (rs179919 or A118G) in the μ-opioid receptor gene predicts a favorable response to naltrexone if an individual carries a “G” allele. This work will review the evidence for this hypothesis. The data are promising that the “G” allele predisposes to a beneficial naltrexone response among alcohol-addicted persons, but additional research is needed to prove this hypothesis in prospective clinical trials. |
| S Nielsen, M
Hillhouse, C Thomas, A Hasson, W Ling # A comparison of buprenorphine taper outcomes between prescription opioid and heroin users J Addict Med. 2013 January ; 7(1): 33–38 Short term taper is not recommended as a stand-alone treatment, however patients may taper from buprenorphine as part of a treatment plan. Despite greater co-morbidity, prescription opioids (PO) users appear to have favorable taper outcomes compared to heroin users. Further studies are required to examine longer term treatment outcomes. |
| Mirella van Dun,
Hugo Cabieses Cubas, Pien Metaal | transnational
institute TNI # Between Reality and Abstraction. Guiding Principles and developing alternativesfor illicit crop producing regions in Peru www.tni.org/ Drug Policy Briefing Nr. 39 January 2013 The Guiding Principles for Alternative Development should break with the applied logic in which forced eradication is the principal objective and development considered a detail. Peru is trying to peddle to the world the success of its model to replace coca economy, but this model confirms in the short, medium, and long term the most common failures of “Alternative Development” According to the Alternative Development project participants in the Upper Huallaga, national and international agencies only measure “success” by the reduction of coca crops and do not take into account the opinion of residents... |
|
La
società della ragione onlus - Forum droghe - Antigone
- CNCA - con l'adesione di Magistratura Democratica e
Unione delle Camere Penali Italiane Un
detenuto su tre entra in carcere ogni anno per la
violazione dell’art. 73 D.P.R. 309/1990. |
|
Gioacchino
Romeo Cass. pen., Sez. un., 31 gennaio 2013 (dep. 10 giugno 2013), n. 25401, Pres. Lupo, Rel. Franco, ric. G. (anche dopo le modifiche recate dalla legge n. 49 del 2006 al T.u. stup., non costituiscono reato, ma solo l'illecito amministrativo di cui all'art. 75 del citato T.u., l'acquisto e la detenzione di sostanze stupefacenti destinate all'uso di gruppo, purché sin dall'inizio essi avvengano anche per conto di soggetti diversi dall'agente e sia certa l'identità di questi ultimi, e risulti altresì manifesta la loro volontà di procurarsi le sostanze destinate al proprio consumo)
# Cass. pen., Sez. un., 31 gennaio 2013 (dep. 10 giugno 2013), n. 25401, Pres. Lupo, Rel. Franco, |
|
Michele Passione # Il Giudice e la Costituzione materiale Manifesto del 17 luglio 2013.
Franco
Corleone (ed) Luigi
Saraceni Basti ricordare la unificazione in unica tabella e la parificazione del trattamento sanzionatorio delle droghe “leggere” e “pesanti”, prima suddivise in due diverse tabelle e sottoposte a diversi regimi punitivi. Con la conseguenza, tanto per restare al caso Rototom, che la pena minima per la “agevolazione dell’uso di sostanze stupefacenti” è passata, per la cannabis, da uno a tre anni di reclusione (art. 79 del testo unico, come modificato dal comma 25 dell’art. 4 vicies ter della legge di conversione). Così stando le cose, occorre verificare se e quali modifiche introdotte dalla legge di conversione al testo unico sugli stupefacenti siano compatibili con il quadro costituzionale.
Corte di cassazione - Sezione III penale – Ordinanza 11 giugno 2013 n. 25554 # Legge Fini
Giovanardi: Rinvio alla Consulta per l’equiparazione
di droghe leggere e pesanti Giovanni Bianconi # La legge Fini-Giovanardi è inconstituzionale | Cassazione: Norme introdotte nel decreto Olimpiadi e senza i requisiti di necessità e urgenza. Dovrà esprimersi la Consulta | Corriere della Sera, 12 giugno 2013 |
| Home Office # Drug Misuse: Findings from the 2012/13. Crime Survey for England and Wales http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ July 2013 Including mephedrone, the proportion of adults aged 16 to 59 taking any illicit drug in the last year was 8.2% in 2012/13 (i.e. no different to the proportion when excluding mephedrone). This was a decrease from 9.1% in 2011/12. According to the 2012/13 CSEW, 2.6% of adults aged 16 to 59 had taken a Class A drug in the last year (equivalent to around 850,000 people). As shown in Figure 1.1, the long-term trend in Class A drug use in the last year for all adults has been broadly stable since 1996. Supporting this finding, there is no statistically significant difference between the 1996 (2.7%) and 2012/13 (2.6%) surveys... As in 2011/12 after cannabis, the next most commonly used drug in the last year by adults aged 16 to 59 was powder cocaine (1.9%). |
|
Jan
Bashford, Jan Copeland, Ross Flett |
|
John
Walsh (ed), with contributions from Mark Kleiman and
BOTEC Analysis Washington and Colorado took identical approaches to possession and age limits: adults 21 and older can possess up to one ounce at any time, normally a misdemeanor charge. The states also appear likely to adopt the same DUI policy, restricting driving with blood THC concentrations higher than five nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL). The Colorado laws are more liberal in that they allow unlicensed production for personal use (up to three maturing plants at a time) and non-commercial transactions up to one ounce. The states’ laws share similar taxation structures, with modestly heavier taxes in Washington. Washington levies between two and three 25 percent excise taxes within the supply chain, depending on industry structure, yielding a total tax burden likely somewhere between 30 and 40 percent, plus sales tax. Colorado has enacted a 15 percent excise tax on unprocessed product and a 10 percent sales tax, for an approximate effective tax rate between 15 and 25 percent. |
| Luisa
Romano # Art. 73 del D.P.R. N. 309 del 1990: la parola alla Corte Costituzionale. Osservazioni su Corte d’appello di Roma, Sez. III, ord. 28 gennaio 2013, Pres. ed Est. Bettiol Diritto Penale Contemporaneo, www.penalecontemporaneo.it 28 maggio 2013 Altra censura mossa nei confronti dell’art. 4-bis del d.l. n. 272 del 2005 è quella relativa all’asserita incompatibilità della citata disposizione con il principio di eguaglianza dei cittadini di fronte alla legge di cui all’art. 3 Cost., previsione costituzionale, quest’ultima, che farebbe divieto al legislatore di sanzionare con la medesima pena comportamenti notevolmente differenti, come notevolmente differenti sarebbero, a parere della Corte remittente, quelli, tra gli altri, di importazione, detenzione e spaccio aventi ad oggetti droghe cc.dd. leggere o, piuttosto, droghe cc.dd. pesanti, a ragione della modestia degli effetti negativi sull’organismo delle prime rispetto a quelli devastanti prodotti dalle seconde. # Corte d’appello di Roma, Sez. III, ord. 28 gennaio 2013, Pres. ed Est. Bettiol |
|
Corte Suprema di Cassazione - Sezioni Unite Penali # Sentenza n. 36258/2012 del 24 maggio 2012 - Dep. 20 settembre 2012 Corte Suprema di Cassazione -
Sezioni Unite Penali | Rel. n. 06/2013 | Roma
08/03/2013 Limiti massimi di sostanza stupefacente previsti dall’art. 73 comma 1-bis del Testo Unico approvato con D.P.R. 309/1990, come modificato dalla Legge 21 febbraio 2006 n. 49 |
| Simone Grimm,
Milan Scheidegger # A Trip Out of Depression. Ketamine, an Anesthetic and Illicit Party Drug, Is Emerging as a Fast-Acting Antedepressant www.ScientificAmerican.com/Mind June 2013 One hypothesis suggests that ketamine quickly and dramatically increases the function and density of synapses, the junctions between neurons, in areas of the brain where cells have atrophied because of stress or depression. The prefrontal cortex—a region essential to complex decision making, learning and memory—is one such area. In depressed people, it appears to have reduced volume and less activation than in healthy individuals, as well as fewer synapses on neurons in one subregion. |
|
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
UNODC |
|
Roger A. Roffman |
|
Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche |
| Maud
Pousset et al. | Observatoire français des drogues
et des toxicomanies # Drogues et addictions, données essentielles OFDT 2013 La dépendance est entendue comme un comportement psychopathologique présentant certaines caractéristiques biologiques, psychologiques et sociales au-delà de la seule dépendance physique. Les principaux critères contribuant à sa définition sont : le désir compulsif du produit, la difficulté à contrôler la consommation, la prise du produit pour éviter le syndrome de sevrage, le besoin d’augmenter la dose pour atteindre les mêmes effets qu’auparavant et la place centrale prise par le produit dans la vie du consommateur... Les données de remboursements font apparaître une baisse des consommations d’hypnotiques et d’antidépresseurs au cours des années 2000. Celles d’anxiolytiques étaient en baisse entre 2002 et 2009, mais ont fortement augmenté en 2010 et retrouvent ainsi à peu près le niveau du début des années 2000. Pour les antidépresseurs, la baisse intervient après 2005, en rupture avec une phase de croissance continue entre 1990 et 2003. |
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# Corte di cassazione - Sezione VI penale - Sentenza 30 aprile 2013 n. 18969 Droga, custodia cautelare in carcere solo se la pericolosità è fuori della norma. Niente custodia cautelare in carcere per il tossicodipendente trovato in possesso di 47 involucri di marijuana: deve prevalere la prospettiva di recupero della persona. Lo ha stabilito la Corte di cassazione con la sentenza 18969/2013 annullando l’ordinanza del tribunale di Catania che all’opposto aveva negato la misura alternativa della reclusione domiciliare. |
| Wayne
Hall # British cannabis policy: an enduring and uneasy compromise www.thelancet.com Vol 381 April 20, 2013 Mills cogently describes how the policy compromise succeeded in reducing the public profile of cannabis use but at a cost—namely, that the police used their discretion in enforcement to selectively detain minority cannabis users and young people who already had criminal records and who were suspected of more serious off ences |
| Pew Research
Center # Majority Now Supports Legalizing Marijuana www.people-press.org/ April 4, 2013 For the first time in more than four decades of polling on the issue, a majority of Americans favor legalizing the use of marijuana. A national survey finds that 52% say that the use of marijuana should be made legal while 45% say it should not. Support for legalizing marijuana has risen 11 points since 2010. The change is even more dramatic since the late 1960s. A 1969 Gallup survey found that just 12% favored legalizing marijuana use, while 84% were opposed. |
|
New York Academy of Medicine | Drug
Policy Alliance March 2013 |
|
Penal Reform International PRI # The
unintended negative consequences of the ‘war on
drugs’: mass criminalisation and punitive
sentencing policies Criminalisation of drug users, excessive levels of imprisonment, and punitive sentencing practices, including mandatory sentencing, the death penalty and enforced ‘drug detention centres’, are some of the unintended negative consequences of the 50 year ‘war on drugs’, a policy with direct impact on the vulnerable, poor and socially excluded groups, including ethnic minorities and women. |
| Riffat Sadiq,
Safia Umer, Haider Ali # A Study of Self- Reported Criminal Behaviors among Drug Abusers Drug Free Nation, March 2013 The purpose of the present study was to explore self- reported criminal behaviors among drug abusers. Total one hundred (N= 100) drug abusers (heroin, cannabis, alcohol and crystal abusers) were interviewed sitting in Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Centers of Karachi, Pakistan. A semi- structured interview form was used to collect information pertaining to demographic characteristics, drug abuse and crime history. Results have revealed that most of the participants (67%) were involved in different crimes and among them majority were heroin abusers (84%). All drug abusers were commonly involved in the crime of pickpocketing (40.29%). Pickpocketing was mainly associated with heroin abuse (48%). About 20% cannabis users were equally involved in the crimes of pickpocketing, robbery and gambling. Alcoholics were, most of the time, involved in fighting (28%), whereas majority of crystal users (16%) had committed the crime of pickpocketing. Results also have depicted that majority of drug abusers (55.22%) had committed crimes to buy drug |
|
Livia Curcio, Maria V. Podda, Lucia
Leone, Roberto Piacentini, Alessia Mastrodonato,
Pamela Cappelletti, Silvia Sacchi, Loredano
Pollegioni, Claudio Grassi, Marcello D’Ascenzo |
|
Karen D. Ersche, P. Simon Jones, Guy B.
Williams, Dana G. Smith, Edward T. Bullmore,
Trevor W. Robbins |
|
John Howard Society of Brotish Columbia Drug-related harm reduction approaches include any program or policy designed to reduce harm without requiring the cessation of drug use. It involves strategies that focus on the immediate harm in a person’s life and seeks to create a realistic reduction in potential harm. Researchers, as well as John Howard Society staff across British Columbia, recognize the need for harm reduction initiatives in addition to traditional approaches to addiction. This is particularly true with people who are incarcerated, homeless or live in shelters, as well as those who have serious mental health issues or other major barriers. Such individuals show greater rates of infection than the general population and are more likely to engage in risky behaviours, such as unsafe tattooing or injecting drugs with unsterile equipment. |
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International Narcotics Control Board INCB # Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2012 | www.incb.org/ UN 2013 # Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2011 | www.incb.org/ UN 2012 # Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2010 | www.incb.org/ UN 2011 # Report of the International Narcotics Control Board for 2009 | www.incb.org/ UN 2010 # Report
of the International Narcotics Control Board for
2008 | www.incb.org/ UN 2009 The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) is the independent and quasi-judicial monitoring body for the implementation of the United Nations international drug control conventions. It was established in 1968 in accordance with the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, 1961. It had predecessors under the former drug control treaties as far back as the time of the League of Nations. Psychotropic Substances: The 1971 Convention was adopted to curtail the diversion and abuse of certain psychotropic substances, such as central nervous stimulants, sedative-hypnotics and hallucinogens, which had resulted in public health and social problems in some countries. By implementing the provisions of the Convention, parties to the 1971 Convention should comply with the dual aim of (i) limiting the use of psychotropic substances to medical and scientific purposes and (ii) ensuring their availability for those purposes. Currently one hundred sixteen psychotropic substances are controlled under the 1971 Convention. Governments must provide statistical returns on manufacture, imports and exports of psychotropic substances to INCB on the forms supplied for that purpose. In addition, they should provide complementary information on psychotropic substances, based on recommendations of the Economic and Social Council. The controls foreseen under the 1971 Convention together with the additional controls required by the Economic and Social Council have significantly reduced the diversion of psychotropic substances. INCB publishes each year information on the licit movement of psychotropic substances in a technical publication |
|
Cory Molzahn, Octavio Rodriguez Ferreira,
and David A. Shirk | Trans-Border Institute -
Joan B. Kroc School
of Peace Studies - University of San Diego As this report also shows, a large part of the recent increase in violence in Mexico is attributable to drug-trafficking and organized-crime groups. According to the independently compiled tallies cited in this report, as many as 45% to 60% of all intentional homicides in 2012 bore characteristics typical of organized-crime groups. However, there is a considerable variance across different sources monitoring these kinds of homicides, and the Mexican government could help to better inform the public by providing greater transparency and consistency in reporting on the particular kind of violence that is at the center of the country’s current security crisis. |
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State of Rhode Island in General Assembly
| January Session, A. D. 2013 - H 5274 |
|
Connie I. Carter, Donald MacPherson |
Canadian Drug Policy Coalition | Coalition
canadienne des politiques sur les drogues |
|
Australian National Council on Drugs ANCD
| National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee
NIDAC Data from the Drug Use Monitoring in Australia (DUMA) project2 in 2010 reveal that over 74 per cent of Indigenous police detainees tested positive to a range of drugs, and just over 60 per cent self-reported they had consumed alcohol within the 48 hours prior to their arrest... The issues experienced by Indigenous offenders are significant and complex. The strong links between harmful substance use and Indigenous incarceration highlight an urgent need for government to address this disturbing problem... Indigenous offenders with an existing substance use, mental health, or physical health problem often have complex needs. Separation from family and culture, together with a previous history of an undiagnosed or untreated health condition, places an Indigenous offender at great risk while in the correctional system. There is the danger of these issues, if left unattended, exacerbating or causing other health problems while an offender is in detention or in prison. |
| Ole Rogeberg # Correlations between cannabis use and IQ change in the Dunedin cohort are consistent with confounding from socioeconomic status www.pnas.org/ March 12, 2013 Does cannabis use have substantial and permanent effects on neuropsychological functioning? Renewed and intense attention to the issue has followed recent research on the Dunedin cohort, which found a positive association between, on the one hand, adolescent-onset cannabis use and dependence and, on the other hand, a decline in IQ from childhood to adulthood |
|
Lila www.lila.it | 25 Marzo 2013 Il Dipartimento rappresenta il governo ai summit dell'Onu (non solo quelli dedicati alla droga), stringe accordi internazionali, promuove convegni, apre siti web, organizza campagne di comunicazione e eventi spettacolari, edita pubblicazioni, fa sgomberare i rave... Giovanni Serpelloni può contare su cospicui finanziamenti... il Dipartimento ha infatti ricevuto in tre anni ben 43,5 milioni di euro: 26,5 milioni per il 2010 e 17 milioni per il biennio 2011/12... Giovanni Serpelloni è anche la firma che sta in calce agli articoli pubblicati dall'Italian Journal of Addiction, diretto da Giovanni Serpelloni, pubblicato e finanziato dal Dipartimento nazionale antidroga, di cui è capo appunto Giovanni Serpelloni. Insomma, il Dipartimento Antidroga, ovvero Giovanni Serpelloni, fa anche ricerca: se la commissiona, se la finanzia, se la giudica e se la pubblica... |
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Fuoriluogo www.fuoriluogo.it | 22.03.2013 |
| Le
Collège des Médecins de Famille du Canada # Énoncé de position du Collège des médecins de famille du Canada sur les modifications proposées par Santé Canada au règlement sur la marijuana thérapeutique www.cfpc.ca/ Février 2013 Compte tenu des données contradictoires, et dans certains cas, de l’absence de données sur l’efficacité et l’innocuité de la marijuana utilisée à des fins médicales, le CMFC demande l’élaboration de recommandations sur les risques et les avantages de l’utilisation de la marijuana pour traiter des conditions médicales précises fondées sur les meilleures données probantes possible, ainsi que de ressources et d’outils permettant de répondre aux questions des médecins de famille. Les recommandations devraient être élaborées par des cliniciens sans conflits d’intérêts en matière de promotion de la marijuana thérapeutique. Elles devraient être fondées sur des critères aussi rigoureux que ceux traitant de tout autre produit thérapeutique légal. |
|
Christopher M. Jones, Karin A. Mack,
Leonard J. Paulozzi |
| George
Jay Unick1, Daniel Rosenblum, Sarah Mars,
Daniel Ciccarone # Intertwined Epidemics: National Demographic Trends in Hospitalizations for Heroin- and Opioid-Related Overdoses, 1993–2009 www.plosone.org/ 1 February 2013 Today, there is evidence that an enormous increase in the availability of prescription opiates is fuelling a rise in addiction nationally, drawing in new initiates to these drugs and changing the geography of opiate overdoses. Recent efforts at supply-based reductions in prescription opiates may reduce harm, but addicted individuals may switch to other opiates such as heroin. In this analysis, we test the hypothesis that changes in the rates of Prescription Opiate Overdoses (POD) are correlated with changes in the rate of heroin overdoses (HOD). |
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NSW Parlamentary Research Service |
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Pter J. Boettke, Christopher J.
Coyne, Abigail R. Hall |
|
Ivana Obradovic (OFDT) | Observatoire
Francais des Drogues et des Toxicomanies |
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Cassazione penale , sez. IV, sentenza 29.01.2013 n° 4560 # Droga: acquisto di gruppo sanzionabile solo in presenza di precisi parametri. www.altalex.com/ 14 febbraio 2013. Nota di Carlo Alberto Zaina La pronunzia 9 dicembre 2012 della Sezione Quarta della Cassazione (pubblicata il 29 gennaio 2013), pur ribadendo la proprio preferenza per la tesi più restrittiva (quella della sanzionabilità della condotta consortile) ha operato, in pura ipotesi – ed in relazione alla specifica fattispecie – un'apertura di carattere teorico, declinando il principio per cui il consumo di gruppo (ma sarebbe meglio dire l'acquisto di gruppo) potrebbe non formare oggetto di sanzione, solo in presenza di precisi parametri. |
|
Carlo Renoldi # Le Sezioni unite della Corte di cassazione sull'uso di gruppo di stupefacenti Questione Giustizia |
www.magistraturademocratica.it/ 08 febbraio
2013 |
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Ministero dellInterno | Dipartimento
della Pubblica Sicurezza | Polizia di Stato www.poliziadistato.it/ 02/07/2013 |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs
and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) |
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Ornella Corazza, Zsolt Demetrovics,
Wim van den Brink, Fabrizio Schifano |
|
Maurizio Vallone |
|
Organization of American States OAS In all scenarios, we begin with the understanding that while the future is uncertain, we can be sure that in 2025, there will still be a substantial demand for psychoactive substances, including alcohol, pharmaceuticals and illicitly produced drugs; that a small percentage of those drug users will become drug-dependent, and some will die, while others will develop serious medical conditions or infections such as HIV and Hepatitis C; that there will be illegal activities wherever there is money to be made from such activities; and that there will be organized criminal groups operating throughout the region, profiting from a range of these illegal activities. |
| Andrea
Natale # A margine di Corte Costituzionale, sentenza n. 251 del 2012 (e a margine dell’ordinanza di rimessione) www.magistraturademocratica.it/ 27 gennaio 2013 «È costituzionalmente illegittimo l’articolo 69,comma 4, c.p., come sostituito dall’art. 3 della legge 5 dicembre 2005, n. 251, nella parte in cui prevede il divieto di prevalenza della circostanza attenuante di cui all’art. 73, comma 5, D.P.R. n. 309/1990 sulla recidiva di cui all’art. 99, quarto comma, del codice penale» C. Cost. 251/2012 |
| New York
State - Commission of Correction # Benzodiazepines withdrawal and treatment in the local correctional facilities Chairman's Memorandum n. 13 January 16, 2013 Constant supervision shall be maintained with the prisoner until he/she can be transported to the hospital for intensive medicaI care. Prisoners with late benzodiazepine withdrawal cannot be treated in a correctional facility. Any decision not to send an inmate to the hospital for treatment of benzodiazepine withdrawal should be made by a physician after an examination. All correctional facilities shall have a benzodiazepine withdrawal policy and procedure in pIace developed by the facility medicaI director. |
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Dipartimento Amministrazione
Penitenziaria DAP ... A causa della persistente difficoltà di acquisizione dei dati presso alcuni uffici giudiziari, problema che di fatto comporta l'assegnazione di un valore pari a zero a tutte le variabili dell'ufficio inadempiente, si è ritenuto opportuno effettuare, per il periodo relativo agli anni 2005-2012, una stima dei dati mancanti, procedura che ha consentito di mitigare tale carenza... |
| Psychiatry
on line # La ricerca sui disturbi psichiatrici nei pazienti tossicodipendenti ed alcolisti www.psychiatryonline.it/ 1 dicembre 2012 |
|
Fédération Addiction Une forte prévalence des conduites addictives en détention. Les études disponibles convergent vers le constat d’une forte prévalence des conduites addictives parmi la population incarcérée. On peut évaluer à un peu plus de la moitié la part des personnes poly-consommatrice en prison. La dernière estimation chiffrée datant de 20031 indique que 30% des entrants en prison ont une consommation excessive d’alcool, un tiers d’entre eux déclarent une utilisation prolongée et régulière de drogues illicites au cours des 12 derniers mois et un quart déclarent une consommation d’au moins 2 substances psychoactives. |
|
Executive Office of the President of
the United States In recent years, the debate about drug policy has lurched between two extremes. One side of the debate suggests that drug legalization is the “silver bullet” solution to drug control. The other side maintains a law enforcement-only “War on Drugs” mentality.Neither of these approaches is humane, effective, or grounded in evidence. The Obama Administration supports a “third way” approach to drug control—one that is based on the results of considerable investment in research from some of the world’s preeminent scholars on the disease of addiction. The Administration is doing its part to further the Principles, both at home and abroad. We have rebalanced national drug control policy to reflect the complexity of drug use as both a public health and public safety issue, dedicating more than $10.5 billion to prevention and treatment, compared to $9.6 billion for domestic law enforcement... |
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House of Commons - Home Affairs Committee We recommend that a target is added to the National Strategy explicitly aimed at harm reduction and public health, in addition to the Treatment objective. This target should be measured through two indicators: to reduce the number of overdoses (measureable through Accident and Emergency records) and to reduce the number of new infections through injecting of HIV and Hepatitis (measureable through medical records of drug users). |
| Brian
Pettitt-Schieber # DeEl “Amanecer Verde”: La legalización de la marihuana en Uruguay en el contexto del movimiento regional contra la prohibición SIT Graduate Institute - December 5, 2012 As the evidence mounts demonstrating the failure of the decades-old War on Drugs to stop the consumption and trafficking of drugs, Latin American leaders at the highest level of the political world have recently started speaking out against the policy of criminalization of drug use. Following the example of Holland and the successes of decriminalization for personal consumption, Uruguayan head of state José Mujica has taken the boldest step in the region in his proposal to legalize marijuana for production and sale by the State in regulated amounts... |
|
Cormac O’Keeffe |
|
Gianluca Carta Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, 2010-2012 Le tecniche di neuroimaging (FRMI, MRI, PET, SPECT, ecc.) che permettono di evidenziare e rappresentare non solo le strutture ma anche il funzionamento e le attività delle aree e delle connessioni cerebrali variamente coinvolte nei processi disfunzionali che portano alla dipendenza... Il cambio di paradigma nel concetto di tossicodipendenza – da meccanismo di inclusione/esclusione sociale a malattia misurabile con gli strumenti della neuroscienza – si riflette in maniera profonda nel mutamento del processo comunicativo attorno al tema in questione |
| Paul Eastwood | The Health and Social Care Information
Centre, Lifestyles Statistics. # Statistics on Drug Misuse: England, 2012 The Health and Social Care Information Centre - 29 November 2012 The impact of mandatory drug testing in prisons‘ publication summarises the key findings from a study on the extent and type of drug use in prisons, as part of the Mandatory Drug Testing (MDT) programme. Included in the publication are results from a survey of prisoners which were carried out in a sample of prisons to gather information on episodes of drug use in prisons, prisoners' experience of drug use prevention measures in prison nd the impact of these on attitudes and behaviours in relation to drug use. In this survey, information was collected from prisoners on their drug use prior to coming to prison, at any time within prison, and drug use within the current prison, on each day in the past week, in the past month and at any time. In addition to information on self-reported use, some prisoners also provided biological samples (oral fluid (OF) and/or hair) for testing for cannabis and opiates |
|
Liza Ten Velde | transnational institute
TNI |
| Dipartimento
Politiche Antidroga | Presidenza del Consiglio dei
Ministri | Giovanni
Serpelloni, Franco Alessandrini, Giada Zoccatelli,
Claudia Rimondo (eds), Nora Volkow (contr) # Neuroscienze delle Dipendenze: il Neuroimaging. Manuale per gli operatori dei Dipartimenti delle Dipendenze 1^ parte | # 2^ parte Terza edizione Novembre, 2012 |
| L. Sordo, M.
Chahua, M.J. Bravo, G. Barrio, M.T. Brugal, A.
Domingo-Salvany, G. Molist, L. De la Fuente |
ITINERE Project Group # Depression among regular heroin users: The influence of gender Addictive Behaviors 37 (2012) 148–152 The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of recent (last 12 months) depression in regular young heroin users and to ascertain factors associated with depression in this population, broken down by gender. A sample of 561 participants completed a cross-sectional survey. Eligibility criteria were: age 30 years or younger... The prevalence of recent depression was 22.3% (35.2% among women and 17.3% among men, pb0.001). Among woman, the related variables were age 25 or less, cocaine dependence in the last 12 months, and alcohol consumption in that period. |
|
Rossana Giove # Alcol e Carceri nella ASL di Milano Milano, 9 novembre 2012 Alla data del 01/11/2012 presso il Tribunale di Milano il SerT della ASL di Milano ha incontrato 420 utenti. Di questi 39 hanno un problema di alcol dipendenza come sostanza primaria. Molti dei pazienti con diagnosi primaria di dipendenza da cocaina sono anche abusatori di alcol. |
| Doriana
Antonella Giorgi, Francesco Massoni, Vincenzo
Mastronardi, Giulia Troili, Luca Amendola, Serafino Ricci # Hashish e principio attivo: considerazioni medico-legali su una casistica Rivista di Criminologia, Vittimologia e Sicurezza – Vol. VI – N. 3 – Settembre-Dicembre 2012 L’hashish si ricava dalla resina estratta dalle foglie della pianta e contiene il THC in una percentuale che va dal 6 al 15%... Campioni analizzati presso il laboratorio ARPALazio: la quantità di principio attivo è tra il 6 e l’8% per il triennio 2007-2009. I casi in cui è stato superato il limite di 500 mg, fissato dal Decreto del Presidente della Repubblica del 9 ottobre 1990 n. 309 e relativo al possesso per uso personale depenalizzato, sono stati il 5,81%. Tale percentuale non conferma l’esistenza di grossi traffici internazionali, piuttosto di “piccoli spacciatori e/o consumatori”. |
|
Corte di Cassazione, Sezioni Unite |
|
Jennifer A. Gershman, Andrea D. Fass |
|
Ari Rosmarin, Miamh Eastwood Recognizing that drug laws have little impact on drug use, policy-makers must be willing to consider the broader – and more difficult – social factors that influence individuals’ relationships with drugs. Though more research is needed, socioeconomic characteristics such as income disparity and levels of social support appear to correlate more closely with drugs problems in a society than do drugs laws or policies. Preliminary research suggests that countries with higher levels of wealth inequality tend to have higher levels of problematic drug use. It would behove advocates and policy-makers interested in designing effective drug policies that reduce costs and harms to recognize that drug use is often a symptom of broader social and economic factors and not necessarily a cause of them.
Steve Rolles, Niamh Eastwood Disproportionate sentencing for cases involving possession above the threshold or supply offences – it is critical that governments recognise the principle of proportionality in sentencing for drug offences. Too often those convicted of non-violent drug supply offences receive custodial periods which are much harsher than other violent offences, such as rape and even murder. |
| Joseph
Murray, David P. Farrington, and Ivana Sekol # Children’s Antisocial Behavior, Mental Health, Drug Use, and Educational Performance After Parental Incarceration: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Psychological Bulletin, 2012, Vol. 138, No. 2, 175–210 Children with incarcerated parents have been referred to as the “forgotten victims” of crime (Matthews, 1983), the “orphans of justice” (Shaw, 1992a) and the “unseen victims of the prison boom” (Petersilia, 2005, p. 34). They can experience multiple emotional and social difficulties during their parent’s incarceration, which may develop into a range of adjustment problems in the long term. This article describes key aspects of children’s experiences during parental incarceration and reports results from a systematic review and meta-analysis on the associations between parental incarceration and children’s later antisocial behavior, mental health problems, drug use, and low educational performance. |
| Dipartimento
Politiche Antidroga - Presidenza del Consiglio dei
Ministri # Il gioco d'azzardo patologico in Italia Italian Journal on Addiction, Volume 2, Numero 3-4, 2012 |
|
UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime United Nations New York 2012 Globally, UNODC estimates that there were between 99,000 and 253,000 deaths in 2010 as a result of illicit drug use, or between 22.0 and 55.9 deaths per million population aged 15-64 (see table 1). This is based on the reporting of numbers of drug-related deaths covering a substantial percentage of the population aged 15-64 in North America (100 per cent), Europe (100 per cent), South America (71 per cent) and Oceania (62 per cent), and to a much lesser extent in Asia (8 per cent) and Africa (less than 1 per cent). Indeed, data reported to UNODC by countries in Africa represented such a small percentage of the population that an alternative source of estimates for aggregated drug-related deaths has been used in those countries.28 The UNODC estimate of drug-related deaths is consistent with previously published estimates prepared by the World Health Organization (WHO), the latest of which refers to 2004 when the number of drug-related deaths from illicit drug use worldwide was estimated at 245,000,29 a total that includes AIDS-related deaths and deaths caused by hepatitis B and hepatitis C resulting from illicit drug use, whereas UNODC estimates are based on country reports that, for the most part, report only deaths caused by drug overdose and trauma related to drug abuse.... |
|
Iñaki
Markez y Cristina Iñigo (Coords.) | Grupo de trabajo
sobre Salud Mental en Prisión (GSMP): Sociedad
Española de Sanidad Penitenciaria (SESP) Asociación
Española de Neuropsiquiatría (AEN) http://sesp.es/ GSMP: SampAEN y SESP 2012 Según datos de Instituciones Penitenciarias a 31 de diciembre de 2010, en España estaban encarceladas 63.403 personas de las cuales 5.041 eran mujeres (8%) (1). La prevalencia de la enfermedad mental ronda el 25-40%. De este porcentaje, entre el 4 y 6%, presenta un trastorno mental grave y entre un 30-50% de ellos tendría un trastorno relacionado con el consumo de drogas. Un 17,6% de los presos presenta antecedentes psiquiátricos previos a su ingreso en prisión; Entre ellos: un 2,6% padece trastornos de tipo psicótico; el 6,9% tiene antecedentes de un trastorno afectivo y un porcentaje igual padece algún trastorno de la personalidad. A estos datos hay que añadir el 9,6% de los internos de las prisiones tiene antecedentes de patología dual al coexistir en un mismo paciente un problema de abuso o dependencia de sustancias psicoactivas unido a cualquier otro trastorno psiquiátrico. |
| Rusty Reeves # Guideline, Education, and Peer Comparison to Reduce Prescriptions of Benzodiazepines and Low-Dose Quetiapine in Prison Journal of Correctional Health Care, 18(1) 45-52 | 2012 Benzodiazepines (antianxiety medications) and quetiapine (an antipsychotic medication) are subject to abuse in prison. Quetiapine is also expensive and has serious side effects. The prescription of these medications in prison for anxiety and insomnia is not the preferred choice. In order to reduce these prescriptions, the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey–University Correctional HealthCare (UCHC), working within the New Jersey Department of Corrections, provided its psychiatrists with a guideline to the treatment of insomnia in prison... |
|
Government of South Australia | Emma Zierch,
Jayne Marshall |
| European
Union (Resolutions, recommendations and opinions) # EU Drugs Strategy (2013-20) Official Journal of the European Union 29.12.2012 In order to prevent crime, avoid recidivism and enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the criminal justice system while ensuring proportionality, the EU shall encourage, where appropriate, the use, monitoring and effective implementation of drug policies and programmes including arrest referral and appropriate alternatives to coercive sanctions (such as education, treatment, rehabilitation, aftercare and social reintegration) for drug-using offenders. Develop and expand integrated models of care, covering needs related to mental and/or physical health-related problems, rehabilitation and social support in order to improve and increase the health and social situation, social reintegration and recovery of problem and dependent drug users, including those affected by co-morbidity. |
|
Phillip Smith #
US Has 330,000 Drug Offenders in Prison |
| D. Mark Anderson,
Benjamin Hansen, Daniel I. Rees # Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption http://dmarkanderson.com/ October 2012 To date, 17 states have passed medical marijuana laws, yet very little is known about their effects. The current study examines the relationship between the legalization of medical marijuana and traffic fatalities, the leading cause of death among Americans ages 5 through 34. The first full year after coming into effect, legalization is associated with an 8 to 11 percent decrease in traffic fatalities. The impact of legalization on traffic fatalities involving alcohol is larger and estimated with more precision than its impact on traffic fatalities that do not involve alcohol. Legalization is also associated with sharp decreases in the price of marijuana and alcohol consumption, suggesting that marijuana and alcohol are substitutes. Because alternative mechanisms cannot be ruled out, the negative relationship between legalization and alcohol-related traffic fatalities does not necessarily imply that driving under the influence of marijuana is safer than driving under the influence of alcohol.
D. Mark Anderson, Daniel I. Rees #
Medical Marijuana
Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption |
| The Centre for
Public Health | Charlotte Davies, Layla English, Claire
Stewart, Mark Edginton, Jim McVeigh, Mark A. Bellis
(eds) # United Kingdom drug situation: annual report to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) 2012 www.cph.org.uk/ 31 October 2012 The number of arrests for drug offences in England and Wales continued to increase in 2010/11 with a three per cent increase on the previous year There were around 125,000 arrests for drug offences in 2010/11, constituting nine per cent of all arrests and up to 14% in some regions. Drug offences accounted for six per cent of all arrests in 2006/07, since when arrests for drug offences have increased by 40%. Although recorded drug crime has also risen during this time, the increase has been smaller at around 20% for both possession and trafficking offences. This may suggest the greater use of arrest when dealing with drug offenders. Of those arrested for drug offences, 12% were under the age of 18 with 28% under the age of 21 years old. |
|
London
School of Economics and Political Science LSE Re-examining the Drug Problem Through a Fresh Lens | Juan Manuel Santos, President of the Republic of Colombia | Executive Summary | The International Drug Control System | Reflections On a Century of International Drug Control William B. McAllister | Why We Make War on Some Drugs but not on Others David T. Courtwright | Science, Diplomacy and Cannabis James H. Mills | Appraising the Consequences of Policy Joseph F. Spillane | Latin America Paul Gootenberg | Switzerland Diane Steber Buechli and Ruth Dreifuss | The United Nations David R. Bewley-Taylor | Towards a Human Rights Framework Damon Barrett | Overhauling Oversightt: Human Rights at the INCB 63 Joanne Csete |
| Federazione
Italiana degli Operatori dei Dipartimenti e dei Servizi
delle Dipendenze # Il prezzo della solitudine. Le nuove forme della dipendenza tra cocaina, alcol, gioco d'azzrdo patologico e internet addiction FederSerd informa, n. 18, ottobre 2012 |
| A. S. McKnight,
J. C. Fell J. C., A. Auld-Owens # Transdermal alcohol monitoring: Case studies National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, August 2012 The Secure Continuous Remote Alcohol Monitoring (SCRAM) device produced by Alcohol Monitoring Systems (AMS) and the Transdermal Alcohol Detection (TAD) system developed by BI Incorporated (BI) are two transdermal alcohol- monitoring devices that are increasingly being used across the country on alcohol-related criminal offenders. Both devices use ankle bracelets that sample perspiration to detect ethanol vapor and can automatically transfer the information stored on the ankle bracelet via modem to a secure Web server. |
|
|
|
Arpana
Agrawal, Alan J. Budney, Michael T. Lynskey |
|
Paolo Ugolini, Mara Tognett, Francesco
Maisto, Leonardo Montecchi, Gianpaolo Proni, Alba
Fabbri, Roberto Lugli, Emanuela Frisoni Roberto
Sghedoni, Primo Pellegrini, Mara Verderi, Annalisa
Valeri, Daniele Donati, Daniele Righini |
|
M.
Coppola, R. Mondola |
| Harold Kalant,
Amy J. Porath-Waller # Clearing the Smoke on Cannabis. Medical Use of Cannabis and Cannabinoids www.ccsa.ca/ Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse 2012 In summary, research supports the medical use of cannabis to relieve nausea, vomiting and chronic pain, but the research is still emerging in its application to disease conditions. Future development is likely to be focused on improving the specificity of synthetic cannabinoids and their delivery by safer methods than smoking. |
|
Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy # The War on Drugs and HIV/AIDS. How the Criminalization of Drug Use Fuels the Global Pandemic © 2012 The Global Commission on Drug Policy - June 2012 |
| The National
Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University | The CASA Columbia National Advisory
Commission on Addiction Treatment # Addiction Medicine: Closing the Gap between Science and Practice http://www.casacolumbia.org/ June2012 A large and growing body of scientific research has demonstrated clearly that addiction involving nicotine, alcohol, illicit drugs and controlled prescription drugs is a complex brain disease. It affects 15.9 percent of the United States population ages 12 and older (40.3 million) -- more than the share of the population with heart disease, diabetes or cancer. Another 31.7 percent of the population (80.4 million), while not addicted, engages in risky use of addictive substances in ways that threaten health and safety... |
| Ernesto Zedillo,
Haynie Wheeler (eds) # Rethinking the “War on Drugs” Through the US-Mexico Prism Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, 2012 Over the 25-year period from 1980 to 2005, the number of people incarcerated for drug offences in local jails and state and federal prisons increased by a factor of 10, and this figure does not include those incarcerated for so-called drug-related crimes, such as robbery to get the money to buy the drugs. During this period of massively increased intensity in enforcement, the price of heroin and cocaine fell around 70%. |
|
Wouter
Vanderplasschen, Jessica De Maeyer, Kathy Colpaert,
Serge Cogels, Andrea Rea, Geert Dom, Bernard Sabbe,
Eric Broekaert Poly substance use is the rule rather than the exception. At least 64% of the clients currently in treatment for substance use problems report poly substance use during the last 30 days before treatment entry. One can assume that this number is an underestimation of the reality, since numerous individuals included in the study were living in a controlled environment (e.g. hospital, prison) the last 30 days before entering treatment... |
|
Steve Sussman (Ed.) |
| Canadian
Association of Drug Treatment Court Professionals
(CADTCP) # Impaired Judgement – Correcting Misconceptions about Drug Treatment Courts www.cadtc.org/ June 25, 2012 Recidivism • In a recent address, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said: ....Fully three quarters of drug court graduates nationwide are able to avoid re-arrest for at least two years after the program. Studies suggest drug courts can reduce crime as much as 45 percent more than any other sentencing options. The most recent, comprehensive published meta-analysis, based on 154 independent studies, concluded that DTC participation reduced recidivism by 12%, on average... Costs • In the same address Holder also remarked: …and for every dollar spent, three tax dollars are saved. Even more critically, you’re illustrating that they can reunite families, help communities feel safer and more secure - and make lives whole again |
|
Sophie
Fantoni-Quinton |
|
D.
Mark Anderson, Benjamin Hansen, Daniel I. Rees |
| Peter H. Addy,
Rajiv Radhakrishnan, Jose A. Cortes, Deepak Cyril
D’Souza # Comorbid Alcohol, Cannabis, and Cocaine Use Disorders in Schizophrenia: Epidemiology, Consequences, Mechanisms, and Treatment The Journal of Lifelong Learning in Psychiatry, spring 2012 Alcohol, cannabis and cocaine are among the most frequently abused substances in patients with schizophrenia. Substance abuse can negatively affect the expression and course of schizophrenia, for example by leading to a lower global level of functioning, increased hospitalizations, increased service utilization, and lower compliance with medication. Several models have been proposed to explain the high rates of comorbid substance use disorder in patients with schizophrenia including the self-medication and reward dysfunction hypotheses. There is little evidence to support the self-medication hypothesis. The reward dysfunction hypothesis is gaining support. The high rates and negative consequences warrant a thorough assessment of comorbid substance use disorders when treating patients with schizophrenia. |
|
United
Nations | WHO |
|
European Centre for Disease Prevention
and Control (ECDC) and the European Monitoring Centre
on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) A joint meeting organised by ECDC and the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) was held in Tallinn, Estonia on 29–30 March 2012 to share best practice experiences on monitoring, and responding to the risk of HIV among people who inject drugs. The main objective of the meeting was to provide a platform for information exchange between countries to support the response to the ongoing HIV outbreaks in Greece and Romania. Participants included national HIV and drug focal points from Finland, Portugal, Spain (Catalonia), United Kingdom, United States and representatives from the EU civil society forum on HIV. Priority areas identified included, monitoring the ongoing situation of HIV cases, HIV and HCV prevalence and injection risk behaviour; and improving collaboration between sectors. |
| European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)
| Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction (IDT, I.P.) | Ana Sofia Santos, Óscar Duarte,
Elsa Maia # 2012 Natiuonal Report (2011 data) to the EMCDDA by the Reitox National Focal Point. “PORTUGAL”. New Developments, Trends and in-depth information on selected issues http://www.idt.pt/ 2012 Prison data indicates that, on the 31st of December 2011, 2 075 individuals (+6% than in 2010 with 1 950) were in prison for crimes against the Drug Law, representing an increase of 6% in relation to 2010. It is noted in the last four years a stability in the number of inmates convicted under the Drug Law, although with lower values than those registered in previous years. Once more was reinforced the trend initiated in 2000, of the decrease weight of these prisoners in the universe of the convicted prisoner population, representing on the 31st of December 2011 near 20% of these population. The majority of these individuals where convicted for traffic (90%), 9% for minor traffic and 1% for traffic-use, percentages that falling within the pattern of last years.... |
|
ESPAD-Italia (European School Survey on Alcohol and
other Drugs) |
|
Mary
W. Kuria, David M. Ndetei, Isodore S. Obot, Lincoln I.
Khasakhala, Betty M. Bagaka, Margaret N. Mbugua, Judy
Kamau |
| Itai
Danovitch # Sorting Through the Science on Marijuana: Facts, Fallacies, and Implications for Legalization McGeorge Law Review / Vol. 43, 2012 The “War on Drugs” has many critics, but nowhere is there greater consensus about its limitations than with marijuana. Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug. In the United States, nearly one-third of the population has used marijuana at least once, and among users of illicit substances, seventy-four percent report using marijuana. Data on marijuana related arrests and incarceration is inconsistent, but many experts suggest that the adverse consequences of criminal sanctions are greater than the adverse consequences of marijuana. The wide-spread perception that marijuana punishments exceed marijuana’s harms has fuelled popular advocacy for liberalization of marijuana policy... |
|
David
R. Spiegel, Neeta Kumari, Justin D. Petri |
|
National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee nidac #
An
economic analysis for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander offenders. Prison vs residential treatment |
|
S. K. Aggarwal, G. T. Carter, M. D. Sullivan,
C. Zumbrunnen, R. Morrill, J. D. Mayer |
|
Susan
Boyd |
|
Sam
Harper, Erin C. Strumpf, Jay S. Kaufman |
| Stacy
Salomonsen-Sautel, Joseph T. Sakai, Christian Thurstone,
Robin Corley, Christian Hopfer # Medical Marijuana Use among Adolescents in Substance Abuse Treatment J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2012 July Medical marijuana use among adolescent patients in substance abuse treatment is very common, implying substantial diversion from registered users. These results support the need for policy changes that protect against diversion of medical marijuana and reduce adolescent access to diverted medical marijuana. Future studies should examine patterns of medical marijuana diversion and use in general population adolescents... |
|
Erin
L. Karschner , David M. Schwope , Eugene W. Schwilke ,
Robert S. Goodwin , Deanna L. Kelly, David A.
Gorelick, Marilyn A. Huestis Predictive models estimating time since last cannabis intake from whole blood and plasma cannabinoid concentrations were inaccurate during abstinence, but highly accurate during active THC dosing. THC redistribution from large cannabinoid body stores and high circulating THCCOOH concentrations create different pharmacokinetic profiles than those in less than daily cannabis smokers that were used to derive the models. Thus, the models do not accurately predict time of last THC intake in individuals consuming THC daily. |
|
M.
Madruga Garrido, C. Disdier Vicente, B. Besteiro
Grandio, M. Sanchez ... Realizamos de nuevo la historia al paciente quien admite haber inhalado 4 cápsulas de Sedotime® (ketazolam) de 15 mg el mismo día que comenzó con la clínica de insuficiencia respiratoria. Refiere haber realizado este tipo de inhalaciones en varias ocasiones y siempre sin repercusión respiratoria. Vacía las cápsulas sobre papel de aluminio y quema el contenido con un mechero mientras inhala el humo obtenido. En esta ocasión, a los pocos minutos comenzó con tos y dificultad respiratoria, motivo por el que acudió al médico del centro. |
| Yie-Chu Foo,
Cai-Lian Tam # Impacts of Drug Use on Memory Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 6(10): 72-75, 2012 Chronic drug use indeed impacts negatively on human’s cognitive functions, especially in terms of attention, learning, and memory. With increasing amount of certain drug use, the degree of impairments also increases. It is unsure if the memory deficits that result from drug abuse persist forever as study examining memory impairments after more than a month’s abstinence of drug use is not found. Conclusion: Therefore, it is incorrect to say that drug users or ex-drug users are incapable of learning; instead, as a result of neurological changes in the brain caused by chronic drug use, learning may take more time and effort for them as compared to non-drug users. |
|
Jolene
R. Bostwick, Michael I. Casher, Shinji Yasugi |
|
Canadian
Drug Policy Coalition Approaches which explicitly reject an evidence-based public health approach, but instead focus on incarceration and criminalisation of addicts, continue to utterly fail, at enormous 6nancial and human cost. $e Global Commission on Drugs Policy have just published a new evidence-rich report, well worth reading, which focuses on the e"ect of di"erent approaches to drug users on the hiv/aids pandemic. $e spread of disease cannot be considered a wholly natural, biological phenomenon, it is also social, economic and very political... Moreover criminalisation produces many perverse consequences that actually increase the harms of drugs and costs to society. Criminal networks coalesce around drug supply; America in the era of alcohol prohibition was the heyday of organised crime. $e lack of quality control in illegal drug markets leads to wholly unnecessary harms like deadly outbreaks of anthrax in heroin injectors. |
| National
Institute on Drug Abuse # Marijuana Abuse NIH Publication Number 12-3859 | Printed October 2002, Revised July 2012. Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug (17.4 million past-month users) according to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). That year, marijuana was used by 76.8 percent of current illicit drug users (defined as having used the drug at some time in the 30 days before the survey) and was the only drug used by 60.1 percent of them. Marijuana use is widespread among adolescents and young adults... |
|
National
Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Committee NIDAC Indigenous Australians are over-represented in Australian prisons. At 30 June 2011, there were 29 106 prisoners in Australian prisons, of which 7656 (26%) were Indigenous (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011a). By comparison, 2.5 per cent of the total population was Indigenous in 2011 (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2011b). In 2010–11, the imprisonment rate for Indigenous adults (aged 18 years or over) was 1746.51 per 100 000 compared with a corresponding rate of 125.4 for non-Indigenous people — a ratio of Indigenous to non-Indigenous imprisonment rates of 13.9 |
|
Osservatorio
europeo delle droghe e delle tossicodipendenze (OEDT) Nonostante il crescente interesse a creare «alternative al carcere», le prigioni europee continuano a essere frequentate ogni anno da molte persone con problemi di tossicodipendenza. I dati dello studio dimostrano, infatti, che i problemi associati alla droga sono molto più diffusi tra i detenuti che nel resto della popolazione. Alcuni detenuti smettono di far uso di droghe quando entrano in carcere, ma la disponibilità di droghe in alcune prigioni significa che altri, invece, possono cominciare a consumarle o ad adottare comportamenti più dannosi proprio all’interno degli istituti di pena... Il sovraffollamento, la scarsa igiene e la mancanza di assistenza sanitaria sono problemi che affliggono molte carceri e aggravano le già precarie condizioni sanitarie generali che sono state riscontrate tra la popolazione carceraria. Sotto questo profilo, i detenuti con problemi di tossicodipendenza possono essere doppiamente svantaggiati e anche particolarmente vulnerabili a problemi di salute sia mentale che fisica durante la permanenza in carcere — con particolari timori per l’elevato rischio di autolesionismo e suicidio. |
|
European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
(EMCDDA) Over the last decade, Europe has seen an increase in the size of its prison population. As of 1 September 2010, there were an estimated 635 000 inmates in prison in EU Member States (Aebi and Del Grande, 2012; Walmsley, 2012). Most of those in Europe’s prisons are from poor communities and vulnerable social groups (WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2007), with the proportion of inmates who are immigrants or from minority ethnic backgrounds on the increase. Drug users form a large part of the overall prison population, with studies showing that a majority of prisoners have used illicit drugs at some point in their life and many have chronic and problematic drug use patterns. Because of the illegality of the drugs market and high cost of drug use, which is often funded by criminal activity, the more problematic forms of drug use are accompanied by an increased risk of imprisonment. |
| Wayne
State University School of Social Work & School of
Medicine. # SEMCA regional needs assessment for substance abuse: A final report 2012. Detroit, MI: School of Social Work. 2012 The criminal justice system in the U.S. is comprised of various systems (e.g., courts, jails, prisons, probation, parole) that are organized by jurisdiction (federal, state, county and municipal). Jurisdiction level is determined by the location and severity of the offense. At each level there are several major subsystems, including police and/or other law enforcement agencies, the court system, prosecution and public defender offices, the department of corrections (e.g., operating probation/parole), and jails and prisons... |
|
Doug
Campos-Outcalt, Patricia Hamilton, William
Thiagarajan, Martín Celaya, Cecilia Rosales |
|
Beau Kilmer, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Peter H. Reuter #
The U.S. Drug Policy Landscape. Insights
and Opportunities for Improving the View We close by naming four forces that may set the stage for significant changes in U.S. drug policy in the foreseeable future. First, there is growing intolerance for marijuana prohibition... Second, there is the emerging Latin American consensus that U.S. drug policies hurt their nations severely... Third, mass incarceration is of growing concern, particularly as state governments continue to experience fiscal trouble. Drug offenses account for about 20 percent of the total in jails and prisons, and to many their offenses seem less serious than those of other inmates... Fourth, the passage of the MHPAEA in conjunction with the 2010 ACA creates the real possibility that access to drug treatment will be expanded and that attention to the need for and utilization of these services will be integrated into mainstream medical care... |
| United Nations
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) # Cannabis: A Short Review www.unodc.org/ March 2012 Recent data on smoking cannabis clearly shows that it is unhealthy and dangerous. Cannabis use is linked to addiction, cognitive impairment, motor skills deficiency, respiratory, cardiovascular and mental health problems, and it has been shown to be particularly damaging to maturing brains. The international experience with increased emergency room admissions and treatment entrants represent the dangerousness of today’s highly potent cannabis, and its potential to greatly threaten both the public health and public safety... |
| Mercedes
Lovrecic and Barbara Lovrecic # The state of the art regarding heroin addicts in prisons in Slovenia during the period from 1990 to 2008 Heroin Addict Relat Clin Probl 2012; 14(1): 59-64 The percentage of illicit drug users among prisoners in Slovenia in the period from 1995 to 2008 rose, globally and steadily, from a minimum in 1995 (3.3%) to a maximum in 2005 (28%). The data show that from the mid-1990s to 2001 the proportion of illicit drug users (mostly taking heroin) increased from 3.3% to nearly 10.8% of all prisoners, but then rapidly increased again, reaching a maximum of 28% in 2005, whereas, in the last three years reviewed, it has been around one-quarter of all prisoners. |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA - European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control ECDC ©
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug
Addiction, 2012 Cais do Sodré, 1249-289 Lisbon,
Portugal - emcdda.europa.eu |
| European
Monitoring Centre For Drugs and Drug Addiction |
Observatoire Francais des Drogues et des Toxicomanies # Rapport national 2012 (données 2011) à l’OEDT par le point focal français du réseau Reito.France. Nouveaux développements, tendances et information détaillée sur des thèmes spécifiques www.ofdt.fr/ La moitié des services hospitaliers interrogés déclarent une part de patients sous méthadone supérieure à 50 %. C’est le cas d’un tiers seulement des services médicaux intervenant en milieu pénitentiaire (hors CSST). Les niveaux moyens de prescription initiale en milieu fermé se rapprochent en outre de ceux observés en milieu libre, ce qui semble traduire une certaine homogénéité dans l'application des indications thérapeutiques. Il reste des progrès à réaliser pour une généralisation effective de l'accès à la méthadone dans l'ensemble des établissements de santé prenant en charge des patients incarcérés et pour celui d'un relais de prise en charge plus efficace (en particulier à la sortie de prison). |
|
European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA
| John Strang, Teodora Groshkova, Nicola Metrebian |
|
U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services | Substance
Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration SAMHSA
| Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality |
|
Dossier di Fuoriluogo.it, ed. 2012 su dati 2011, a cura di Antigone, CNCA, Forum Droghe, La società della ragione, Magistratura Democratica, Unione Camere Penali # Terzo Libro Bianco sulla legge Fini-Giovanardi I detenuti per violazione
della legge sulla droga sono passati dai
15.000 del 2006 ai 28.000 del 2011...
Dietro il linguaggio tecnico burocratico
[dell'Unodc, l’agenzia delle Nazioni Unite sulla
droga e il crimine], emerge il fuorviante messaggio:
per combattere lo Hiv, non c’è bisogno di
distribuire siringhe pulite, né di offrire ai
consumatori di droghe programmi con metadone. La
“risposta razionale” sarebbe invece l’estensione di
trattamenti finalizzati all’astinenza. Invece di
promuovere una strategia integrata, di terapie e di
interventi di riduzione del danno (scambio siringhe
e trattamenti sostitutivi, in particolare), si
ritorna indietro di oltre venti anni:
l’affrancamento dalla droga (attraverso la terapia)
è presentato come “la soluzione” (unica) contro la
minaccia del virus Hiv... |
| Mario Centorrino,
Pietro David # L’economia illegale: un'opportunità per i conti dello Stato? www.nelmerito.com/ 13 luglio 2012 Un recente studio della Banca d'Italia stima che l'economia "non osservata" in Italia abbia rappresentato nel 2008 il 31,1% del Pil, crescendo di 6,4 punti percentuali in soli tre anni (dal 2006 al 2008). |
|
FAMM Families Against Mandatory Minimums # Federal
Mandatory Minimums. Statute & U.S. Sentencing
Guidelines Provision |
|
LILA Milano # Smantellamento progetti di riduzione del danno in Lombardia Fuoriluogo giugno 2012 La Regione Lombardia sembra dimenticare che registra un terzo delle infezioni Hiv in Italia e che già assiste 45.000 persone con Hiv con un costo annuo di 300 milioni di euro. La spesa globale dei sette progetti di Rdd finora attivi in regione, che distribuivano annualmente 500.000 siringhe, non raggiunge un milione di euro: è la spesa equivalente alla cura di dieci persone con Hiv per 10 anni o -secondo altri autorevoli studi- ai costi sanitari e sociali per il resto della vita di sole due persone che contrarranno l’Hiv. |
|
Giulia Casamonti, Maria Stagnitta, Grazia
Zuffa (eds) Scritti di: Gianni Macchioni, Cecco Bellosi, Roberto Camarlinghi, Francesco D'angella, Ralf Jurgens, Andrew Ball, Annette Verster, Heino Stöver, Caren Weilandt, Giovanni Jocteau, Leopoldo Grosso, Giovanni Torrente, Claudio Sarzotti, Simone Spensieri, Gianluca Seimandi, Francesco Nappi |
|
ITARDD Rete Italiana Riduzione del Danno |
|
Jane M. Prosser, Lewis S. Nelson |
|
Douglas B. Marlowe, Shannon M. Carey |
National Association of Drug Court Professionale
NADCP Between 60% and 80% of substantiated child abuse and neglect cases involve substance abuse by a custodial parent or guardian. Continued substance abuse by a custodial parent is associated with longer out-of-home placements for dependent children and higher rates of child revictimization and terminations of parental rights (TPR). Parents who complete substance abuse treatment are significantly more likely to be reunified with their children, and their children spend considerably fewer days in out-of-home foster care. Unfortunately, more than 60% of parents in dependency cases do not comply adequately with substance abuse treatment conditions and more than 80% fail to complete treatment. |
|
Nicolas Christin # Traveling
the Silk Road: A measurement analysis of a large
anonymous online marketplace |
| Andrews JY,
Kinner # Understanding drug-related mortality in released prisoners: A review of national coronial records BMC Public Health 12, 270, 2012 Drug-related deaths are common among ex-prisoners and often occur in a home (vs. public) setting. They are often associated with use of multiple substances at or around the time of death, risky drug-use patterns, and even among this markedly disadvantaged group, extreme social disadvantage. These findings reflect the complex challenges facing prisoners upon release from custody and indicate a need to consider drug overdose within the wider framework of ex-prisoner experiences, so that preventive programmes can be appropriately structured and targeted. |
|
Observatoire Francais des Drogues et des
Toxicomanies OFDT |
| Alain
Origer | Centre de Recherche Public - Santé # National drug report “Grand Duchy of Luxembourg”. New developments, trends and in-depth information “on selected issues” CRP - Santé Edition 2012 Le nombre d’UPD [Le terme ’UPD’ sera utilisé pour désigner des ‘Usagers problématiques de drogues d’acquisition illicite’ tout au long du présent rapport] indexés par les institutions nationales en 2011 équivalait à 5.2093 personnes (2002: 4.701). A titre comparatif, on retiendra qu’en 2002, 2.383 personnes furent recensées par les institutions de réduction de la demande et 2.318 par les instances de réduction de l’offre. En 2011, ces mêmes instances ont recensé respectivement 2.806 et 2.403 personnes. Sommairement, le nombre de personnes entrées en contact avec des instances sanitaires et répressives a augmenté de façon discontinue jusqu’en 2010 pour afficher les premiers signes d’une baisse en 2011. Cette dernière doit cependant être avant tout attribuée à une diminution du nombre de contacts avec les forces de l’ordre. A noter également la première baisse au niveau du nombre de contacts enregistrés par les services de bas seuil et de réduction des risques depuis le début du siècle. |
|
Olivier
Sannier, Florent Verfaillie, Dorothée Lavielle |
| Jonathan P.
Caulkins, Anna Kasunic, Michael A. C. Lee # Marijuana Legalization: Lessons from the 2012 State Proposals Carnegie Mellon University Heinz College (forthcoming in World Medical & Health Policy) 2012 A comparison of seventeen legalization proposals actively dis-cussed in various U.S. states in 2012 reveals differences that would have important consequences for price, availability, arrest-risk, use, and, hence, health. This paper divides the proposals into three broad categories and assesses their political feasibility. It then addresses the implications of state-level legalization, and possible federal responses to it, for retail price, tax revenues, and spillover effects in other states where marijuana would remain illegal. |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
#
EMCDDA trend
report for the evaluation of the 2005–12 EU drugs
strategy |
| Jessica
Y Andrews, Stuart A Kinner # Understanding drug-related mortality in released prisoners: a review of national coronial records www.biomedcentral.com | BMC Public Health 2012 Drug-related deaths are common among ex-prisoners and often occur in a home (vs. public). setting. They are often associated with use of multiple substances at or around the time of death, risky drug-use patterns, and even among this markedly disadvantaged group, extreme social disadvantage. These findings reflect the complex challenges facing prisoners upon release from custody and indicate a need to consider drug overdose within the wider framework of ex-prisoner experiences, so that preventive programmes can be appropriately structured and targeted. |
|
European School Survey Project on Alcohol and Other Drugs (ESPAD) | The Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and other Drugs (CAN) | The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) | Council of Europe, Co-operation Group to Combat Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking in Drugs (Pompidou Group) | Björn Hibell, Ulf Guttormsson, Salme Ahlström, Olga Balakireva, Thoroddur Bjarnason, Anna Kokkevi, Ludwig Kraus (eds) # The 2011 ESPAD Report | Substance Use Among Students in 36 European Countries Released May 31, 2012 Nel 2011, in Europa, i
consumatori di alcolici e sostanze psicotrope tra i
16enni rimangono costanti, crescono invece i
fumatori e gli assuntori di sostanze inalanti, come
solventi e colle. I giovani italiani registrano
consumi sopra la media europea per quasi tutte le
sostanze. Questo, in sintesi, è quanto emerge dalla
ricerca europea Espad che indaga sui comportamenti
degli adolescenti e che lo scorso anno ha coinvolto
36 Paesi europei. In Italia, l'indagine è condotta
dall'Istituto di fisiologia clinica del Consiglio
nazionale delle ricerche (Ifc-Cnr) di Pisa. |
|
Thomas
Clark, John Eadie, Peter Kreiner, Gail Strickler | The
Prescription Drug Monitoring Program The role of state prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) in facilitating appropriate prescribing of controlled prescription drugs and helping to address the prescription drug abuse epidemic has been highlighted in recent studies and in the 2011 White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention Plan. A special concern for PDMPs is the diversion of opioid pain relievers into nonmedical use and abuse. A PDMP is a statewide electronic database that gathers information from pharmacies on dispensed prescriptions for controlled substances (most states that permit practitioners to dispense also require them to submit prescription information to the PDMP). |
|
Steve Anderson |
| UK Drug
Policy Commission UKDPC | L. A. King, D. Nutt, N.
Singleton, R. Howard, # Analogue controls: an imperfect law UKDPC 19th June 2012 The challenge posed to established drug control measures by new psychoactive substances, so-called ‘legal highs’, that are emerging with increasing rapidity and being distributed through new channels, such as the internet, has become the focus of increasing attention in the United Kingdom. In response to this increasing concern, in late 2011, the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs produced a report examining these novel substances. One of its recommendations was that the government should “explore the possibility of new legislation similar to the Analogue Act (1986) used in the USA and similar laws in other countries, in conjunction with generic definitions of chemical scope” (Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, 2011, p. 44). Superficially the proposal seems attractive, especially for politicians who have come under intense media and public pressure to do something to prevent such substances becoming widely available. However, the experience of drug controls in general and analogue controls in particular raise serious doubts about the efficacy of adopting analogue controls in the UK as suggested by ACMD. |
|
Douglas
B. Marlowe,Shannon M. Carey NADCP |
|
En
Riahn |
|
Valérie
Le Gall |
| Alex Stevens # The ethics and effectiveness of coerced treatment of people who use drugs Human Rights and Drugs, Volume 2, No. 1, 2012 In the context of international debates about ways to reduce the harms related to the use of illicit drugs and their control, this article explores the specific issue of coerced treatment of people who use drugs. It uses established standards of human rights and medical ethics to judge whether it is ethical to apply either of two types of coerced treatment (compulsory treatment and quasi-compulsory treatment, or QCT) to any of three groups of drug users (non- problematic users, dependent drug users and drug dependent offenders). It argues that compulsory treatment is not ethical for any group, as it breaches the standard of informed consent. |
| Josh Sweeney,
Jason Payne # Drug use monitoring in Australia: 2009–10 report on drug use among police detainees www.aic.gov.au/ Australian Institute of Criminology 2012 The Australian and state/territory governments remain concerned about methamphetamine use and its related problems. While it was encouraging to note that in 2009–10 methamphetamine use among detainees was at its lowest level since DUMA’s inception in 1999, it is of some concern that further analysis of data collected in the first three quarters of 2011 showed a spike in the use of methamphetamine... |
|
Olivier
Sannier, Florent Vwerfaillie, Dorothée Lavielle
Sannier
Olivier | UCSA Centre Pénitentiaire de Liancourt |
|
Roberto
Escobar |
|
Ojmarrh
Mitchell, David B. Wilson, Amy Eggers, Doris L.
MacKenzie |
| Alex Stevens # The ethics and effectiveness of coerced treatment of people who use drugs www.humanrightsanddrugs.org/ Human Rights and Drugs - Volume 2, No. 1, 2012 There are two ethical limits to the severity of penal sanctions: (1) they should be no more severe than is justified by the harm caused by the offence, and (2) they should be no more severe than is necessary to achieve their intended purpose. In the case of the offence of drug possession, any harm that is caused is primarily harm to the individual in possession, so it is disproportionate to impose a harmful penal sanction on him or her. |
|
Ojmarrh
Mitchell, David B. Wilson, Amy Eggers, Doris L.
MacKenzie |
|
Inserm Institut national
de la santé et de la recherche médicale www.inserm.fr/ Paris, le 25 octobre 2012 # Médicaments psychotropes : consommations et pharmacodépendances [Synthèse et recommandations, 98 p..] Les médicaments psychotropes, du fait de leurs propriétés psychoactives, peuvent entrainer un risque d’abus et de dépendance. Malgré des règles strictes de prescription et de délivrance, leur consommation s’effectue parfois hors prescription médicale ou sans respect des indications ou des consignes de prescription. Ces mésusages peuvent être associés à une obtention illégale du médicament. Sollicité par la Mission interministérielle de lutte contre la drogue et la toxicomanie (Mildt), cette expertise collective fait le point sur la consommation de médicaments psychotropes en France et analyse les diverses formes de mésusage selon les populations et les contextes. L’expertise fait également le point sur la dépendance à ces médicaments, sur les règlementations et les dispositifs de surveillance de l’abus et de la dépendance, en France et au plan international. Inserm Institut national de la santé et de la recherche médicale
|
| Stanislas
Spilka, Olivier Le Nézet, Marie-Line Tovar |
Observatoire français des drogues et des toxicomanies
OFDT # Les drogues à 17 ans: premiers résultats de l’enquête ESCAPAD 2011 www.Ofdt.fr n. 79 Février 2012 L’Observatoire français des drogues et des toxicomanies a interrogé en mars 2011, 27 402 jeunes métropolitains âgés de 17 ans sur leurs consommations de substances psychoactives licites et illicites. Avec ce septième exercice d’ESCAPAD, c’est désormais plus d’une décennie d’observation des usages de drogues qui est proposé. Ces premiers résultats montrent qu’entre 2008 et 2011 les expérimentations de tabac et d’alcool ont poursuivi leur diminution, alors que celle du cannabis s’est stabilisée. De même, l’expérimentation des autres drogues illicites, dont la cocaïne, l’ecstasy et l’héroïne, est globalement orientée à la baisse avec des niveaux de consommation qui restent faibles. Dans le même temps, les usages réguliers de tabac et d’alcool ont progressé. |
|
Marta Pelazza |
|
Department
of Health, Social Services and Public Safety As the link between the misuse of alcohol with serious violent crime and instances of anti-social behaviour is well established, the PSNI, and others, have developed regional and local alcohol initiatives. They have been contributing to prevention efforts through education and support to local communities in an effort to address both of these issues. The Probation Board for Northern Ireland (PBNI) and the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) also play a major role in both prevention and support and the issue of 'at risk’ and vulnerable groups is one which the Youth Justice Agency has also given a high priority to. |
| Bahadır
KÜÇÜKUYSAL # Drug Legalization Debate http://sablon.sdu.edu.tr/ Journal of Social Sciences, December 2011, No:24, pp.215-224. This paper aims to make an analysis of drug legalization debate in the United States, where in recent years comprehensive studies and researches have been conducted on this issue. Though the problem has not yet been in Turkey’s agenda currently, the author believes that this issue has a significant potential to be a major problem in Turkey’s agenda in the near future. Therefore, it is of crucial importance to analyze and evaluate in advance the experiences and policy applications of other countries. |
|
Shelli
B. Rossman, John K. Roman, Janine M. Zweig, Michael
Rempel, Christine H. Lindquist (eds) |
| Suzanne Nielsen,
Raimondo Bruno, Matthew Frei, Dan I Lubman # Benzodiazepines. Their role in aggression and why GPS should prescribe with caution Australian Family Phisician, Vol. 40, no. 11, november 2011 Benzodiazepines are widely prescribed in Australia, despite concerns about their potential for abuse and dependence. Paradoxical reactions, disinhibition and amnesia are all associated with benzodiazepine use, misuse and intoxication. While violent and aggressive behaviour may be a consequence of such disinhibition, there is limited information available regarding the links between benzodiazepine use and violence. |
| Jan C. van Ours # The long and winding road to cannabis legalization http://arno.uvt.nl/ Tilburg University - Discussion Paper 126 November 29, 2011 In almost all countries supply, distribution and use of cannabis is prohibited. Nevertheless, cannabis is the most popular illicit drug. Prohibition does not seem to work. The debate on legalization of cannabis is often emotional with strong views of both proponents and opponents but ignorance prevails. There are supposedly detrimental health e ects of cannabis use but researchers debate whether they are causal or mere associations. As long as nowhere in the world cannabis is legalized it is di cult to get a clear idea about the e ects of legalization. Rather than muddling through for several decades it would be wise to start moving on the long and winding road to cannabis legalization. |
|
America
Civil Liberties Union ACLU The racial disparities resulting from this system have been staggering. Black individuals are imprisoned at nearly six times the rate of their white counterparts—and Latinos are locked up at nearly double the white rate. Most of this racial disparity is a result of the War on Drugs. While these groups engage in drug use, possession, and sales at rates comparable to their representation in the general population, the system disparately impacts people of color. For example, black individuals comprise 13% of the U.S. population and 14% of drug users, yet they are 37% of the people arrested for drug offenses and 56% of those incarcerated for drug crimes. |
| Bruno Bertelli # L’influenza delle norme e delle sanzioni sui fenomeni di consumo e dipendenza da droga Rivista di Criminologia, Vittimologia e Sicurezza – Vol. V – N. 2 – Maggio-Agosto 2011 La propensione alla trasgressione (e anche al consumo di sostanze illegali) dipende direttamente dai valori morali interiorizzati: quanto più l’interiorizzazione è forte quanto meno si pensa a trasgredire e quanto più è fallimentare e inadeguato il processo che conduce a interiorizzare i valori morali, vale a dire quanto più carente è il processo di socializzazione e di crescita morale, cognitiva ed emotiva della persona, tanto più facile sarà per quella persona mettere in atto condotte devianti. |
| William H.
Fisher, Lorna Simon, Kristen Roy-Bujnowski, Albert
Grudzinskas, Nancy Wolff, Emily Crockett, Steven Banks # Risk of Arrest Among Public Mental Health Services Recipients and the General Public Psychiatric Services 62:67–72, 2011 The offenses for which persons with serious mental illness are at greatest risk of arrest are many of those targeted by current diversion programs. These findings suggest the need for additional research addressing the ways in which individual psychopathology and socioenvironmental factors affect risk of offending in this population. |
| Greg Berman,
Michael Rempel # Judges Matter: How Courts Reduce Crime and Save Money New York Law Journal, Wednesday, August 24, 2011 The research shows that investing in judges can not only reduce drug use and crime but help save money by reducing victimization and the use of prison as well. |
| Stephen
Rolles, Fiona Measham # Questioning the method and utility of ranking drug harms in drug policy International Journal of Drug Policy 2011 In a 2010 Lancet paper Nutt et al. propose a model for evaluating and ranking drug harms, building on earlier work by incorporating multi criteria decision analysis. It is argued that problems arise in modelling drug harms using rankable single figure indices when determinants of harm reflect pharmacology translated through a complex prism of social, and behavioural variables, in turn influenced by a range of policy environments. The delphic methodolgy used is highly vulnerable to subjective judgements and even the more robust measures, such as drug related death and dependence, can be understood as socially constructed. The failure of the model to dissaggregate drug use harms from those related to the policy environment is also highlighted. Beyond these methodological challenges the utility of single figure index harm rankings is questioned, specifically their role in increasingly redundant legal frameworks utilising a harm- ased hierarchy of punitive sanctions. If analysis is to include the capacity to capture the complexity relating to drug using behaviours and environments; specific personal and social risks for particular using populations; and the broader socio-cultural context to contemporary intoxication, there will need to be acceptance that analysis of the various harm vectors must remain separate – the complexity of such analysis is not something that can or should be over generalised to suit political discourse or outdated legal frameworks. |
|
Alice
Berti, Cristina Orsini, Fabio Voller | Osservatorio di
Epidemiologia – ARS Toscana |
|
Lisa K. Brents, Emily E. Reichard, Sarah M. Zimmerman, Jeffery H. Moran, William E. Fantegrossi, Paul L. Prather #
Phase I
Hydroxylated Metabolites of the K2 Synthetic
Cannabinoid JWH-018 Retain In Vitro and In Vivo
Cannabinoid 1 Receptor Affinity and Activity |
|
Michael
Odenwald, Axel Klein, Nasir Warfa | emcdda.europa.eu |
Objectif Drogues |
|
Susan
Stuart Politicians and pundits have become immune to the ethics of war rhetoric. The rhetoric itself is violent, and it breeds violence. The forty years of the War on Drugs has demonstrated the success of militarized rhetoric to move this nation to action. It does not suggest the success of the war itself, but it demonstrated the power of the marketing tool. It allows pundits and politicians to avoid responsibility by saying: “Everybody does it.” The War on Drugs has damaged the American culture and it has damaged its democratic genius, the rule of law. But ultimately, it has made acceptable the idea of being at war with each other. |
|
UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime United Nations Publication 2011 Based on information compiled by UNODC, the global average prevalence of HIV among injecting drug users is estimated at 17.9%, or equivalently, 2.8 million people who inject drugs are living with HIV. This is consistent with the estimate of 3.0 million (range 0.8-6.6 million) presented by the Reference Group to the UN on HIV and injecting drug use. High levels of HIV infections are, in general, found among marginalized populations of drug users as well as among those in prison settings. As with HIV, higher levels of HCV infections are found among marginalized populations of drug users and those in prison settings. |
| Urban
Institute | Shelli B. Rossman,
John K. Roman, Janine M. Zweig, Michael Rempel,
Christine H. Lindquist # The Multi-Site Adult Drug Court Evaluation: Executive Summary www.urban.org/ Urban Institute 2011 Drug courts emerged spontaneously during the late 1980s and early 1990s in response to burgeoning drug offender arrests and prosecutions that overwhelmed the capacity of numerous courts to expeditiously process such cases. In 2002, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) commissioned the first adult drug court evaluation that would select multiple sites from across the country. In 2003, researchers from the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center (UI-JPC), RTI International (RTI), and the Center for Court Innovation (CCI) teamed to conduct NIJ’s Multi- Site Adult Drug Court Evaluation (MADCE). Despite the centrality of reducing drug use, most prior drug court evaluations relied on recidivism as the sole measure of impact. The MADCE, however, was planned to measure multiple outcomes (crime, drug use, socioeconomic outcomes, family functioning, and mental health) and to capture the intervening role of court policies and practices, offender perceptions, and interim compliance with program requirements.. |
| United
States Department of Justice, National Drug Intelligence
Center (NDIC). # The Economic Impact of Illicit Drug Use on American Society 2011 Washington D.C.: United States Department of Justice 2011 In 2007, the cost of illicit drug use totaled more than $193 billion.1 Direct and indirect costs attributable to illicit drug use are estimated in three principal areas: crime, health, and productivity... Crime includes three components: criminal justice system costs ($56,373,254), crime victim costs ($1,455,555), and other crime costs ($3,547,885). These subtotal $61,376,694. • Health includes five components: specialty treatment costs ($3,723,338), hospital and emergency department costs for nonhomicide cases ($5,684,248), hospital and emergency department costs for homicide cases ($12,938), insurance administration costs ($544), and other health costs ($1,995,164). These subtotal $11,416,232. |
|
Illicit
Drug Market |
|
Melanie
M. Wall, Ernest Poh, Magdalena Cerdá, Katherine M
Keyes, Sandro Galea, Deborah S. Hasin |
|
U.S.
Department of Justice | National Drug
Intelligence Center |
| Grazia Zuffa # Come definire il consumo personale nella legislazione sulla droga. La questione della “soglia” alla luce dell’esperienza italiana www.tni.org/ Series on Legislative Reform of Drug Policies Nr. 15 August 2011 La notevole crescita in Italia delle sanzioni per uso personale e il drammatico calo dei programmi terapeutici per i consumatori soggetti a sanzioni dimostrano gli scarsi risultati e i danni collaterali dell’ approccio punitivo. Per risolvere definitivamente nella legislazione la distinzione fra spaccio e consumo, è necessario cambiare l’impianto stesso della legge, stabilendo come reato la detenzione di droghe solo quando è finalizzata alla vendita. Il sistema della “soglia” quantitativa per distinguere lo spaccio dall’uso personale presenta molti inconvenienti. E’ preferibile il sistema “discrezionale”, anche se non affronta completamente il problema. Il principale inconveniente del modello “soglia” è la presunzione di colpevolezza del reato di spaccio per i consumatori trovati in possesso di quantità di droga al di sopra della soglia, con la conseguente ingiusta criminalizzazione degli stessi. |
| Australian
Government # 2010 National Drug Strategy Household Survey report Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Canberra July 2011 Actions for those found in possession of illicit drugs: For all people aged 14 years or older, support for actions taken against people found in possession of illicit drugs for personal use differed according to drug type. In 2010: • for all drugs except cannabis, most support was for referral to treatment or an education program, while for cannabis the most popular action was a caution, warning or no action (38.0%) • support for fines had the least variation across illicit drugs, ranging from 16.2% for heroin to 24.8% for ecstasy • support for prison sentences was lowest for cannabis (6.1%) and highest for heroin (25.7%) and meth/amphetamines (20.1%) • teenagers aged 12–17 years were most likely to support fines than other measures compared with adults aged 18 years or older • those aged 60 years or older were more likely to support referral to treatment or education program than other age groups. |
|
Timna
Naftali, Lihi Bar Lev, Doron Yablekovitz, Elisabeth
Half, Fred M. Konikoff |
| Deborah Hasin,
Katherine Keyes # The Epidemiology of Alcohol and Drug Disorders in B. A. Johnson (ed), Addiction Medicine. Science and Practice, 2011 |
|
Legal
Assistance Center (Namibia) AIDS Law Unit | University
of Wyoming College of Law |
| Sam Himelstein # Mindfulness-Based Substance Abuse Treatment for Incarcerated Youth: A Mixed Method Pilot Study International Journal of Transpersonal Studies, 30(1-2), 2011 One population that may benefit from the increased self-management abilities acquired through mindfulness practice (Baer, 2003) is incarcerated adolescents who struggle with issues of substance use. In 2008, there were over 340,000 juvenile arrests for drug abuse violations, violation of liquor laws, drunkenness, and driving under the influence in the United States... A final intention in publishing this pilot study is to contribute to the field of transformative justice-based transpersonal psychology |
|
Report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy # War on Drugs -- June 2011 The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.
|
| Substance Abuse
and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) # TEDS Report - Substance Abuse Treatment Admissions for Abuse of Benzodiazepines http://www.samhsa.gov/ June 2, 2011 The number of benzodiazepine admissions nearly tripled between 1998 and 2008, while overall treatment admissions increased only 11 percent | The majority of benzodiazepine admissions were male, between the ages of 18 and 34, or non-Hispanic White | Almost all benzodiazepine admissions (95 percent) reported abuse of another substance in addition to abuse of benzodiazepines: 82.1 percent reported primary abuse of another substance with secondary abuse of benzodiazepines, and 12.9 percent reported primary abuse of benzodiazepines with secondary abuse of another substance. |
|
Ministère
des Affaires sociales et de la Santé (Bureau des
pratiques addictives et Bureau Les établissements pénitentiaires concentrent une population présentant plus fréquemment qu’au dehors des conduites addictives, mais aussi des troubles psychiatriques ou des difficultés sociales parfois majeures. Un grand nombre de personnes détenues entrent pour la première fois en contact avec le système de soins spécialisé, en addictologie mais aussi en psychiatrie, lors d’une incarcération. Si la prison n’est pas, et ne devrait pas être, un lieu de soin, elle est bien souvent un lieu d’initiation des soins, notamment pour les personnes les plus vulnérables... Les établissements pénitentiaires concentrent une population présentant plus fréquemment qu’au dehors des conduites addictives, mais aussi des troubles psychiatriques ou des difficultés sociales parfois majeures. Un grand nombre de personnes détenues entrent pour la première fois en contact avec le système de soins spécialisé, en addictologie mais aussi en psychiatrie, lors d’une incarcération. Si la prison n’est pas, et ne devrait pas être, un lieu de soin, elle est bien souvent un lieu d’initiation des soins, notamment pour les personnes les plus vulnérables... |
|
# Corte di Cassazione, sez. VI Penale - Sentenza 5 maggio 2011, n. 17305 Per riconoscere l'infermità mentale non basta la "crisi d'astinenza" |
|
Osservatorio europeo delle droghe e delle tossicodipendenze OEDT # Evoluzione del fenomeno della droga in Europa Relazione annuale 2011 L’offerta di informazioni tempestive e obiettive sulle nuove droghe e sulle tendenze emergenti assume sempre più importanza, data la natura sempre più dinamica e in rapido mutamento del problema delle droghe in Europa. Il mercato delle nuove droghe è caratterizzato dalla velocità a cui i fornitori rispondono all’imposizione di misure di controllo offrendo nuove alternative ai prodotti controllati. Una serie di fonti di informazioni e indicatori innovativi, tra cui il monitoraggio via internet e l’analisi delle acque di scarico, può aiutare a fornire un quadro migliore delle tendenze relative alle droghe emergenti in Europa
European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
(EMCDDA) |
|
UNODC United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime |
|
Giorgio
Bignami |
|
Carla
Rossi, Guido Mario Rey, Alberto Zuliani
Fabrizio Barca # Droga: un mondo falso, un mercato opaco www.consiglioscienzesociali.org/ Consiglio Italiano per le Scienze Sociali 2011 |
|
Alex
Ingrassia Commento a ord., 23 febbraio 2011 del Tribunale di Sorveglianza di Torino - Pres. Est. Vignera - Ric. B. Va escluso l’esito positivo dell’affidamento in prova per fini terapeutici se il condannato tossicodipendente abbia ripreso sistematicamente e continuativamente ad assumere sostanze stupefacenti in epoca immediatamente successiva alla cessazione della misura e prima della formulazione del giudizio sul relativo esito. |
| Valeria Centorame # Carcere lager: sedazione istituzionale di massa? http://notizie.radicali.it/ 28-05-2012 Gocce di EN, TRANQUIRIT, TAVOR, LEXOTAN, LIBRIUM, MINIAS, RIVOTRIL, e tutta una miriade di “sostanze psicotrope legali” sono dunque somministrate massicciamente ai detenuti. Ma quanti sono i detenuti nelle carceri e gli "ospiti" dei Cie trattati con tali sostanze? E quali sono gli effetti indesiderati?... Da una ricerca condotta invece dal Collettivo antipsichiatrico Antonin Artaud contro gli usi ed abusi della psichiatria, possiamo rilevare quanto segue: “Basta un anno di carcere a base di benzodiazepine per assicurarsi i seguenti effetti indesiderati che saranno per sempre: riduzione dell’attenzione (tale da rendere pericolosa la guida), confusione ed affaticamento, cefalea, vertigini e debolezza muscolare, visione doppia, disturbi gastrointestinali ed epatici, cambiamenti nella libido fino all’ impotenza sessuale, amnesia, irrequietezza, ottundimento delle emozioni, allucinazioni e addirittura tendenze suicide. Inoltre questi farmaci sviluppano una dipendenza fisica, e la sospensione della terapia può provocare fenomeni di rimbalzo e di astinenza.”... le leggi spesso riconoscono il danno che può essere provocato dalla psicofarmacologizzazione forzata ed esistono dei diritti che prescrivono di usare i trattamenti meno intrusivi e meno nocivi. Queste raccomandazioni, tuttavia, sono raramente seguite del tutto... |
|
Wilson
M. Compton, Redonna K. Chandler The number of persons under justice supervision in the United States has increased markedly over the past 30 years, driven especially by an increase in use of justice sanctions to address crimes related to drug abuse and addiction. Such a shift has led the justice system to serve as a de facto partial quarantine system. While this situation may reflect broad trends to criminalize addiction-related behavior and may also reflect deterioration of our health care system and its inability to deal with the most vulnerable in our standard facilities, it also provides an opportunity for public health strategies that reach populations which are otherwise hidden... |
|
Fact
Sheet | Office of National Drug Control Police |
Executive Office of the President The drug court movement continues to grow. Since 1989, drug courts have been established or are being planned in all 50 States,the District of Columbia,the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico,Guam, and in nearly 90 Tribal locations. ♦ There aremore than 2,500 drug court programs throughout the United States. ♦ Approximately 47 percent of counties in the United States are served by drug courts. ♦ A review of five independent meta-analyses concluded that drug courts significantly reduce crime by an average of 8 to 26 percentage points; well-administered drug courts were found to reduce crime rates by as much as 35 percent, compared to traditional case dispositions. ♦ The success of drug courts hasled to development of Tribal Wellness, Veterans Treatment, Mentally Ill Offender, Community, and Family Treatment courts. |
| Paul Kurdyak,
Tara Gomes, Zhan Yao, Muhammad M. Mamdani, Chelsea
Hellings, Benedikt Fischer, Jürgen Rehm, Ahmed M.
Bayoumi, David N. Juurlink # Use of other opioids during methadone therapy: a population-based study Addiction, 107, 776–780 (2011) Many patients receiving methadone maintenance therapy in Ontario receive overlapping prescriptions for other opioids, often for extended periods. The associated prescribing patterns suggest that many such prescriptions may be duplicitous. The prescribing and dispensing of non-methadone opioids to patients receiving methadone maintenance therapy is likely to be observed in jurisdictions outside Ontario, Canada. |
|
Mascha
Nuijten, Peter Blanken, Wim van den Brink, Vincent
Hendriks To date, the CATCH-study is the first study in the Netherlands that explores new treatment options for crack-cocaine dependence focusing on both abstinence and harm minimisation. It is expected that the study will contribute to the development of new treatments for one of the most problematic substance use disorders. |
|
Secretaría General de Instituciones Penitenciarias #
Estudio sobre mortalidad por reacción aguda
a sustancias psicoactivas en el mediopenitenciario.
Años 2007-2009 |
| Peter
Chalk # The Latin American Drug Trade Scope, Dimensions, Impact, and Response RAND Project AIR FORCE (PAF) | Published 2011 by the RAND Corporation Between 60 and 65 percent of all Latin American cocaine is trafficked to the United States, the bulk of which is smuggled via the eastern Pacific/Central American corridor. The remainder is sent through the Caribbean island chain, with the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Haiti acting as the main transshipment hubs. In both cases, Mexico serves as the main point of entry to mainland America, presently accounting for the vast majority of all illicit drug imports to the United States. |
|
ihra International Harm Reduction Association Of the 33.3 million people living with HIV globally, an estimated three million are people who inject drugs. They account for 30% of HIV infections outside of sub-Saharan Africa, and up to 80% of infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. |
| Brian K
Ahmedani, Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak, Carlos F Rios-Bedoya,
Maureen Mickus, and James C Anthony # Willingness to treat drug dependence and depression: comparisons of future health professionals Subst Abuse Rehabil, 2011 March Stigma-related feelings, including degree of enthusiasm and willingness to work with alcohol, drug, and mental disorder (ADM) patients, as well as anticipated success in such work, will be required for the United States to be successful in its new initiatives for ADM screening, brief intervention, and effective referral to treatment and rehabilitation services (SBIRT). This study investigates students of medicine and social work with respect to their stigma-related feelings and degree of enthusiasm or willingness to treat patients affected by alcohol dependence, nicotine dependence, or major depression. Inference is strengthened by an anonymous online survey approach, with use of randomized reinforcers to gain at least partial experimental control of nonparticipation biases that otherwise are present in student survey data. |
| Drug Policy Alliance # Drug Courts Are Not the Answer: Toward a Health-Centered Approach to Drug Use www.drugpolicy.org/ March 2011 Drug courts have not demonstrated cost savings, reduced incarceration, orimproved public safety. Drug courtsleave many peopleworse off for trying. Drug courts have made the criminal justice system more punitive toward addiction – not less. Most drug courts have done a poor job of addressing participants’ health needs according to health principles, and have not significantly reduced participants’ chances of incarceration. They have also absorbed scarce resources that could have been better spent to treat and supervise those with more serious offenses or to bolster demonstrated health approaches, such as community-based treatment. |
|
CountTheCost. 50 Years of the War on Drugs |
|
Ty
A. Ridenour, Sonia Minnes, Mildred M.
Maldonado-Molina, Maureen D. Reynolds, Ralph E.
Tarter, Duncan B. Clark |
| Tomi Petteri
Lintonen, Heikki Vartiainen, Jorma Aarnio, Sirpa
Hakamaki, Paivi Viitanen, Terhi Wuolijoki, Matti
Joukamaa # Drug Use Among Prisoners: By Any Definition, It’s a Big Problem Substance Use & Misuse, 46:440–451, 2011 The material consisted of 610 Finnish prisoners in 2006 and represents all Finnish prisoners. The subjects participated in a comprehensive field study including a standardized psychiatric interview (SCID-I). Alcohol abuse/dependence was diagnosed in 68% (SCID-I) and 72% (ICD-10) among men and 70% (both SCID-I and ICD-10) among women. Drug abuse/dependence was diagnosed in 62% (SCIDI) and 69% (ICD-10) among men and 64% (SCID-I) and 70% (ICD-10) among women prisoners. Interview data revealed that the majority had at least tried most substances. Both alcohol and drug abuse/dependence were vastly more common among Finnish prisoners than reported elsewhere. |
|
West Huddleston, Douglas B. Marlowe |
| Gregory T.
Bogart, Carol A. Ott # Abuse of second-generation antipsychotics: What prescribers need to know Current Psychiatry, May 2011 Residents of jails and prisons misuse quetiapine for reasons similar to those cited by outpatients: sedation, relief of anxiety, and hallucinogenic effects or “getting high.” Clinicians must differentiate inmates who have legitimate psychiatric symptoms that require antipsychotic treatment from those who are malingering to obtain the drug. |
|
Jonathan
P. Caulkins, Beau Kilmer, Robert J. MacCoun, Rosalie
Liccardo Pacula, Peter Reuter |
|
Joana Carvalho, Paula Frango, Mário
Martins |
| Pien Metaal,
Coletta Youngers (eds) # Systems Overload - Drug laws and prisons in Latin America www.wola.org/ Amsterdam / Washington, March 2011 The so-called “war on drugs” waged in the last four decades has had an enormous impact on the workings of national justice and prison systems in Latin America. In order to identify these impacts more specifically, the Transnational Institute (TNI) and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) brought together a group of experts from eight Latin American countries to examine the human costs of current drug laws, identifying who is behind bars and the repercussions of incarceration for them, their families, and their communities. |
|
Osservatorio Epidemiologico Dipendenze Patologiche |
|
Joana
Carvalho e Paula Frango Instituto
da Droga e da Toxicodependência, I.P Lisboa 2011 |
|
Department
for Education | Research
Report DFE-RR087 There were approximately 24,000 young people who received specialist drug and alcohol treatment in the UK in 2008-09. This is defined as “a care planned medical, psychosocial or specialist harm reduction intervention”. As set out in the Drug Strategy 2010 such treatment is aimed at preventing escalation of use or harm and should “respond incrementally to the risks in terms of drug use, vulnerability and, particularly, age.” Most of these young people were treated primarily for alcohol (37%) or cannabis (53%) misuse, with the remaining 10% misusing Class A drugs, including heroin and crack. Apart from using drugs and alcohol, these young people had experienced a range of other problems, including involvement in crime (shoplifting, theft, assault); being NEET (not in education, employment or training); or housing problems... |
| Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention - CDC # Prescription Drug Overdoses: An American Epidemic www.cdc.gov/ February 17, 2011 Opioid Analgesics: Nonmedical users 5.3 million - Medical users 9.0 million Overall, the evidence for long-term analgesic efficacy is weak Putative mechanisms for failed opioid analgesia may be related to rampant tolerance The premise that tolerance can always be overcome by dose escalation is now questioned 100% of patients on opioids chronically develop dependence |
|
T.N.I - I.D.T - Marie Nougier
(Rapporteur) Overall, much scepticism was raised about the ability for the current drug control system to evolve and adapt to recent developments, brought forward by the positive results of the Portuguese decriminalisation model, proposals for cannabis reform in various regions of the world, or the most recent Bolivian request to remove the international ban on coca chewing. So far, the current system has remained resistant to any form of evolution. Yet, there is room for action, both at this year’s CND, with the holding of various advocacy events and private meetings with national and international policy makers; and in the future, with a number of global initiatives that will hopefully lead to a more balanced drug control strategy. |
| Randall T. Brown,
Paul A. Allison, F. Javier Nieto # Impact of jail sanctions during drug court participation upon substance abuse treatment completion Addiction. 2011 January ; 106(1): 135–142 A drug treatment court (DTC) is present in over 1800 county, tribal, and territorial jurisdictions in the United States, as an alternative to incarceration for drug dependent offenders. While specific program components vary between jurisdictions, treatment contracts typically involve: participation in community-based substance abuse treatment, individual case management; regular urine drug screening; sanctions and rewards to motivate continued drug treatment and compliance; regularly scheduled contact with the Drug Court Judge for assessment of progress; imposition of sanctions; and regular assessment of eligibility for graduation. |
| Douglas B.
Marlowe | National Association of Drug Court
Professionale NADCP # Research Update on Adult Drug Courts www.nadcp.org/ December 2010 The scientific evidence is overwhelming that adult Drug Courts reduce crime, reduce substance abuse, improve family relationships, and increase earning potential. In the process, they return net dollar savings back to their communities that are at least two to three times the initial investments. The optimal target population for Drug Courts has been identified, and fidelity to several key ingredients of the Drug Court model has been demonstrated to be necessary for favorable results...
Douglas B. Marlowe | National Association of Drug Court Professionale NADCP # Research Update on Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts www.nadcp.org/ December 2010 Prior to 2006, meta-analytic studies concluded that JDTCs (Juvenile Drug Treatment Courts) reduced delinquency by an average of only about 3 to 5 percent greater than comparison programs, such as juvenile probation. Although marginally statistically significant, this difference is small in magnitude. Fortunately, newer findings are more encouraging, which suggests the programs may be getting better at their operations with increasing experience. A recent large-scale study in Utah found that participants in four JDTCs (n = 622) recidivated at a significantly lower rate than a matched comparison sample of juvenile drug-involved probationers (n = 596). At 30 months post-entry, 34% of the JDTC participants had been re-arrested for a new juvenile or adult offense, as compared to 48% of the probationers (p < .05)... |
|
RISE - Reentry Independence through
Sustainable Efforts |
|
National
Institute on Drug Abuse NIDA |
|
EMCDDA–Europol
joint publications |
|
Department
of Health We recognise that the continuity of care of drug treatment for people entering prisons, moving between prisons and on release is a complicated issue due to the nature of the prison environment – a rising prison population resulting in a strain on limited staffing resources, disrupted regimes and some prisoners being placed further from home. However, there is now a strong call amongst drug users and carers for greater continuity of drug treatment both within and between prisons. And there is a very clearly articulated need for much greater support and help on release especially with respect to appropriate housing, having enough money, having something meaningful to do and greater integration and coordination with community services. |
|
British Columbia Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS -- ICSDP -- International AIDS Society -- AIDS 2010 # The Vienna Declaration, 28 june 2010 # Dichiarazione di Vienna, 28 giugno 2010 ... La criminalizzazione dei consumatori di droga alimenta l’epidemia da HIV, con spaventose ripercussioni sul piano socio-sanitario. È pertanto necessario un completo riorientamento delle politiche attuali. |
|
Sarah Boseley #
Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin or crack'. Sacked government drugs adviser David Nutt
publishes investigation in Lancet reopening debate on
classification |
| David J
Nutt, Leslie A King, Lawrence D Phillips # Drug harms in the UK: a multicriteria decision analysis Lancet 2010; 376: 1558–65 We have used MCDA (multicriteria decision analysis) to analyse the harms of a range of drugs in relation to the UK. Our findings lend support to previous work in the UK and the Netherlands, confirming that the present drug classification systems have little relation to the evidence of harm. They also accord with the conclusions of previous expert reports that aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy. MCDA modelling showed that heroin, crack cocaine, and metamfetamine were the most harmful drugs to individuals (part scores 34, 37, and 32, respectively), whereas alcohol, heroin, and crack cocaine were the most harmful to others (46, 21, and 17, respectively). Overall, alcohol was the most harmful drug (overall harm score 72), with heroin (55) and crack cocaine (54) in second and third places. |
|
Elizabeth
L. C. Merrall, Azar Kariminia, Ingrid A. Binswanger,
Michael S. Hobbs, Michael Farrell, John Marsden,
Sharon J. Hutchinson, Sheila M. Bird |
|
Vanessa
Pellegrino |
|
Urban
Drug Policies in the Globalised World Realism is the key: A drug-free world – or a drug-free city – is an unrealistic idea and a harmful concept if set as an ultimate goal, just like other utopias that have been set as aims in history. Substances with psychotropic effects are older than mankind and are here to stay, with all their negative as well as positive aspects. However, it is beneficial and realistic to aim to diminish the harms related to drug trafficking and use as much as possible – inter alia by reducing the non-medical consumption of drugs and thus the total volume of related risks by means of prevention, treatment, and regulation. |
|
Pamela
L. Owens, Ryan Mutter, Carol Stocks | H CUP
Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project | AHRQ Agency
for Healthcare Research and Quality An estimated one in three individuals has suffered from a mental health or substance abuse condition within the last 12 months, yet the community treatment system to support services for these individuals is regarded as ineffective. This is particularly evident in emergency department (ED) utilization. The number of patients with mental health and substance abuse (MHSA) conditions treated in EDs has been on the rise for more than a decade... |
| Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention CDC # Unintentional Drug Poisoning in the United States www.cdc.gov/ July 2010 The increase in drug overdose death rates is largely because of prescription opioid painkillers. Among deaths attributed to drugs, the most common drug categories are cocaine, heroin, and a type of prescription drug called opioid painkillers. • “Opioids” are synthetic versions of opium. They have the ability to reduce pain but can also suppress breathing to a fatal degree when taken in excess. Examples of opioids are oxycodone (OxyContin®), hydrocodone(Vicodin®), and methadone. |
|
Heino
Stöver, Ingo Ilja Michels |
|
Inserm
Institut national de la santé et de la recherche
médicale La réduction des risques s’est développée depuis un peu plus d’une vingtaine d’années dans de nombreux pays d’Europe, en Amérique du Nord et en Australie. Le message anglo-saxon pragmatique de la réduction des risques est le suivant « Si vous le pouvez, ne vous droguez pas. Sinon, essayez de sniffer au lieu d’injecter. Sinon, utilisez une seringue propre. Sinon, réutilisez la vôtre. Au pire, si vous partagez une seringue, nettoyez la à l’eau de Javel ». La politique de réduction des risques se caractérise par quelques fondamentaux du point de vue de la démarche. Elle s’inscrit dans le mouvement de la « nouvelle santé publique » des années 1970-80 qui valorise la capacité des individus à se prendre en charge et la nécessité des politiques de santé prenant en compte les besoins des individus concernés. Ce courant de la nouvelle santé publique s’associe à un mouvement de reconfiguration du système social, politique et économique qui place l’individu au centre du dispositif. La réduction des risques consisterait ainsi à être plus attentif aux modes de vie et aux comportements des usagers de drogues afin de leur proposer des mesures de santé publique adaptées à leurs besoins, et non pas imposées de l’extérieur. |
|
Louisa Degenhardt, Bradley Mathers, Mauro
Guarinieri, Samiran Panda, Benjamin Phillips,
Steffanie A. Strathdee, Mark Tyndall, Lucas
Wiessing, Alex Wodak, John Howard Amphetamine type stimulants (ATS) have become the focus of increasing attention worldwide. There are understandable concerns over potential harms including the transmission of HIV. A comprehensive search of the international peer-reviewed and grey literature was undertaken. Multiple electronic databases were searched and documents and datasets were provided by UN agencies and key experts from around the world in response to requests for information on the epidemiology of use. Amphetamine or methamphetamine (meth/amphetamine, M/A) use was documented in 110 countries, and injection in 60 of those... |
|
Laura Amato, Silvia Minozzi, Simona Vecchi,
Marina Davoli |
|
Amadeo
Pesce, Cameron West, Murray Rosenthal, Robert West,
Bridgit Crews, Charles Mikel, Perla Almazan, Sergey
Latyshev, Paul S. Horn |
| Nathan
C. Lowe, Matthew DeMichele # Methamphetamine-Using Offenders into the Community: Identifying Key Strategies and Best Practices for Community Corrections Council of State Governments/American Probation and Parole Association | October 2010 Substance abuse increases the obstacles facing returning offenders to communities. Offenders with substance abuse problems have an uphill battle to find employment, meet familial and childcare responsibilities, and actively participate in treatment. Unfortunately, the treatment services offered to criminal justice populations are inadequate to address the substance abuse problems facing individuals under community supervision (Belenko & Peugh, 2005). According to SAMHSA (2009), from 1992 to 2007, admissions to treatment referred by the criminal justice system increased significantly for primary MA abuse (from 37% to 57%), which was the largest increase among all primary substances abused. Such an increase over a 15-year period signifies not only the heightened prevalence of MA abuse among offenders in the criminal justice system, but also the important role that treatment providers have assumed in dealing with this population. |
|
Alfred Uhl, Richard Ives and Members of the Pompidou Group Prevention Platform #
Evaluation of the drug
prevention activities: theory and practice A highly controversial issue related to SAP (substance abuse prevention) is whether we should focus on reducing the number of psychoactive substance users (abstinence perspective, population approach) or on reducing the amount of problems arising due to psychoactive substance use (problem reduction perspective). Some persons are determined in favour of an uncompromising fight to reduce any psychoactive substance use in society, regardless if this fight enhances related problems, and others prefer to reduce substance related problems regardless if some of these approaches mean explicitly tolerating certain forms of unwanted psychoactive substance use. Related to this issue is the question whether all psychoactive substance use is perceived as fundamentally wrong and morally unacceptable (puritan perspective) or if some forms of substance use may be seen as contributing positively to quality of life (hedonistic perspective). |
|
Marie Jauffret-Roustide, Yann Le Strata Methodological
Innovations Online (2010) 5(2) 26-37 |
| The Pew Research
Center # Modest Rise in Percentage Favoring General Legalization | Broad Public Support for Legalizing Medical Marijuana www.people-press.org/ Thursday April 1, 2010 With a growing number of states moving to legalize medical marijuana, nearly threequarters of Americans (73%) say they favor their state allowing the sale and use of marijuana for medical purposes if it is prescribed by a doctor, while 23% are opposed. Support for legalizing medical marijuana spans all major political and demographic groups, and is equally high in states that have and have not already passed laws on this issue. |
|
European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA
| Tim Rhodes,
Dagmar Hedrich (eds) Since the mid-1980s, harm reduction has transformed from a peer-driven, grass-roots approach to an official policy of the United Nations, with Europe playing a leading role. European countries were among the ‘earlier adopters’ of harm reduction, facilitating its diffusion throughout Europe and beyond. Countries in Europe remain among the forerunners of innovations in harm reduction practice and technology... |
|
The
National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse This document draws significantly on the 11 competences required of commissioners under the World Class Commissioning approach which is compatible with the commissioning principles that apply to drug partnerships whether administered in a health or a local authority setting. This approach recognises the need for a broad outcomes perspective. This document supports the development of a modern, evidence and recovery-based drug treatment system covering community and prison settings that needs to be delivered in the context of mainstream health reforms which are in keeping with the personalisation agenda and the vision set out in ‘High Quality Care for All’. |
|
United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime Vienna The conventions encourage the adoption of a health-oriented approach to both illicit drug use and drug dependence rather than relying solely upon a sanction-oriented approach. In the case of nondependent drug users, a health-oriented approach may involve: providing education, reliable information, brief motivational and behavioural counselling, and measures to facilitate social reintegration and reduce isolation and social exclusion. In the case of drug dependent individuals it may also involve more comprehensive social support and specific pharmacological and psychosocial treatment, and aftercare.. Following the provisions of the international drug control Conventions, treatment, rehabilitation, social reintegration and aftercare should be considered as an alternative to criminal justice sanctions. People suffering from substance use disorders who have committed drug-related offences may be encouraged to enter treatment as an alternative to criminal justice sanctions. |
|
World Health Organization Europe © World Health Organization 2010 Prison health is a part of public health – and for the public health system it is a challenge to give equal service to those who are hardest to reach. In general, prisoners represent a group of people with multiple health problems including drug use disorders. During incarceration they are reachable – the challenge is to make use of this unfortunate situation to the benefit of the prisoners and society ... |
| Judge Kevin S.
Burke # Just What Made Drug Courts Successful? New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement, winter 2010 In response to the influx of drug cases, New York City created specialized "narcotics courts" to help manage the growing caseload. New York City's narcotics courts became known as "N Parts" and functioned as "specialized case management courts designed to handle a high volume of drug cases in a traditional manner." |
|
Organization of American States | Caroline S.
Cooper, Brent Franklin, Tiffany Mease | Justice
Programs Office, School of Public Affairs, American
University # Vol One: Overview and Survey Results # Vol Two: Appendix of Additional Supporting Materials Prepared for the Drugs Summit:
European, Latin American and Caribbean Mayors and
Cities | April 21 -23, Lugo, Spain 2010
- November 2010 (Rev.) |
| New
Jersey Courts # A model for success. A Report on New Jersey's Adult Drug Court www.njcourts.com | october 2010 This report tells the dramatic story of the accomplishments of Adult Drug Courts in the State of new Jersey over the past ten years. Drug Courts have transformed the lives of thousands of drug-addicted offenders by providing them with treatment rather than incarceration, intensive supervision, incentives to remake their lives rather than punishment that drives them into even darker lives of crime. Drug Courts have measurably enhanced public safety in new Jersey, because the data show that an offender who goes through Drug Court is far less likely to offend again than one who goes to prison. Additionally, Drug Courts have saved new Jersey taxpayers millions of dollars, because it is far cheaper to keep a person in Drug Court than to keep in prison |
|
IHRA International Harm Reduction Association # The Global State of Harm Reduction 2010. Key issues for broadening the response This report was produced by the Public Health, Research and Policy Programme of the International Harm Reduction Association. Harm reduction in prisons The availability of NSPs, OST and other harm reduction services within prisons and other places of detention remains poor. Many countries that have adopted harm reduction in their responses to drug-related harms outside prisons fail to do so in prisons and other places of detention. |
| Gerry Jager,
Robert I. Block, Maartje Luijten, Nick F. Ramsey # Cannabis use and memory brain function in adolescent boys: a cross-sectional multicenter fMRI study J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2010 June ; 49(6): 561–572 In adolescent cannabis users the WM system was overactive during a novel task, suggesting functional compensation. Inefficient WM recruitment was not related to a failure in automatization, but became evident when processing continuously changing information. The results seem to confirm the vulnerability of still developing frontal lobe functioning for early-onset cannabis use... Future neuroimaging studies should attempt to understand the structural and neurochemical correlates that underlie the observed alterations in brain activation in cannabis users during a cognitive challenge, because the clinical significance of these alterations is far from clear. |
| Suzi Lyons,
Simone Walsh, Ena Lynn, Jean Long # Drug-Related Deaths Among Recently Released Prisoners in Ireland, 1998 to 2005 International Journal of Prisoner Healt IJPH, Volume 6 Number 1, June 2010 The aim of this study was to investigate deaths following release from prison among individuals recorded on the National Drug-Related Deaths Index (NDRDI). A descriptive analysis of individuals with a history of imprisonment in the NDRDI from 1998 to 2005 was undertaken. Between 1998 and 2005, 130 (5.3%) of the recorded cases had a documented history of imprisonment, 105 of whom were not in prison at the time of their death. Of these 105, 89% were male, 62% were aged between 20 and 29 years, 84% were unemployed, and 10% were homeless. Almost two thirds (61%) had a history of injecting drug use, and 34% were reported to be injecting at the time of their death. Almost one third (28.1%) of the deaths occurred within the first week of release from prison, with a further 18% in the first month. Opiates were implicated in 89% of all poisonings in the first month after release from prison. Additionally, 62% of these poisonings involved polysubstance use. The study highlights the need for more intensive prevention measures in the period immediately following release from Irish prisons, including the development of a national overdose prevention strategy. |
|
IHRA International Harm Reduction Association # La Posizione dell’Associazione Internazionale di Riduzione del Danno (IHRA) Aprile 2010 Molte politiche e pratiche intenzionalmente o anche non intenzionalmente creano ed esasperano i rischi e i danni per i consumatori di droga. Queste includono: la criminalizzazione dell’uso di droga, la discriminazione, pratiche di abuso e di corruzione, leggi e politiche restrittive e punitive, la negazione di cure mediche salva-vita e dei servizi di riduzione del danno, ingiustizie sociali. Le politiche e le pratiche di riduzione del danno devono supportare gli individui nel cambiamento del loro comportamento. Ma è anche essenziale sfidare le leggi e le politiche nazionali ed internazionali che creano ambienti a rischio per chi usa droga e contribuiscono a provocare danni correlati all’uso di droga. |
| Persio
Tincani # Perché puniamo i drogati? Politica della repressione e dell’imposizione moralistica A- rivista anarchica, a. 40, n. 352, aprile 2010 Sebbene il consumo in sé sia un’attività che, sul piano teorico, ciascuno può compiere senza commettere alcun reato, dal punto di vista pratico è spesso pressoché impossibile compierla senza commettere reati... Se è permesso piantare chiodi con un martello ma è proibito sia comprare, che costruire, che detenere chiodi e martelli, chiunque pianti un chiodo è, giocoforza, colpevole o di commercio, o di fabbricazione, o di detenzione di chiodi e di martelli. |
|
Osservatorio europeo delle droghe e delle tossicodipendenze # Evoluzione del fenomeno della droga in Europa Relazione annuale 2010 Cfr in part. capitolo 7 Malattie infettive e decessi correlati alla droga... Gli studi indicano che il rischio di decesso indotto dalla sostanza stupefacente nella fase di ricaduta dopo il trattamento o nelle settimane successive al rilascio dal carcere è sostanzialmente elevato. Ciò ha condotto alla pubblicazione delle raccomandazioni dell’OMS-Europa per quanto riguarda la prevenzione dell’overdose in carcere e la migliore continuità dell’assistenza dopo il rilascio (OMS, 2010)... |
|
Celinda Franco | Congressional Research
Service CRS |
|
Julian
Elliott Thomas | National Justice Mental Health
Initiative Working Group |
|
Caitlin
Elizabeth Hughes, Alex Stevens The issue of decriminalizing illicit drugs is hotly debated, but is rarely subject to evidence-based analysis. This paper examines the case of Portugal, a nation that decriminalized the use and possession of all illicit drugs on 1 July 2001. Drawing upon independent evaluations and interviews conducted with 13 key stakeholders in 2007 and 2009, it critically analyses the criminal justice and health impacts against trends from neighbouring Spain and Italy. It concludes that contrary to predictions, the Portuguese decriminalization did not lead to major increases in drug use. Indeed, evidence indicates reductions in problematic use, drug-related harms and criminal justice overcrowding. The article discusses these developments in the context of drug law debates and criminological discussions on late modern governance.
Caitlin
Hughes, Alex Stevens |
|
Emilee Mooney Scott - OLR Research Report |
|
Martijn
Adriaan Boermans |
| International
Centre for Science in Drug Policy | Dan Werb, Greg Rowell, Gordon Guyatt, Thomas
Kerr, Julio Montaner, Evan Wood # Effect of Drug Law Enforcement on Drug-Related Violence: Evidence from a Scientific Review www.icsdp.org/ 2010 In terms of additional unintended consequences, in the United States, mandatory minimum sentencing policies for drug offenders have resulted in a massive growth in the prison population and place an enormous burden on the US taxpayer.47, 48 Figure 3 illustrates the dramatic rise in incarceration rates following the implementation of mandatory sentencing policies by many American states beginning in the 1980s. Most notably, the incarceration of drug offenders in the United States has generated substantial racial disparities in incarceration rates. For instance, one in nine African-American males between the ages of 20 and 34 is incarcerated on any given day in the United States... |
|
Mark
A. Ware, Tongtong Wang, Stan Shapiro, Ann Robinson,
Thierry Ducruet, Thao Huynh, Ann Gamsa, Gary J.
Bennett, Jean-Paul Collet |
|
Jeffrey
A. Miron, Katherine Waldock State and federal governments in the United States face massive looming fiscal deficits. One policy change that can reduce deficits is ending the drug war. Legalization means reduced expenditure on enforcement and an increase in tax revenue from legalized sales. This report estimates that legalizing drugs would save roughly $41.3 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. Of these savings, $25.7 billion would accrue to state and local governments, while $15.6 billion would accrue to the federal government. Approximately $8.7 billion of the savings would result from legalization of marijuana and $32.6 billion from legalization of other drugs. The report also estimates that drug legalization would yield tax revenue of $46.7 billion annually, assuming legal drugs were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco. Approximately $8.7 billion of this revenue would result from legalization of marijuana and $38.0 billion from legalization of other drugs. |
| Grant Duwe # Prison-Based Chemical Dependency Treatment in Minnesota_ An Outcome Evaluation www.doc.state.mn.us/ March 2010 Although this study suggests that prison-based CD treatment and, more narrowly, short-term programs can be effective, more evaluations of prison- ased programs are needed. Due to the many variations among state and federal correctional populations, it is unlikely that a single study— egardless of how rigorous the design—can conclusively determine whether prison-based treatment works. Rather, by quantitatively reviewing evaluations from multiple jurisdictions, meta-analyses could help better identify what works best for whom under which circumstances. |
|
Beau
Kilmer, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Rosalie Liccardo Pacula,
Robert J. MacCoun, Peter H. Reuter California has always been on the cutting edge of marijuana policy reform. It was one of the first states to prohibit marijuana in 1913, predating the federal Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 by nearly 25 years. In 1975, California was one of the first tates to reduce the maximum sentence for possessing less than an ounce from incarceration to a small fine ($100). In 1996, California was the first state to allow marijuana to be grown and consumed for medicinal purposes. And, in November 2010, California will become the third state to vote on whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed—and potentially the first to pass such legislation. |
| Kimberly Y.W.
Holst # A Good Score?: Examining Twenty Years of Drug Courts in the United States and Abroad Valparaiso University Law Review, Vol. 45, No. 1 [2010] After twenty years, the score is not completely settled with respect to drug courts in the United States. While they have continually grown in number and efforts have been undertaken to help in the effective operation, there are significant changes that will improve the effectiveness of drug courts in the United States... |
| Renske Penning,
Janet L. Veldstra, Anne P. Daamen, Berend Olivier, Joris
C. Verster # Drugs of Abuse, Driving and Traffic Safety Current Drug Abuse Reviews, 2010, 3, 23-32 Roadside studies show that drivers most frequently test positive for the use of alcohol and/or cannabis. These two drugs affect driving ability in a dose-dependent matter and result in poor vehicle control, especially when used in combination. Drivers on cocaine, ecstasy and amphetamine show no impairment on basic driving skills, but often overestimate their driving skills. In combination with impaired decision making, this increases risk taking during driving. Only few studies looked at the effects on driving of other drugs of abuse, such as ketamine, inhalants and anabolic steroids, but suggest a negative effect on driving performance. |
|
National
Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University |
|
Beau
Kilmer, Jonathan P. Caulkins, Brittany M. Bond, Peter
H. ReuterReducing Drug Trafficking The recent surge in violence in Mexico has been dramatic. While the per capita murder rate fell by roughly 25 percent between 2000 and 2007, it jumped 50 percent between 2007 and 2009. The violence associated with the illicit drug trade is largely responsible for this reversal. The estimated annual total for drug-related homicides in Mexico increased from 1,776 in 2005 to 6,587 in 2009, and, in 2010, the total was already 5,775 by July. In 2009, the murder rate for drug-related homicides alone in Mexico exceeded the rate for all murders and nonnegligent manslaughters in the United States (6.1 versus 5.1 per 100,000; Shirk, 2010; FBI, 2010)... This violence in Mexico has security implications for the United States. |
|
Jonathan P. Caulkins |
| Dennis Gray,
Edward Wilkes # Reducing alcohol and other drug related harm www.aihw.gov.au/ December 2010 This resource sheet provides an overview of approaches to reducing alcohol and other drug related harm amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. Included is information on what is currently known about these approaches and what information needs to be developed in this area. This resource sheet was produced as part of a series by the Closing the gap clearinghouse to disseminate information which could be used to help develop solutions to 'close the gap'. |
|
Martin
Jelsma, Transnational Institute |
| Angela Hawken,
Mark Kleiman # Managing Drug Involved Probationers with Swift and Certain Sanctions: Evaluating Hawaii’s HOPE National Institute of Justice - December 2, 2009 HOPE probationers had higher positive drug test rates than the comparison group before being placed on the program, but much lower rates thereafter. During the first three months following baseline, the probationers assigned to HOPE had a striking improvement in their drug-testing outcomes, with their rate of positive drug tests falling by 83 percent (a decrease from 53 percent to 9 percent). |
| Observatorio
Vasco de drogodependencias | Xabier Arana # El cumplimiento de las medidas alternativas a la pena privativa de libertad en personas drogodependientes www.ehu.es/ Servicio Central de Publicaciones del Gobierno Vasco, Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2009 Estudio cualitativo sobre la aplicación de la suspensión de la pena de prisión para drogodependientes del artículo 87 del Código penal: Entrevistas en profundidad | Estudio cuantitativo sobre la aplicación de la suspensión de la pena de prisión para drogodependientes del artículo 87 del Código penal: Datos de los juzgados (César san Juan, Isabel Germán, Laura Vozmediano) |
| J.G.C. van
Amsterdam, A. Opperhuizen, M.W.J. Koeter, L.A.G.J.M. van
Aerts, W. van den Brink # Ranking van drugs. Een vergelijking van de schadelijkheid van drugs 'Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM), 2009 [National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM)] The National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM) has performed a risk assessment on the harmful effects of 17 drugs plus that of tobacco and alcohol. These 19 items were ranked according to their degree of harm. The assessment was performed by a panel of 19 experts who based their judgement on their own scientific expertise and information derived from the literature. The assessment focussed on the following three categories: (1) toxicity (acute toxicity and chronic toxicity), (2) potential for dependency, and (3) social harm at individual and population levels. The most important conclusions drawn from the assessment are as follows. Firstly, alcohol, tobacco, heroin and crack scored relatively high on the scale for Total harm... |
| Peter Reuter
(RAND) and Franz Trautmann (Trimbos Institute) # A report on Global Illicit Drugs Markets 1998-2007 European Communities, 2009 ... Enforcement of drug prohibitions has caused substantial unintended harms; many were predictable... A nation’s drug problem is not simply measured by the share of the population that uses some illicit drugs. It is also a function of the harms resulting, which differ among drugs and use patterns. Unfortunately very limited data were available on such major harms as the number of drug related deaths (DRDs), HIV/AIDS and drug-related crime... |
|
Peter
H. Reuter |
|
Erin
L. Karschner, Eugene W. Schwilke, Ross H. Lowe, W.
David Darwin, Harrison G. Pope Jr, Ronald Herning,
Jean Lud Cadet, Marilyn A. Huestis Substantial whole blood THC concentrations persist multiple days after drug discontinuation in heavy chronic cannabis users. It is currently unknown whether neurocognitive impairment occurs with low blood THC concentrations, and whether return to normal performance, as previously documented following extended cannabis abstinence, is accompanied by removal of residual THC in brain. These findings also may impact the implementation of per se limits in driving under the influence of drugs legislation. |
| Franco
Corleone, Alessandro Margara (eds) # Lotta alla droga. I danni collaterali. L’impatto sul carcere e sulla giustizia della legge contro gli stupefacenti in Toscana Polistampa 2009 La ricerca, svolta da Forum Droghe con la collaborazione della Fondazione Michelucci e sostenuta dalla Regione Toscana (Assessorato per il Diritto alla Salute), valuta l'impatto della recente normativa penale antidroga sull'insieme delle attività delle forze dell'ordine, degli apparati giudiziari e sul carcere. Considerato che nella politica delle droghe la valutazione ha finora trovato poco spazio, soprattutto per l'aspetto penale, il lavoro è nuovo e importante quantomeno dal punto di vista metodologico. Non solo perché si parte dal "basso", dal territorio della Toscana: il che permette di raccogliere dati più affidabili per la vicinanza delle fonti e di valorizzare il punto di vista degli attori coinvolti. Inoltre, rispetto ai dati nazionali, lo studio inizia a lavorare il terreno per una vera valutazione dell'azione antidroga: interpretando i pochi dati disponibili ma soprattutto indicando le incongruenze fra i dati provenienti da diverse amministrazioni ed evidenziando quelli che mancano: prefigurando insomma una griglia di valutazione dell'impatto delle politiche penali in materia di droga. La raccolta dati negli istituti penitenziari di Prato, Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo. |
|
Dave
Bewley-Taylor, Chris Hallam, Rob Allen | Beckley
Foundation Drug Policy Programme BFDPP The terms ‘drug offences’ or ‘drug related offences’ cover a variety of activities. The data presented in the table below uses the term to include both offences related on the one hand to the possession, use or consumption of drugs and, on the other, to offences related to the supply, trafficking or production of drugs. This approach is driven by national approaches to the classification of drug offenders, with most countries grouping the two categories together within official statistics. In addition to these groups, most prison systems contain often-large numbers of offenders remanded or sentenced for acquisitive or violent offences arising from drug addiction or trafficking, but reliable data about this is also not available. Nor is it known how many prisoners have committed offences while under the influence of drugs. According to the Corrections Minister in New Zealand, up to 60 per cent of prisoners in that country were affected by alcohol or other drugs at the time of offending but systematic data is not available and therefore this group is not included in the table below |
| Mats Hallgren, Pi
Högberg, Sven Andréasson # Alcohol consumption among elderly European Union citizens. Health effects, consumption trends and related issues http://www.fondazioneania.it/ Expert Conference on Alcohol and Health | 21–22 September 2009 Stockholm, Sweden Most Europeans drink alcohol, which is estimated to be responsible for about ten per cent of the total disease and injury burden in Europe and associated with more than sixty medical disorders. Harmful alcohol use is also linked to serious social problems, including violence, crime and work absenteeism, and, in the case of the elderly, traffic accidents, falls and other health complications. |
| Redonna
K. Chandler, Bennett W. Fletcher, Nora D. Volkow # Treating Drug Abuse and Addiction in the Criminal Justice System. Improving Public Health and Safety JAMA American Medical Association 2009;301(2):183-190 Despite increasing evidence that addiction is a treatable disease of the brain, most individuals do not receive treatment. Involvement in the criminal justice system often results from illegal drug-seeking behavior and participation in illegal activities that reflect, in part, disrupted behavior ensuing from brain changes triggered by repeated drug use. Treating drug-involved offenders provides a unique opportunity to decrease substance abuse and reduce associated criminal behavior. Emerging neuroscience has the potential to transform traditional sanction-oriented public safety approaches by providing new therapeutic strategies against addiction that could be used in the criminal justice system. We summarize relevant neuroscientific findings and evidence-based principles of addiction treatment that, if implemented in the criminal justice system, could help improve public health and reduce criminal behavior. |
|
Glenn
Greenwald On July 1, 2001, a nationwide law in Portugal took effect that decriminalized all drugs, including cocaine and heroin. Under the new legal framework, all drugs were “decriminalized,” not “legalized.” Thus, drug possession for personal use and drug usage itself are still legally prohibited, but violations of those prohibitions are deemed to be exclusively administrative violations and are removed completely from the criminal realm. Drug trafficking continues to be prosecuted as a criminal offense. .. Although postdecriminalization usage rates have remained roughly the same or even decreased slightly when compared with other EU states, drug-related pathologies—such as sexually transmitted diseases and deaths due to drug usage—have decreased dramatically... In almost every category of drug, and for drug usage overall, the lifetime prevalence rates in the predecriminalization era of the 1990s were higher than the postdecriminalization rates.... The number of newly reported cases of HIV and AIDS among drug addicts has declined substantially every year since 2001. |
| Martin Jelsma,
Transnational Institute # Legislative Innovation in Drug Policy. Latin American Initiative on Drugs and Democracy www.ungassondrugs.org/ october 2009 A more rational listing of psychoactive substances according to their health risks, a better understanding of the variety of drug submarkets and the difference between recreational use and more problematic patterns of abuse should be the cornerstones for developing more adequate policy response. Two recent attempts have been undertaken by scientific panels to develop a rational scale to assess the harmfulness of drugs, looking at the toxicity (acute or chronic physical harm), the potential for dependency and the social harm at individual, family and society levels. |
| David Nutt # Estimating drug harms: a risky business? http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/ Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, Briefing 10, October 2009 In the last 40 years we in the UK have developed a way of regulating drugs using a complex legislative framework. There are two major acts of parliament regulating drugs. First, there is the Medicines Act 1968, which is essentially monitored and acted upon by the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and second, there is the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, which comes under the remit of the Home Office (see Figure 1). Thus, recreationalpsychoactive substances are controlled by Home Offi ce legislation. There are a number of other substances that are popularly used and cause harm whose risks fall outside these two control mechanisms. For example, alcohol and tobacco are essentially regulated foods or commodities... |
| European
Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA,
2009 # Addiction neurobiology: Ethical and social implications EMCDDA, 2009 Richard Muscat, Adrian Carter, Paul Griffiths, Dominique Lopez and Wayne Hall, General introduction | Adrian Carter, Wayne Hall and Benjamin Capps, What is addiction? | Adrian Carter, Wayne Hall and David Nutt, The neurobiology of addiction | Adrian Carter, Wayne Hall and David Nut, The treatment of addiction | Benjamin Capps and Richard Ashcroft, Human rights, ethical values and the implications of current addiction research | Adrian Carter, Wayne Hall, Benjamin Capps and Ruud ter Meulen, New developments in the treatment of addiction | Benjamin Capps, Adrian Carter, Wayne Hall, David Nutt, Richard Ashcroft and Ruud ter Meulen, Conclusions and possible implications of advances in addiction neurobiology for future drug policies. |
|
United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) |
|
David
Nutt |
| Rosalie Liccardo
Pacula # Legalizing Marijuana. Issues to Consider Before Reforming California State Law http://www.rand.org/ October 2009 According to the DEA, low quality marijuana in California sells on the black market from anywhere between $300 - $350 per pound... Prohibition raises the cost of production by at least 400% because of information problems it creates in the market as well as imposing risk on producers/sellers. Legalizing marijuana would cause the price of marijuana to fall considerably, more than just the 50% that has been incorporated into current revenue estimates. |
|
Wayne
Hall, Louisa Degenhardt |
| Amanda Reiman # Cannabis as a substitute for alcohol and other drugs Harm Reduction Journal 2009, 6:35 The substitution of one psychoactive substance for another with the goal of reducing negative outcomes can be included within the framework of harm reduction. Medical cannabis patients have been engaging in substitution by using cannabis as an alternative to alcohol, prescription and illicit drugs. |
| World Health
Organization WHO # Guidelines for the Psychosocially Assisted Pharmacological Treatment of Opioid Dependence [# IT] www.who.int/ 2009 The benefits of opioid agonist maintenance in prisons include less injecting drug use while in prison, increase in uptake of treatment on leaving prison, and reduction of rates of return to prison. Potential harms include diversion of medication, and spread of HIV through injection of diverted medication using contaminated injecting equipment. Because of these potential harms, unsupervised doses are generally not appropriate in prison settings. Rates of diversion of methadone are low, even in prison settings, and can be reduced further by diluting the methadone and by keeping methadone patients separate from other prisoners for 30 minutes after dosing. |
|
Mental
Health Network | Primary Care Trust Network | The NHS
Confederation |
| Mark Deady |
Network of Alcohol & other Drug Agencies (NADA) # A Review of Screening, Assessment and Outcome Measures for Drug and Alcohol Settings www.drugsandalcohol.ie/ 2009 Standardised tools cover a range of areas which may be relevant to Drug and Alcohol (D&A) services. This review provides an overview of some useful standardised tools that can be used to measure treatment outcomes and to screen and assess for mental health symptoms and conditions, drug and alcohol use and disorders and general functioning. Focus has been given to tools that require limited training to use and are freely available. |
| Marco Rossi # Il costo fiscale del proibizionismo: una simulazione contabile Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” - Settembre 2009. Recenti contributi teorici sostengono la superiorità degli strumenti fiscali nel contenere il consumo di droghe rispetto all’applicazione di una normativa proibizionista. In Italia il consumo di tabacchi ed alcolici è appunto scoraggiato tramite l’imposizione di una elevata tassazione. Questo lavoro stima quale sarebbe stata l’implicazione fiscale per l’erario nazionale se nel periodo 2000-05 il mercato delle droghe fosse stato regolato come quello dei tabacchi. Le nostre stime suggeriscono un beneficio fiscale annuale di quasi 10 miliardi euro (quasi 60 in totale). In particolare, l’erario risparmierebbe circa 2 miliardi all’anno di spese per l’applicazione della normativa proibizionista (polizia, magistratura, carceri), ed incasserebbe circa 8 miliardi all’anno dalle imposte sulle vendite (5,5 dalla sola cannabis). |
| Massimo Clerici # La comorbilità per disturbi mentali e uso di sostanze: evidenze dalla realtà italiana (PADDI - Psychiatric and Addictive Dual Diagnosis in Italy – Study) 5° Conferenza Nazionale sulle Politiche Antidroga - Roma, 15.09.2009 Ipotesi eziologiche • GENETIC MODEL: due separati rischi genetici nello stesso individuo • SECONDARY PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER MODEL: interazioni reciproche tra uso di sostanze e SMI (esordio, decorso, gravità, caratteristiche cliniche) • SELF-MEDICATION MODEL: l’uso di sostanze come strategia di coping utilizzata da individui con SMI, con preferenza di una sostanze sulla base di specificità psicofarmacologica • CONTESTO SOCIALE: disponibilità di sostanze, fattori demografici e locali culturali |
|
Pauline
Kenny, Amy Swan, Lynda Berends, Linda Jenner, Barbara
Hunter, Janette Mugavin | Turning Point Alcohol &
Drug Center ...Chapter 12: Benzodiazepine Withdrawl... In some settings, such as hospitals, psychiatric facilities, prisons and police watch-houses, individuals may experience an unplanned benzodiazepine withdrawal... The withdrawal syndrome for mono-dependent benzodiazepine users can vary from relatively mild to extremely uncomfortable or painful, however it is rarely life threatening. .. Withdrawal typically occurs within two days of ceasing short- cting benzodiazepines (e.g. oxazepam), and between two and ten days after ceasing long-acting benzodiazepines (e.g. diazepam). However, the onset of benzodiazepine withdrawal may be as late as three weeks after cessation of drugs with a long half-life. Withdrawal from benzodiazepines with a short half-life tends to be more severe than from benzodiazepines with a long half-life. Withdrawal is often protracted and may extend over a number of weeks or months. |
| Mark Deady |
Network of Alcohol & other Drug Agencies (NADA) # A Review of Screening, Assessment and Outcome Measures for Drug and Alcohol Settings www.ntcoss.org.au/ 2009 The Addiction Severity Index (ASI) is one of the most commonly used standardized assessment (rather than basic screening) instruments in the field of substance use disorders. The ASI is a 155-item multidimensional structured interview for assessing alcohol and drug dependence. It assesses frequency of drug and alcohol use as well as other psychosocial areas affected by substance use (e.g., a psychiatric subscale is included). The ASI consists of 7 sub-scales assessing past 30 day and lifetime alcohol use, drug use, medical problems, psychiatric problems, family/social problems, employment and legal problems. |
|
John Howard Society of Ontario |
| Brad Lundahl,
Brian L. Burke # The Effectiveness and Applicability of Motivational Interviewing: A Practice-Friendly Review of Four Meta-Analyses J of Clinical Psychology: In Session, Vol. 65(11), 1232--1245 (2009) Motivational interviewing MI is significantly (10–20%) more effective than no treatment and generally equal to other viable treatments for a wide variety of problems ranging from substance use (alcohol, marijuana, tobacco, and other drugs) to reducing risky behaviors and increasing client engagement in treatment. |
|
Wayne
Hall |
|
Federal
Bureau of Prisons | Clinical Practice Guidelines Substance use disorders pose a significant and expensive public health problem. Substance abuse affects not only the substance abusers and their families, but also society as a whole— through increases in crime, domestic violence, highway fatalities, incarceration, and health care costs. Any substance that alters perception, mood, or cognition can be abused. Commonly identified substances of abuse include illicit drugs, alcohol, and certain prescription drugs—which act through their hallucinogenic, stimulant, sedative, hypnotic, anxiolytic, or narcotic effects. Other less commonly recognized substances of abuse include medications with anticholinergic, antihistaminic, or stimulant effects, e.g., tricyclic antidepressants, antiparkinsonian agents, low potency antipsychotics, anti-emetics, and cold and allergy preparations. The development of dependency is related to the nature of the substance used, its route of use, the amount and frequency of use, the presence of co-morbid psychiatric disorders, and other biopsychosocial factors, as well as genetic and environmental factors. Approximately 15% of all regular users of substances develop substance dependence. |
| Amanda Atkinson,
Zara Anderson, Karen Hughes, Mark A Bellis, Harry
Sumnall and Qutub Syed # Interpersonal violence and illicit drugs www.who.int/ Centre for Public Health | Liverpool John Moores University, June 2009 The effects of some drugs, including crack/cocaine, amphetamines and benzodiazepines have been found to increase aggressive and violent behaviour. Whilst cannabis and heroin use can reduce the likelihood of violence during intoxication, some studies suggest that withdrawal from longterm. Individuals under the influence of benzodiazepines have been found to be more likely to act aggressively than non-intoxicated individuals. |
| Riccardo C. Gatti # Milano e le droghe. Analisi del fenomeno e nodi problematici Dipartimento Dipendenze A.S.L. Milano, 10.03.2009 |
|
Fabrizio
Leonardi Una
recente indagine sulla recidiva degli affidati in
prova al servizio sociale ha dimostrato gli effetti
positivi di quella misura alternativa alla detenzione
in termini di maggiore possibilità di reinserimento.
La ricerca mirava a verificare l’efficacia
dell’affidamento rispetto alla pena detentiva, con
riferimento al reinserimento sociale dei condannati.
Oggetto dello studio era rilevare quante persone, tra
coloro che avevano terminato nel 1998 l’affidamento in
prova al servizio sociale, avevano subito una condanna
per un reato commesso successivamente, anche senza che
fosse stata contestata loro la recidiva ai sensi
dell’articolo 99 del codice penale. La percentuale di
recidivi tra coloro che avevano beneficiato |
| Jan Copeland,
Amie Frewen, Kathryn Elkins # Management of cannabis use disorder and related issues. A clinician’s guide National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 2009 In 2007, of 17.2 million Australians aged 14 years or older, one in three (33.5%, about 5.8 million) had used cannabis at some point in their lives; almost one in ten (9.1%, 1.6 million) had used cannabis in the previous 12 months; and more than 600,000 (3.5%) had used it in the week before the survey (AIHW, 2008a). Higher rates are noted in particular subgroups. Amongst indigenous populations, for example, rates of weekly cannabis use of up to forty-five per cent have been reported. Higher rates are noted amongst young people also and amongst those with mental health diagnoses... |
| Donald J. Farole
Jr # Problem Solving and the American Bench: a National Survey of Trial Court Judges The Justice System Journal, Vol. 30, n. 1 (2009) This article presents the results of a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 trial court judges concerning the potential to apply specialized “problem- solving court” practices more broadly in conventional court settings. Specifically, we examine judges’ practices and perceptions related to problem solving in the courts. The survey results demonstrate broad support for problem-solving methods among trial court judges throughout the country— the vast majority holds attitudes consistent with key principles of problem-solving justice and expresses a willingness to employ problem-solving methods in various cases and court settings. Judges also identified a number of potential obstacles to the more widespread use of problem-solving methods. The survey results have implications for how judicial training and education efforts might proceed. |
|
R.
Andrew Sewell, James Poling, Mehmet Sofuoglu |
|
Adrian Carter, Wayne Hall, Ben Capps, Mark
Daglish | Ministerial
Council on Drug Strategy – Cost Shared Funding Model
project |
|
National
Partnership on Alcohol Misuse and Crime |
|
Sheldon
Silver |
|
Richard Muscat et des membres de la
plate-forme Recherche du Groupe Pompidou |
|
Ihra International Harm Reduction Association | Catherine Cook and Natalya Kanae # The Global State of
Harm Reduction 2008. Mapping the response to
drug-related HIV and hepatitis C epidemics |
| Pål Gjerden,
Jørgen G. Bramness, Lars Slørdal # The use and potential abuse of anticholinergic antiparkinson drugs in Norway: a pharmacoepidemiological study Br J Clin Pharmacol / 2008/ 67:2 / 228–233 Anticholinergic antiparkinson drugs were prescribed to 4.5% of all outpatients who used antipsychotic drugs. This outnumbered sales to patients with Parkinson’s disease by >20 to 1.We found indications of abuse of benzodiazepine tranquillizers among patients using antipsychotics, but there were no clear indications of abuse of anticholinergics, even among patients who were strongly suspected of abuse of benzodiazepines. |
|
Emmanuel Brillet |
| Dominique
Duprez | Assessing Deviance, Crime and Prevention in
Europe. Projet CRIMPREV # L'évolution des usage de drogues et des politique. De l'Europe aux Amériques Crimprev info n° 12 - 01 juillet 2008 C’est seulement après la Deuxième Guerre mondiale que la logique de la prohibition, telle qu’on la connaît mieux aujourd’hui, s’impose tout à fait. Des objectifs déclarés de santé publique vont alors trouver place aux côtés des enjeux commerciaux concernant les marchés et un modèle d’abstinence va progressivement se déployer dans diverses directions. Au niveau psychologique et médical, tout d’abord, se développe l’idée que l’on va « guérir » les usagers de drogues et envisager le soin et la thérapie sous cet angle. Cette ambition va s’ancrer différemment dans chaque pays, selon les considérations, les influences et les perspectives locales... |
|
Marijuana Policy Project |
|
Sharon Rödner Sznitman, Börje Olsson, Robin Room (eds) | European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction EMCDDA # A cannabis reader: global issues and local experiences www.emcdda.europa.eu/ Monograph series 8, Volume 1, Lisbon 2008 Little wonder that cannabis has become a controversial cultural and commercial phenomenon. Today,cannabis has a unique ability to divide opinion among policymakers, scientists, law enforcers, drugs professionals and consumers. This EMCDDA cannabis monograph addresses one basic question. How can I find quality information on cannabis, amid all the bias and opinion? During the editing of this monograph it soon became clear that the EMCDDA was entering an area crowded with general guides, even competing cannabis monographs. This is where the idea of a cannabis ‘reader’ emerged. Our audience — researchers, parliamentarians, drugs professionals, students, European citizens — is currently faced with an overload of professional publications. Added to this is the daily flood of information on the Internet, often crusading in nature, and sometimes misleading. This threatens to obscure the genuine progress made in cannabis research during the past two decades. |
|
Christine A. Saum, Matthew L. Hiller #
Should Violent
Offenders Be Excluded From Drug Court Participation?
An Examination of the Recidivism of Violent and
Nonviolent Drug Court Participants |
| Jessica De
Maeyer, Wouter Vanderplasschen, Eric Broekaert # Exploratory Study on Drug Users’ Perspectives on Quality of Life: More than Health-Related Quality of Life? www.reachout.be/ Soc Indic Res 2008 The most common themes that drug users related to a good QoL were personal relationships and social inclusion. Also people with psychological problems mention the positive influence of social support on their QoL. However, both groups frequently lack this kind of support. Isolation and social stigma may contribute to the fact that social inclusion is often difficult to achieve... |
|
Suprema
Corte di Cassazione - Sezione VI Penale |
|
United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime UNODC | World Health
Organization WHO Drug dependence is a preventable and treatable disease, and effective prevention and treatment interventions are available. The best results are achieved when a comprehensive multidisciplinary approach which includes diversified pharmacological and psychosocial interventions is available to respond to different needs. Even taking into account the requirements for the delivery of evidence–based treatment, its costs are much lower than the indirect costs caused by untreated drug dependence (prisons, unemployment, law enforcement, health consequences). |
| Icro Maremmani
(ed) | Europad # Heroin Addiction and Related Clinical Problems www.europad.org/ Vol. 10 • N. 1 • March 2008 Sexual Behaviour of Heroin Addicts in Treatment > Igna Brajević-Gizdić and Magda Pletikosa | First Experience of Opioid Therapy with Buprenorphine in Ukraine - Sergey Dvoryak and Irina Grishayeva | Administration of Nalbuphine to Heroin Addicts. Feasibility and Short-Term Effects > Michael Voronkov, Daria Ocheret, Svetlana Bondarenko, Yuriy Ivanov Yu, Sergey Koren | Evidence of Reliability and Validity of the Opiate Dosage Adequacy Scale (ODAS) in a Sample of Methadone Maintenance Patients > Francisco González-Saiz, Oscar Lozano Rojas, Rosario Ballesta Gómez, Izaskun Bilbao Acedos, Javier Galiana Martínez, Mª Angeles García Collantes, Antonio López Fernández, Serum Methadone Levels Study Group | Improvement in the Quality of Live in Heroin Addicts: Differences Between Methadone and Buprenorphine Treatment > Icro Maremmani, Pier Paolo Pani, Dina Popovic, Matteo Pacini,Joseph Deltito, Giulio Perugi | Methadone: A Fast and Powerful Anti-anxiety, Anti-depressant and Anti-psychotic Treatment > Jean-Jacques Déglon, Eva Wark | Explaining Agonist Treatment Through Movie Language: The Interesting Allegory of ‘Videodrome’ > Matteo Pacini |
|
Sandro Libianchi |
|
Sestante - Rivista scientifica a carattere divulgativo della rete dei servizi per le dipendenze patologiche in Area Vasta Romagna # I nodi tra consumi e dipendenze Sestante, gennaio 2008, n. 28 Articoli di Paolo Ugolini, Leopoldo Grosso, Patrizio Gonnella, Sandro Margara, Emanuela Fisoni, Maria Signorini, Angelo Fioritti, Stefano Costa, Emanuela Frisoni, barbara Bolacci, Roberta Fetti, Francesca Giovanetti, Maura Lanfri, Daniele Berto, Morena Tartari, Primo Pellegrini |
|
Glenn
D. Walters Archival data from structured interviews of 1193 male prison inmates were subjected to taxometric analysis to determine the latent structure of the alcohol use disorder construct. Methods: Analyses were performed using three taxometric procedures. The outcomes were based on three indicators: (1) DSM-IV alcohol dependence criteria 1 and 2 (tolerance/withdrawal), (2) DSM-IV alcohol dependence criteria 3, 4, and 5 and DSM-IV alcohol abuse criterion 3 (loss of control), and (3) DSM-IV alcohol dependence criteria 6 and 7 and DSM-IV alcohol abuse criteria 1, 2, and 4 (negative social/psychological consequences). There may be a taxonic boundary separating those who do and do not qualify for a diagnosis of alcohol dependence or abuse with important implications for diagnosis and treatment. |
| Carrie
Oser, Jennifer Havens, Michele Staton-Tindall, Conrad
Wong, Carl Leukefeld, Michael Prendergast # HIV Sexual Risk Behaviors among Ketamine and Non-Ketamine Using Criminal Offenders Prior to Prison Entry Addict Res Theory. 2008 ; 16(3): 289–302 The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between illicit ketamine use and engagement in high-risk sexual behaviors prior to incarceration among a sample of drug users undergoing prison-based drug abuse treatment in the United States. Drug using criminal offenders whose repertoire includes having ever used ketamine at least once in their lifetime will be defined as ‘ketamine users.’ It should be noted that while the extent and context of ketamine use is unknown, this study is a first step in understanding the association between ketamine use and unprotected sexual behaviors in a criminal offending population. |
| Marita
Broadstock, David Brinson, Adele Weston # The effectiveness of compulsory, residential treatment of chronic alcohol or drug addiction in non-offenders www.healthsac.net/ HSAC Report 2008; 1(1). Compulsory treatment has not been demonstrated to be superior to voluntary treatment in terms of reductions in criminal behaviour or substance misuse. However, in a review primarily of offender studies, note the consistent correlation between dependent drug use and criminal behaviour and conclude that compulsory treatment can sometimes be effective in reducing drug use and crime in some people, but the evidence base is weak. |
|
Peter D. Friedmann, Gerald Melnick, Lan Jiang, Zachary Hamilton #
Violent
and Disruptive Behavior among Drug-Involved
Prisoners: Relationship with Psychiatric Symptoms This study examines the relationship between psychiatric symptoms and violent/disruptive behavior among 192 inmates who participated in prison-based substance abuse treatment. Participants came from two sites able to provide narrative reports of disciplinary actions in the Criminal Justice Drug Abuse Treatment Studies’ Co-Occurring Disorders Screening Instrument study. In multivariate logistic models, a lifetime history of thought insertion/control ideation, antisocial personality disorder, and disciplinary action related to possession of controlled substances or contraband were associated with increased risk for violent or disruptive behavior while in prison, whereas lifetime phobic symptoms and high school graduation were associated with a decreased risk of violence and disruptive behavior in general. We conclude that, among inmates in substance abuse treatment, symptoms that increase risk for violence or disruptive behavior include thought control/insertion ideation and disciplinary infractions related to controlled substances, contraband, or failure to participate in assigned programs, as well a history of antisocial personality disorder. |
|
RKC
Group Roger Przybylski |
| Don Weatherburn,
Craig Jones, Lucy Snowball, Jiuzhao Hua # The NSW Drug Court: A re-evaluation of its effectiveness www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/ Crime and Justice Bulletin September 2008 Since its establishment in 1999, the NSW Drug Court has undergone significant change. Amongst other things, sanctions for non-compliance with program conditions have been made more flexible, participants are now given formal warnings if they fail to progress, police have a greater role in screening for eligibility and the threshold for program termination has been reduced. This report details the results of a study designed to compare reconviction rates amongst participants in the Drug Court program with reconviction rates amongst a (statistically matched) comparison group deemed eligible for the Drug Court Program but excluded either because they reside out of area or because they had been convicted of a violent offence. The results of the study confirm earlier research in showing that, controlling for other factors, participants in the NSW Drug Court were less likely to be reconvicted than offenders given conventional sanctions (mostly imprisonment). Compared with those in the Comparison Group, Drug Court participants in the present study were 17 per cent less likely to be reconvicted for any offence, 30 per cent less likely to be reconvicted for a violent offence and 38 per cent less likely to be reconvicted for a drug offence at any point during the follow-up period. |
| Sven Todts,
Philippe Glibert, Sara Van Malderen, Catherine Van
Huyck, Vinciane Saliez, Michaël Hogge # Usage de drogues dans les prisons belges: monitoring des risques sanitaires - 2008 Service des Soins de Santé Prisons | Direction Générale des Etablissements Pénitentiaires Les prisons belges se composent d’environ 95% de détenus de sexe masculin. Plus de la moitié sont condamnés, 1 sur 3 est détenu préventivement et est donc en attente d’un jugement, près de 10% sont internés. La majorité des détenus ont déjà subi une détention. Dans un tiers des cas, il s’agit d’une première incarcération. Néanmoins, la composition de la population carcérale belge semble être stable à travers les années, même si il est ici question d’un public varié. Cela signifie que la politique en matière de drogues ainsi que les initiatives qui sont prises doivent cibler ces différents groupes qui composent la population carcérale. Aussi bien les hommes que les femmes, les prévenus, les condamnés et les internés, ceux qui ont ou qui n’ont pas encore de passé carcéral peuvent être confrontés aux drogues ou même avoir un problème de drogue. |
| Vanessa
Pellegrino | Istituto MEME associato a Université
Européenne Jean Monnet A.I.S.B.L. Bruxelles # La differenziazione trattamentale per ragioni terapeutiche www.istituto-meme.it/ Anno Accademico 2007-2008 | Modena 08.06.2008 |
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Cittadinanzattiva – Tribunale per i diritti del malato
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Gian
Luigi Fontana |
| H.
Stöver, C. Weilandt, H. Zurhold, C. Hartwig, K. Thane # Final Report on Prevention, Treatment, and Harm Reduction Services in Prison, on Reintegration Services on Release from Prison and Methods to Monitor/Analyse Drug use among Prisoners http://ec.europa.eu/ april 2008 In this report, the term “prison” is used for all places of detention, no matter if the person is in police detention, pre-trial/remand prisons, or is already sentenced. 2.2.2. Drugs This report is focusing on illicit drug use and especially “problematic drug use use” (see next chapter) in prisons. 2.2.3. Problematic Drug Use Problematic drug use (PDU) is defined as “injecting drug use or long duration/regular use of heroin/cocaine and/or amphetamines” (EMCDDA 2006a). This definition can also include other opioids such as methadone. Furthermore, drug consumption is deemed to be problematic, if this behaviour is joined with other risk behaviour, causes damage to other persons or produces negative socials consequences (EMCDDA 2005) |
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DrugScope |
| Beau Kilmer # The Future of DIRECT Surveillance: Drug and alcohol use Information from REmote and Continuous Testing Journal of Drug Policy Analysis,vol. 1, 2008 It is now possible for probation officers to detect probationer alcohol use remotely and continuously. This essay describes three devices intended to collect Drug and alcohol use Information from REmote and Continuous Testing, or what I call DIRECT surveillance. It also highlights some of the major questions associated with the implementation, consequences, and future of DIRECT surveillance. While most of the focus is on alcohol use among probationers and parolees, the essay does discuss the use of these technologies in other settings, and for other drugs. It also addresses issues related to other types of electronic monitoring which can be used separately or in conjunction with DIRECT surveillance (e.g., GPS). |
|
Robyn
Robertson, Ward Vanlaar, Herb Simpson | The Traffic
Injury Research Foundation (TIRF) |
| Kenneth S.
Kendler, John Myers, Carol A. Prescott # Specificity of Genetic and Environmental Risk Factors for Symptoms of Cannabis, Cocaine, Alcohol, Caffeine, and Nicotine Dependence Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2007;64(11):1313-1320 The pattern of genetic and environmental risk factors for psychoactive substance dependence was similar in males and females. Genetic risk factors for dependence on common psychoactive substances cannot be explained by a single factor. Rather, 2 genetic factors— one predisposing largely to illicit drug dependence, the other primarily to licit drug dependence—are needed. Furthermore, a large proportion of the genetic influences on nicotine and particularly caffeine dependence appear to be specific to those substances |
|
United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crime - Vienna The overall use of imprisonment is rising throughout the world, while there is little evidence that its increasing use is improving public safety. There are now more than nine million prisoners worldwide and that number is growing. The reality is that the growing numbers of prisoners are leading to often severe overcrowding in prisons. This is resulting in prison conditions that breach United Nations and other standards that require that all prisoners be treated with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings. There are several important reasons for the primary focus to be upon alternatives that reduce the number of people in prison and for imprisonment to be used only as a last resort... |
| Peter Reuter,
Alex Stevens # An Analysis of UK Drug Policy A Monograph Prepared for the UK Drug Policy Commission http://kar.kent.ac.uk/ UK Drug Policy Commission, April 2007 The use of custodial sentences for drug offenders increased substantially between 1994 and 2005. The annual number of people imprisoned rose by 111% and the average length of their sentences increased by 29%. Taking into account the rise in the average sentence length (37 months for drug dealing in 2004), the courts handed out nearly three times as much prison time in 2004 as they did 10 years earlier. |
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Anke Stallwitz, Heino Stover # The
impact of substitution treatment in prisons — A
literature review |
|
Franco Corleone # Droghe, legge penale e carcere Numero speciale della rivista La Nuova Città, 2007 Giovanni Maria Flick, vicepresidente della Corte costituzionale e già ministro della Giustizia, in un testo del 1978 (“Droga e legge penale”, Giuffré Editore) poneva uno stringente interrogativo: «Vale veramente la pena di mobilitare un complesso apparato repressivo, aprendo ed esasperando problemi di non agevole soluzione, per affrontare situazioni di dubbio recupero [….]?». A distanza di trent’anni possiamo continuare a rispondere in modo negativo: la macchina repressiva, con le ingenti risorse a essa destinate, ha dimostrato per intero il proprio fallimento. Nonostante ciò, l’investimento per la lotta al narcotraffico, per quella war on drugs che in verità è più spesso una guerra ai consumatori, si è ingigantito. |
|
Peter Cohen |
|
Luigi Papi |
| Alejandro
A. Bevaqua # Benzodiazepinas y delito. Flunitrazepam: mal uso de una droga legal desde la perspectiva médico pericial Revista de la Asociacion Médica de Bahia Blanca, vol. 17, n. 2, Abril-Junio 2007 El (mal) uso de las benzodiazepinas por parte de algunos sujetos, concepto distinto al de abuso, es una situación frecuente en el ámbito carcelario. Esta genera especiales y gravísimos conflictos que pueden, y deben, ser minimizados por la simple restricción de la prescripción farmacológica si esta se ajusta a la evidencia científica (prescripción basada en la evidencia) y no a las demandas, muchas veces (in)justificadas de los mismos pacientes-reclusos. La búsqueda y obtención -por parte de ciertos sujetos portadores de una personalidad predisponente- de los efectos paradojales de las benzodiazepinas, particularmente flunitrazepam y clonazepam, constituye un dato de la realidad que no puede ser desconocido ni minimizado por el médico asistencial ni por el experto en Medicina Legal, precisamente por las implicancias éticas, morales, sociales y, sobre todo, jurídicas que este supone, ni debe ser desoída la palabra profesional por los máximos responsables de la institución penitenciaria... |
|
Mark Thornton |
| Zach Walsh,
Lindsay C. Allen, David S. Kosson # Beyond Social Deviance: Substance Use Disorders and the Dimensions of Psychopathy Journal of Personality Disorders: Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 273-288, 2007 High rates of comorbidity between psychopathy and substance use disorders (SUD) have long been recognized. However, the extent to which relationships between SUD and psychopathy extends beyond shared relationship with general antisociality remains undetermined. We examined zero-order and unique relationships between the elements of psychopathy and four categories of SUD; alcohol, cannabis, cocaine, and opioid dependence. |
|
Thomas Kerr,Nadia Fairbairn,
Mark Tyndall, David Marsh, Kathy Li, Julio
Montanera, Evan Wood Drug and Alcohol Dependence 87 (2007) 39–45 We found that non-fatal overdose was common among local IDU. Non-fatal overdose was associated with several factors that may be amenable to intervention, including opiate and stimulant use, and the characteristic of requiring help with injecting. These findings indicate the need for the ongoing development of structural interventions to address this common cause of morbidity among IDU. |
| David
Nutt, Leslie A King, William Saulsbury, Colin
Blakemore # Development of a rational scale to assess the harm of drugs of potential misuse Lancet 2007; 369: 1047–53 Drug misuse and abuse are major health problems. Harmful drugs are regulated according to classification systems that purport to relate to the harms and risks of each drug. However, the methodology and processes underlying classification systems are generally neither specified nor transparent, which reduces confidence in their accuracy and undermines health education messages. We developed and explored the feasibility of the use of a nine-category matrix of harm, with an expert delphic procedure, to assess the harms of a range of illicit drugs in an evidence-based fashion. We also included five legal drugs of misuse (alcohol, khat, solvents, alkylnitrites, and tobacco) and one that has since been classified (ketamine) for reference. The process proved practicable, and yielded roughly similar scores and rankings of drug harm when used by two separate groups of experts. The ranking of drugs produced by our assessment of harm differed from those used by current regulatory systems. Our methodology offers a systematic framework and process that could be used by national and international regulatory bodies to assess the harm of current and future drugs of abuse. |
|
Michael Farrell, John Marsden |
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Rosalie Liccardo Pacula, Beau Kilmer,
Michael Grossman, Frank J. Chaloupka | National
Bureau of Economic Research |
| Adrian Carter,
Wayne Hall # The Ethical Use of Psychosocially Assisted Pharmacological Treatments for Opioid Dependence www.who.int/ September 2007 The form of legal coercion that has become increasingly popular within the criminal justice system is the use of diversionary programs that offer opioid dependent persons treatment as an alternative to imprisonment at various stages in the criminal justice process. In the first instance, treatment may be offered as an alternative to being prosecuted with an offence prior to being charged by police. This is not an ideal method of coercion as it falls outside judicial oversight. It is possible that relying on the discretion of police may open the way for individuals being coerced into treatment for reasons other than criminal behaviour, such as odd or unconventional behaviour or being a member of an ethnic minority. |
|
Marilyn A. Huestis Cannabis is one of the oldest and most commonly abused drugs in the world, and its use is associated with pathological and behavioral toxicity. Thus, it is important to understand cannabinoid pharmacokinetics and the disposition of cannabinoids into biological fluids and tissues. Understanding the pharmacokinetics of a drug is essential to understanding the onset, magnitude, and duration of its pharmacodynamic effects, maximizing therapeutic and minimizing negative side effects... |
| Joanne Ross
(ed) # Illicit drug use in Australia: Epidemiology, use patterns and associated harm. National Drug & Alcohol Research Centre 2007 The prevalence of ASPD (Anti-Social Personality Disorder) among methadone maintenance patients has been specifically examined by Darke and colleagues who reported a prevalence of ASPD of 61%. In a comparative study of prison and community patients, the rates were 44% for community MM patients, and 65% among prison patients. It should not be assumed that because a heroin user meets the criteria for ASPD that they are “psychopathic”... |
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Alan Travis 20 Claims that a new 'super' skunk is 20 times stronger are demolished | 30% Most skunk on sale had been said to contain more than 30% THC | 550 The number of seized samples of skunk analysed in the two studies | 14% Average THC content in samples | 4% Only 4% of skunk seized had THC of over 20%, one study showed. |
| Christopher P.
Krebs, Christine H. Lindquist, Willem Koetse, Pamela
K. Lattimore # Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Drug Court Participation on Recidivism with Generalized Estimating Equations Drug Alcohol Depend. 2007 November 2; 91(1): 57–68 Drug courts are one of the most common strategies for dealing with the large proportion of criminal offenders who are drug-involved, yet methodological limitations limit the conclusions that can be drawn from many existing evaluations of their effectiveness. The current study examined the longterm impact of drug court participation compared to regular probation on the recidivism of 475 druginvolved offenders under supervision in Hillsborough County, Florida.The results indicate that participation in drug court was associated with a significant decrease in the likelihood of being arrested in the 12 to 18 months post-baseline time period. |
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Suprema Corte di Cassazione - Sezione VI
Penale |
|
Michael W. Finigan, Shannon M. Carey, Anton
Cox Overall, for the entire population of eligible offenders, the Drug Court significantly reduced the incidence and frequency of criminal recidivism for participants compared to offenders who did not participate. Including all offenders who were eligible for the Drug Court during the total 10year period, over 5 years from the Drug Court petition hearing, the incidence of re-arrest was reduced by nearly 30%. The Drug Court reduces the incidence of drug crimes substantially for up to 14 years after the petition hearing. |
|
Dean G. Kilpatrick, Heidi S. Resnick,
Kenneth J. Ruggiero, Lauren M. Conoscenti, Jenna
McCauley This study provides important information regarding the lifetime prevalence, past year prevalence, characteristics, and mental health impact of rape among adult women residing in United States households as well as among United States female college students. In addition to providing comparison data about the extent to which the prevalence, characteristics, and impact of forcible rape have changed among adult women in the U.S. population, the study also provides the first and most comprehensive national data on the prevalence, characteristics, and impact of drug and alcohol facilitated rape and incapacitated rape among U.S. adult women and U.S. college women. |
|
Drugs and Crime Prevention Committee |
Parliament of Victoria In the United States the abuse of prescription drugs including pain killers, stimulants, sedatives and tranquillisers has gone beyond the abuse levels of practically all illicit drugs, with the exception of cannabis. The abuse rate is higher than that of such drugs as MDMA (ecstasy), cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. The number of Americans who abuse controlled prescription drugs nearly doubled from 7.8 million to 15.1 million from 1992 to 2003… Although the observations quoted relate to North America, the Report stresses that abuse of prescription drugs is increasing to alarming proportions in many countries of the world and it requests: All governments alert their law enforcement and health authorities as to the rising trafficking and abuse of pharmaceutical products containing controlled substances. The Board also recommends providing adequate information to law enforcement and health authorities as well as to the general public on the risks and possible consequences of their abuse so as to ensure a realistic risk perception (International Narcotics Control Board 2007, p.2). |
|
Molina BS, Flory K, Hinshaw SP, Greiner AR,
Arnold LE, Swanson JM, Hechtman L, Jensen PS,
Vitiello B, Hoza B, Pelham WE, Elliott GR, Wells KC,
Abikoff HB, Gibbons RD, Marcus S, Conners CK,
Epstein JN, Greenhill LL, March JS, Newcorn JH,
Severe JB, Wigal T. To compare delinquent behavior and early substance use between the children in the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD (MTA; N = 487) and those in a local normative comparison group (n = 272) at 24 and 36 months postrandomization and to test whether these outcomes were predicted by the randomly assigned treatments and subsequent self-selected prescribed medications. Cause-and-effect relationships between medication treatment and delinquency are unclear; the absence of associations between medication treatment and substance use needs to be re-evaluated at older ages. Findings underscore the need for continuous monitoring of these outcomes as children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder enter adolescence. |
| Jody L.
Sindelar, Todd A. Olmstead, Jessica M. Peirce # Cost-effectiveness of prize-based contingency management in methadone maintenance treatment programs Addiction, September 2007 Aim—To determine if prize-based contingency management (CM), which has been shown to improve treatment outcomes over usual care (UC) alone, is cost-effective... Setting—Six methadone maintenance community clinics participating in the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network. Participants—Participants were recruited from six methadone maintenance community treatment programs. The study sample consisted of 388 participants: 190 in the UC condition and 198 in the CM condition... —By comparing this study to a companion study, we found that adding prize-based CM to usual care may be more cost-effective in methadone maintenance clinics than in counseling-based drug-free clinics. |
|
Observatoire français des drogues et des
toxicomanies OFDT | Ivana Obradovic, Jean-Noël
Marzo, Michel Rotily, Fadi Meroueh, Pierre-Yves
Robert, Bruno Vanrenterghem, Frédérique Seltz,
Patrick Vogt Les effets positifs des traitements de substitution aux opiacés (TSO), développés en France à partir des années 90, sont aujourd’hui largement reconnus : réduction significative de la morbidité, liée en particulier aux risques infectieux associés à l’usage de drogues par voie intraveineuse, recul des overdoses, diminution des pratiques de partage du matériel lié à l’injection. L’accès aux traitements de substitution s’accompagne aussi d’une amélioration du recours au système de soins... |
|
Michael Lukasiewicz, Bruno Falissard,
Laurent Michel, Xavier Neveu, Michel Reynaud,
Isabelle Gasquet Substance Abuse Treatment, Prevention, and
Policy 2007, 2:1 |
| Factsheet
Alcohol Concern’s information and statistical digest # Tackling alcohol misuse in prison: a window of opportunity or a lost opportunity? www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/ March 2007 Alcohol-related crime is a well-recognised problem in society and prison is an opportunity for prisoners to address both their offending behaviour in relation to alcohol and resolve health problems linked to their drinking. The introduction of the Prison Strategy does provide a framework in which to work with offenders and the HMCIP report comments on improvements in the provision of substance misuse services in prisons since the 2001-2002 Annual Report, particularly commending the introduction of the Prison Alcohol Strategy. |
|
Massimiliano Verga | C.I.R.S.D.I.G Centro
Interuniversitario per le ricerche sulla Sociologia
del Diritto e delle Istituzioni Giuridiche |
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Natalya M. Kogan, Raphael Mechoulam |
|
Grupo de Trabajo sobre salud mental en
prisión (GSMP): Sociedad Española de Sanidad
Penitenciaria (SESP) - Asociación Española de
Neuropsiquiatría (AEN) Datos recogidos en Catalunya por la Secretaria de Servicios Penitenciarios, Rehabilitación y Justicia Juvenil sobre el consumo de drogas de la población internada en centros penitenciarios (N=8259) nos muestran los consumos reflejados en la tabla siguiente: Cocaina 43% Hombres - 39% Mujeres | Heroina 33% Hombres - 36% Mujeres | Alcohol 25% Hombres - 19% Mujeres... Un alto porcentaje de reclusos presentan una comorbilidad psiquiátrica que asocia politoxicomanía junto a cuadros ansiosos y/o depresivos y es esencial identificar y tratar ambos cuadros. |
| Christopher
J. Mumola, Jennifer C. Karberg # Drug Use and Dependence, State and Federal Prisoners, 2004 Bureau of Justice Statistics - Special Report October 2006 1 in 4 violent offenders in prison committed their offenses under the influence of drugs Nearly three- quarters (72%) of drug offenders in State prison reported drug use in the month before their offense (table 4). Property offenders (64%) were more likely than violent and public-order offenders (50% of each) to have used drugs in the month before the offense. Burglary (68%), robbery and larceny (67% of both) offenders reported the highest levels of drug use in the month of the offense. Drug offenders (44%) were most likely to have committed their crimes while using drugs, followed by property offenders (39%). About a quarter of both violent (28%) and public-order (25%) offenders reported drug use at the time of their offense. Inmates serving time for sexual assault (17%) and aggravated assault (24%) were least likely to commit their crimes while under the influence of drugs |
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Department of Health # Clinical Management of Drug Dependence in the Adult Prison Setting London November 2006 Equivalence of treatment with community services necessitates that active clinical management of the effects of withdrawal symptoms is provided. Adjunctive treatment of symptoms should be regarded as part of active clinical management. Vomiting and diarrhoea should, therefore, be managed by effective prescribing of carefully monitored antiemetic and antidiarrhoeal medication, with transfer to an outside hospital if symptoms are not adequately controlled within 24 hours. Where there is a clear indication earlier than this that dehydration or other medical complications such as a diabetic crisis are developing, transfer to an outside hospital should be arranged immediately. Intractable vomiting associated with withdrawal has been fatal on occasions in prison... |
| Avril
Taylor, Jennifer Champion, Alex Fleming # The Role of Methadone Maintenance in Scottish Prisons: Prisoners’ Perspectives Scottish Prison Service | April 2006 The UK has one of the highest rates of problem opiate use in Europe with a prevalence of 6 cases per 1000 population (Kraus et al, 2003). After an injecting career of four years, 74% of injecting drug users (IDUs) will have been imprisoned at some time and IDUs not in some form of drug treatment are even more likely to be incarcerated than those who are in treatment (Farrell et al, 1994). In Scotland, 25% of prisoners test positive for drug misuse on arrival in custody and a recent study in HMP Shotts (Champion et al, 2004) reported that 15% of inmates injected drugs whilst incarcerated. In other Scottish prisons, between 27 and 35% of prisoners are IDUs and, of these, 28-67% inject in prison (Gore et al, 1999) Virtually all injecting in prison occurs with used injecting equipment shared among numerous partners (Taylor et al, 1995)... |
|
YiFeng Li, ChunHong Shao, Dandan Zhang,
Min Zhao, Ling Lin, Pengrong Yan, Yuying Xie,
Kaida Jiang, Li Jin |
|
House of Commons | Science and
Technology Committee Fifth Report of Session 2005–06 |
Report, together with formal minutes, oral and
written evidence | Ordered by The House of
Commons | www.publications.parliament.uk/ 18
July 2006 |
|
Steven Yannoulidis Recent work has highlighted the problem of amphetamine use in Queensland. In particular, concern has been expressed in relation to what has been described as a ‘disturbing trend’ towards the provision of exculpatory defences based on findings of ‘amphetamine-induced psychosis’. While the subject of a spate of cases before the then Queensland Mental Health Tribunal, instances of drug induced psychosis are not restricted to Queensland. |
| F.
Sahajian, P. Lamothe, J. Fabry # Consommation de substances psycho actives chez les personnes entrant en prison Santé publique 2006, volume 18, no 2, pp. 223-234 L’objectif de cette étude était de décrire la population des détenus entrant aux prisons de Lyon et d’estimer la proportion de sujets consommateurs de substances psycho actives, afin d’adapter la prise en charge psychologique qui leur est proposée dès l’incarcération. Durant l’entretien d’accueil en détention, un questionnaire était proposé à chaque entrant adulte masculin entre le 1er janvier et le 31 décembre 2003. L’âge moyen des entrants était de 31 ans : 68,5 % n’avaient pas d’activité professionnelle continue dans les 12 mois précédant l’incarcération et 52,8 % avaient déjà été incarcérés. Plus de 64,0 % des entrants déclaraient un usage régulier, abusif ou une dépendance au tabac, 16,5 % au cannabis, 16,1 % à l’alcool, 2,5 % aux médicaments psychotropes et 4,1 % aux autres drogues (héroïne, cocaïne, drogues de synthèse). Par ailleurs, 42,0 % des consommateurs à risque déclaraient l’usage d’au moins deux substances psycho actives. Ces résultats imposent un dépistage efficace de ces consommations dès l’entrée en détention afin de proposer aux détenus toxicomanes une prise en charge psychologique et/ou psychiatrique adaptée au milieu carcéral. |
|
Steven Belenko |
|
Daniela S.S. Lobo, James L. Kennedy #
The
Genetics of Gambling and Behavioral Addictions |
|
James A. Inciardi, Steven S. Martin,
Clifford A. Butzin, Ronald A. Beard, Daniel J.
O’Connell, Mandatory sentences for drug offenders have resulted in an estimated 60 to 80 percent of prison inmates who have substance abuse problems in both state and federal correctional systems... Although a variety of treatment approaches have been implemented with drug-involved criminal justice offenders, the one that has been most used and that has received the most attention from researchers is the therapeutic community (TC), modified for the prison environment. This article includes a description and evaluation of such programs that have been implemented in the Delaware correctional system, and that have achieved significant national attention and evidence of long-term success... |
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Icro Maremmani, Matteo Pacini, Pier
Paolo Pani |
|
Roland G. Fryer, Paul S. Heaton, Steven
D. Levitt, Kevin M. Murphy Absent a direct measure of crack cocaine’s prevalence, we construct an index based on a range of indirect proxies (cocaine arrests, cocaine-related emergency room visits, cocaine-induced drug deaths, crack mentions in newspapers, and DEA drug busts).Although our crack index remains high through the 1990s, the deleterious social impact of crack fades. One interpretation of this result is that changes over time in behavior, crack markets, and the crack using population mitigated the damaging impacts of crack. Our analysis suggests that the greatest social costs of crack have been associated with the prohibition-related violence, rather than drug use per se. |
| Seena
Fazel, Parveen Bains, Helen Doll # Substance abuse and dependence in prisoners: a systematic review Addiction, 101, 2006 The prevalence of substance abuse and dependence, although highly variable, is typically many orders of magnitude higher in prisoners than the general population, particularly for women with drug problems. This highlights the need for screening for substance abuse and dependence at reception into prison, effective treatment while in custody, and follow-up on release. Specialist addiction services for prisoners have the potential to make a considerable impact... |
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Corte di Cassazione, Sezione I Penale # Sentenza 28 marzo 2006 (dep. 10 aprile 2006), n.12638/2006 |
|
Carlo Alberto Zaina |
| Mohamed Ben
Amar # Cannabinoids in medicine: A review of their therapeutic potential Journal of Ethnopharmacology 105 (2006) 1–25 The progress achieved over the past 15 years in understanding the action mechanisms of THC and other cannabinoids has revived the therapeutic interest in these substances. The relaxation of the regulatory norms for therapeutic cannabis and the accomplishment of a greater number of controlled clinical trials make it possible to affirm that cannabinoids exhibit an interesting therapeutic potential as antiemetics, appetite stimulants in debilitating diseases (cancer and AIDS), analgesics, as well as in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, Tourette’s syndrome, epilepsy and glaucoma. |
|
Roger H. Peters, Harry K. Wexler | U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services | Public
Health Service | Substance Abuse and Mental
Health Services Administration | Center for
Substance Abuse Treatment Treatment Improvement Protocols (TIPs), developed by the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), are best-practice guidelines for the treatment of substance use disorders. CSAT draws on the experience and knowledge of clinical, research, and administrative experts to produce the TIPs, which are distributed to facilities and individuals across the country. The audience for the TIPs is expanding beyond public and private treatment facilities to include practitioners in mental health, criminal justice, primary care, and other healthcare and social service settings. |
| Heather
Ashton # The diagnosis and management of benzodiazepine dependence Current Opinion in Psychiatry 2005, 18 Recent literature shows that benzodiazepines have all the characteristics of drugs of dependence and that they are inappropriately prescribed for many patients, including those with physical and psychiatric problems, elderly residents of care homes and those with comorbid alcohol and substance abuse... Benzodiazepine dependence could be prevented by adherence to recommendations for short-term prescribing (2–4 weeks only when possible). Withdrawal of benzodiazepines from dependent patients is feasible and need not be traumatic if judiciously, and often individually, managed. |
|
Leslie King, Chloé Carpentier, Paul
Griffiths Addiction (Society for the Study of
Addiction) 2005 |
|
Dipartimento dell'Amministrazione
Penitenziaria. Ufficio Studi, Ricerche,
Legislazione e Rapporti Internazionali |
|
C. West Huddleston III |
|
Lester Grinspoon, |
|
Annette Verster, Ernst Buning Brenorfina... Si è dimostrato un farmaco sicuro, efficace dal punto di vista della ritenzione in trattamento e al fine di prevenire il ricorso a oppiacei illegali, anche se non in maniera più efficace del metadone. Sembra esservi un’evidenza scientifica più consistente per un suo utilizzo nel trattamento dell’astinenza che non per il trattamento di mantenimento... |
|
James Austin |
|
Roland G. Fryer, Paul S. Heaton, Steven
D. Levitt, Kevin M. Murphy |
|
Alex Stevens, Mike Trace, Dave
Bewley-Taylor |
| Paddi
Study - Psychiatric and Addictive Dual Disorders
in Italy (Resp. Massimo Clerici) # Studio epidemiologico sulla comorbilità tra disturbi mentali e disturbi correlati all'uso di sostanze (droghe e/o alcool) nei Dipartimenti di Salute Mentale (DSM) italiani Anno 2005 La pratica assistenziale svolta nell'ambito delle problematiche di tossicodipendenza ha evidenziato, a livello internazionale, la rilevanza del fenomeno della "doppia diagnosi", altresì identificata come comorbilità tra disturbi correlati all'uso di sostanze e altri disturbi mentali... In Italia, nonostante l'organizzazione dei Servizi per le Tossicodipendenze prima, e dei Servizi per le Dipendenze (SerD) poi, abbia fatto riferimento, negli anni, ad un assetto normativo autonomo e separato dalla psichiatria, proprio recentemente il fatto della comorbilità si è rivelato sempre più pressante su entrambi i versanti trovandosi a impegnare ora i SerD, sulla base dell'identificazione e del riconoscimento di nuove esigenze terapeutico-assistenziali, ora i DSM sulla base dell'accesso di utenze fino a quel momento decisamente misconosciute... |
|
Progetto “Double Spiral” |
| Perry
N. Halkitis, Kelly A. Green, and Paris Mourgues # Longitudinal Investigation of Methamphetamine Use Among Gay and Bisexual Men in New York City: Findings from Project BUMPS Journal of Urban Health: Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, Vol. 82, No. 1, Supplement 1, 2005 In recent years, methamphetamine has become a drug more commonly used among gay and bisexual men in New York City. Part of a longitudinal investigation of drug abuse in this population involved assessing the patterns and context of methamphetamine use during the course of 1 year. Findings indicate that among self-identified club-drug–using men, methamphetamine is widely used by men across age groups, educational level, race/ethnicity, and HIV status. Participants reported use of methamphetamine in combination with numerous other illicit and prescribed substances and in a variety of contexts outside the “club scene.” Reasons for and contexts of use are related to HIV status, with HIV- positive men indicating a greater likelihood of use to avoid conflict, unpleasant emotions, and social pressures, and reporting higher levels of use in enviroments such as bathhouses and “sex parties.” These patterns and relationships are consistent across time and suggest a complex interaction between person level factors, environmental factors, and HIV. Findings indicate that treatment of methamphetamine addiction among gay and bisexual men must take into account the complex interrelationships between mental health, drug use, sexual risk taking, and HIV. |
|
Clarissa Penfold, Paul J. Turnbull,
Russell Webster | Institute for Criminal Policy
Research |
| Amanda B.
Cissner, Michael Rempel | Center for Court
Innovation # The State of Drug Court Research. Moving Beyond ‘Do They Work?’ www.courtinnovation.org/ 2005 When the Miami Drug Court opened its doors in 1989, it launched a dramatic shift in how courts respond to the criminal behavior of drug-addicted defendants... Their vast potential has led to a stunning national expansion—over 1,300 drug courts in early 2005, less than 15 years after the Miami program enrolled its first defendant. To test their performance, early drug court evaluations primarily focused on the bottom line: did they work? |
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Daniele Berto, Morena Tartari, Barbara
Tabacchi, Gilberto Gerra, Giovanni Tamburino |
|
World Health Organization WHO Europe # Status
Paper on Prisons, Drugs and Harm Reduction All prisons and prison systems are therefore recommended to be able: • to accept the importance of information and understanding about the harmful consequences of inappropriate drug use as part of an approach based on public health and human rights, even if this means acknowledging the limitations in depending on an official enforcement of total abstinence; • to receive newly admitted drug-dependent prisoners with understanding of their needs, support for their immediate problems and knowledge of what can be provided in the prison for them; • to provide what is required so that prison staff could ensure that all prisoners are given basic knowledge relating to HIV/AIDS and other bloodborne diseases and how they spread; • to provide clinical management of drug-dependent prisoners at a standard in prisons equivalent to that in the local community; • to ensure that adequate information and guidance are provided at the pre-release stage; and • to provide follow-through care with links to community services, which is important for all prisoners with health problems but is essential for those dependent on drugs.... |
|
Rakesh Lal (ed.) |
|
Gary S. Becker, Kevin M. Murphy, Michael
Grossman |
| World
Health Organization WHO # Neuroscience of Psychoactive Substance Use and Dependence World Health Organization 2004 Substance dependence is a complex disorder with biological mechanisms affecting the brain and its capacity to control substance use. It is not only determined by biological and genetic factors, but psychological, social, cultural and environmental factors as well. Currently, there are no means of identifying those who will become dependent - either before or after they start using drugs... Investments in neuroscience research must continue and expand to include investments in social science, prevention, treatment and policy research. The reduction in the burden from substance use and related disorders must rely on evidence-based policies and programmes which are the result of research and its application. |
|
Consiglio dell'Unione Europea |
|
Stephanie Hartwell |
| RAND
Drug Policy Research Center # Evaluating Substance Abuse Treatment Programs for Adolescent Probationers www.rand.org/ 2004 The RAND researchers compared the substance abuse, psychological functioning, and criminal activity of 175 adolescent probationers 13 to 17 years of age who received treatment at the Phoenix Academy with those of 274 adolescents who received some other disposition of their case (e.g., supervised release, detention, camp placement, or placement at a long-term residential group home that, unlike Phoenix Academy, does not specialize in substance abuse treatmen |
| Office of
National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) # Marijuana Myths & Facts: The Truth Behind 10 Popular Misperceptions www.ncjrs.gov/ November 2004. This report looks at 10 popular misperceptions about marijuana and, using the latest research findings and statistical information, explains why they are wrong. Describes the dangers of marijuana and why it is important for society to send a clear, consistent, credible message to young people about the seriousness of the threat . Marijuana is the most widely used illicit drug in the United States. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (formerly called the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse), 95 million Americans age 12 and older have tried “pot” at least once, and three out of every four illicit drug users reported using marijuana within the previous 30 days. |
|
Dominique Lopez, Hélène Martineau,
Christophe Palle | Observatoire français des drogues
et des toxicomanies OFDT |
|
Ivana Obradovic Les mesures d'aménagement de peine sont particulièrement pertinentes pour les personnes ayant un problème de consommation abusive ou de dépendance. Elles permettent à l’autorité judiciaire d’individualiser le régime d’exécution de la peine en fonction des besoins de la personne condamnée et de son parcours pénal. De ce fait, elles dynamisent les parcours individuels en fixant un rendez-vous judiciaire au condamné détenu. Elles préparent également son retour à la liberté dans un cadre structuré. |
| Ilyana
Kuziemko, Steven D. Levitt # An empirical analysis of imprisoning drug offenders Journal of Public Economics 88 (2004) 2043 – 2066 The remainder of the paper focuses on how increased punishment for drug offenses affects other crime rates. We first show that, on the margin, locking up a drug offender reduces violent and property crime almost as much as incarcerating other types of criminals (although our estimates are not very precise). If the rise in drug imprisonment represented a true increase in the prison population, then our results imply that violent and property crime might be as much as 2– 5% lower today (relative to a counterfactual maintaining 1980 drug incarceration rates) as a consequence of tougher drug punishments. That estimate is likely to overstate the true impact on crime, however, because the supply of prison cells is not perfectly elastic. |
|
Eric J. Miller |
|
Sheryl Pimlott Kubiak |
| Bureau
of Justice Statistics| Matthew R. Durose, Christopher
J. Mumola # Profile of Nonviolent Offenders Exiting State Prisons www.bjs.gov | October 2004 This report provides a description of the general characteristics of prison populations serving time for nonviolent crimes as they exit State prisons. Nonviolent crimes are defined as property, drug, and public order offenses which do not involve a threat of harm or an actual attack upon a victim. Typically, the most frequently identified nonviolent crimes involve drug trafficking, drug possession, burglary, and larceny... About 3 out of 4 inmates leaving State prisons had been convicted of a nonviolent crime. Property offenders and drug offenders each accounted for about a third of those exiting prisons. • The single largest offense category of nonviolent offenders discharged from prisons was drug trafficking, accounting for nearly 1 in 5 nonviolent releasees... |
|
Wilson M. Compton, Bridget F. Grant, James
D. Colliver, Meyer D. Glantz, Frederick S. Stinson |
| Laura
McNicholas | U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services # Clinical Guidelines for the Use of Buprenorphine in the Treatment of Opioid Addiction http://buprenorphine.samhsa.gov/ 2004 As a general rule, to be considered for buprenorphine maintenance, patients should have a diagnosis of opioid dependence, as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR). This diagnosis is based not merely on physical dependence on opioids but rather on opioid addiction with compulsive use despite harm. |
|
Lisa M. Dennis, Thomas L. Hafemeister #
Detained
Juvenile Offenders with Substance Abuse Treatment
Needs: An Examination of Associated Legal Issues |
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Doug McVay, Vincent Schiraldi, Jason
Ziedenberg |
|
Margaret A. Waller, Scott K. Okamoto, Bart
W. Miles, Donna E. Hurdle Thirty-two Native middle school students participated in 10 focus groups that explored their experiences with alcohol and drugs in their school and reservation communities. The findings indicate a complex interaction of both risk and protective factors related to substance use. Respondents cousins and siblings, in particular, played a key role in their decisions to use or resist drugs. |
|
Laboratory and Scientific Section United
Nations Office on Drugs and Crim |
| Stewart B.
Leavitt # Methadone Dosing & Safety in the Treatment of Opioid Addiction http://atforum.com/ Addiction Treatment Forum, September 2003 Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) has a long history of effectiveness and safety as a therapy for opioid addiction. However, since it is a highly potent drug, methadone’s improper prescription and/or its misuse can be harmful or even fatal. |
|
Zhiwei Zhang |
|
Giuseppe Carrà, Massimo Clerici |
|
Jeffrey A. Miron |
| John Roman,
Wendy Townsend, Avinash Singh Bhati | Urban Institute
and Caliber Associates # Recidivism Rates for Drug Court Graduates: Nationally Based Estimates, Final Report www.ncjrs.gov/ July 2003 The youngest cohort was significantly more likely to be re-arrested with a serious offense more times than the reference group in both follow-up periods. Women were re-arrested with a serious offense significantly fewer times in both follow-up periods. However, in terms of the number of re- arrests, Blacks were not more likely to be re-arrested more times than nonBlack minorities with a serious offense. Whites were re-arrested significantly fewer time with serious offenses than non-Black minorities in the first year after graduation. The size of the annual graduating drug court cohort was associated with significantly more arrests with a serious offense only in the first year after graduation. Finally, it is interesting to note than the cohort of graduates aged 36-42 were arrested with a serious offense significantly fewer times in the first year after graduation... |
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Shelley Johnson Listwan, Jody L. Sundt,
Alexander M. Holsinger, Edward J. Latessa |
|
Luigi M. Solivetti |
|
D. Borrey, E. Meyer, L. Duchateau, W.
Lambert, C. Van Peteghem, A. P. De Leenheer This study evaluates the suitability of gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) analysis to follow-up the extent of benzodiazepine (mis)use in a Belgian prison population and compares it to other analytical strategies (e.g. screening followed by confirmation of the positive samples). Immunoassay results yield an underestimation of the problem of benzodiazepine (mis)use in prison due to the high false negative rate. GC-MS analysis of all samples therefore is the recommended strategy for this type of longitudinal study as it yields more correct and detailed information than the immunoassay results. |
| Comitato
Nazionale per la Bioetica # Il tabagismo Presidenza del Consiglio dei Ministri Dipartimento per l'informazione e l'editoria - 21 marzo 2003 Il tabagismo appartiene, per la sua estensione e per la gravità dei danni alla salute che comporta, ai grandi problemi con i quali la società moderna è chiamata a confrontarsi. Solleva, inoltre, alcuni pesanti interrogativi etici, con particolare riguardo alle responsabilità primarie dei governanti nei confronti dei cittadini. Il fenomeno coinvolge oltre un miliardo di persone, trecento milioni delle quali vivono in Occidente, più di dieci in Italia. Il consumo di tabacco è complessivamente in diminuzione nei paesi ricchi, ma mostra una preoccupante tendenza in senso opposto sia nelle nuove generazioni sia nel sesso femminile. È in decisa crescita, inoltre, nei paesi in via di sviluppo. Il fatturato delle multinazionali che producono sigarette è circa 60 volte superiore al bilancio dell’Organizzazione Mondiale della Sanità. |
|
Fiona Shand, Jennifer Gates, Julia Fawcett,
Richard Mattick |
| Vincenzo
Donnarumma # L'affidamento in prova del tossicodipendente e dell’alcooldipendente www.altalex.com/ 08.07.2003 La scelta di politica criminale del legislatore, di equiparare il tossicodipendente e l’alcoldipendente, ha suscitato non poche polemiche: originariamente il D.L. 22 aprile 1985 n.144 riguardava solo il tossicodipendente e non l’alcoldipendente[11], ma per ragioni di equità, prima la legge Gozzini, con l’art.47 bis, poi il DPR. 309/90 con l’art.94, hanno sancito l’equiparazione di tali stati di dipendenza ai fini dell’affidamento in prova. La discussione circa l’equiparazione ai fini dell’affidamento trae origine, inoltre dalla precedente contestata equiparazione prevista dal codice penale in relazione all’imputabilità del tossicodipendente e dell’alcoldipendente. |
|
Simon Garfield |
| Peter N.S.
Hoaken, Sherry H. Stewart # Drugs of abuse and the elicitation of human aggressive behavior Addictive Behaviors 28 (2003) Is there a relationship between drugs and aggression? Clearly, the answer is a resounding yes. However, just as clearly, the nature of the relationship is interactional and multifactorial and moreover different for different classes of drug. Moreover, some drugs, at different doses, have paradoxical effects. While there are drugs that undeniably lead to heightened aggression (alcohol), there are others whose reputation for eliciting violence seems unwarranted (PCP). The one thing that can be said unequivocally about the drug–aggression relationship: We do not know enough about it... |
|
C. Heather Ashton | School of Neurosciences
- Division of Psychiatry |
| Carol Paton # Benzodiazepines and disinhibition: a review Psychiatric Bulletin (2002) Some psychiatric disorders are associated with pathological anger and aggression. These include psychotic disorders, depression, bipolar disorder and various personality disorders. Benzodiazepines have been widely used in the management of this behavioural disturbance. However, no single drug produces totally predictable sedation in all patients and a paradoxical increase in hostility and aggression can occur after the administration of benzodiazepines. This is obviously problematic when the benzodiazepine is administered to control behavioural disturbance. So, how common is this adverse effect, who is at risk and why? |
|
European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and
Drug Addiction EMCDDA |
|
Kenneth B. Nunn |
|
Jaak Panksepp, Brian Knutson, Jeff Burgdorf |
|
Leonard Saxe, Charles Kadushin, Andrew
Beveridge, David Livert, Elizabeth Tighe, David
Rindskopf, Julie Ford, Archie Brodsky |
| Leo E.
Hollister # Marijuana (Cannabis) as Medicine Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, Vol. 1(1) 2001 The modern published literature on the therapeutic potentials of cannabis has been reviewed. A pure preparation of the major active component, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), Marinol or dronabinol, is available for treating nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy and as an adjunct to weight loss in patients with wasting syndrome associated with AIDS. Although such approval currently applies only to orally administered THC, for practical purposes smoked marijuana should also be expected to be equally effective. Promising leads, although often fragile, suggest possible uses for treating chronic pain syndromes, neurological disease with spasticity and other causes of weight loss. These possible indications require more study. |
| John S.
Goldkamp, Michael D. White, Jennifer B. Robinson # Do Drug Courts Work? Getting inside the Drug Court Black Box Journal of Drug Issues 2001 31: 27 Although a consistent and strong drug court effect producing lower rearrest rates in every time period across the two sites was not found, attempts to explain the effects by controlling for factors external or prior to the influence of the drug court treatment process itself could not eliminate the effect systematically. We conclude from this analysis that a) under certain circumstances drug courts can deliver the advertised crime-reduction effect, b) “outside” factors account for some of the variation in their impact over time, and c) variation in the remainder of the drug court effect must, then, be explained by factors internal to the drug court. |
|
Institut National de la santé et de la
recherche medicale La Mission interministérielle de lutte contre la drogue et la toxicomanie (MILDT) a souhaité disposer d’un bilan des connaissances disponibles sur les effets sur le comportement et la santé de l’usage de cannabis, à partir d’une analyse exhaustive de la littérature, et a demandé à l’Inserm de conduire ce travail à travers la procédure d’expertise collective. Pour répondre à cette demande, l’Inserm a réuni un groupe pluridisciplinaire d’experts scientifiques dans les domaines de l’épidémiologie descriptive et analytique, de la sociologie, de la biologie et de la neurobiologie, de la toxicologie, de la neuropharmacologie et de la clinique (psychiatres cliniciens ou généraliste). |
| Rosalie
Liccardo Pacula, Michael Grossman, Frank J. Chaloupka,
Patrick M. O'Malley, Lloyd D. Johnston, Matthew C.
Farrelly # Marijuana and Youth, in Jonathan Gruber (ed), Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis www.nber.org/ January 2001 |
| Daniel Kübler # Understanding policy change with the advocacy coalition framework: an application to Swiss drug policy Journal of European Public Policy 8:4 August 2001 Over the last two decades, Swiss drug policy has moved away from a prohibitionist to a ‘harm reduction’ model. This article uses the advocacy coalition framework (ACF) to understand this process of policy change, drawing on social movement theory to overcome shortcomings of the ACF regarding collective action. We argue that recent history in the ?eld of drug policy in Switzerland can plausibly be presented as a competition between coalitions advocating belief systems regarding problems and policy. The Aids epidemic is considered a crucial non- cognitive event helping the harm reduction coalition to overthrow the hegemonic abstinence coalition. |
|
Luigi M. Solivetti |
|
Ministero della Sanità # Linee Guida sulla Riduzione del danno Novembre 2000 Carcere: nella storia del tossicodipendente rappresenta una tappa usuale, ma non sfruttata quale momento valutativo e luogo terapeutico di particolare utilità, date le caratteristiche intrinseche della struttura. |
|
Vincent Schiraldi, Barry Holman, Philip
Beatty |
|
A. Thomas McLellan, David C. Lewis, Charles
P. O’Brien, Herbert D. Kleber |
|
Martin Killias, Marcelo F. Aebi #
The
impact of heroin prescription on heroin markets in
Switzerland |
|
Shelley Johnson, Dana Jones Hubbard, Edward
J. Latessa |
|
Jeffrey A. Miron |
|
Peter R. Breggin |
| Michael
Grossman, Frank J. Chaloupka, Charles C. Brown # The Demand for Cocaine by Young Adults: a Rational Addiction Approach National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1996 |
|
L. Janiri, G. Gobbi La dipendenza da BDZ, secondo il DSM-1V è caratterizzata da aspetti biologici, quali l’insorgenza della tolleranza, del rebound sintomatologico alla sospensione e/o della sindrome d’astinenza, e da aspetti psicosociali, quali il desiderio persistente della sostanza (craving), l’interruzione, riduzione o compromissione di attività sociali e lavorative, l’uso continuativo della sostanza nonostante la presenza di disturbi psicofisici e di complicanze che lo controindicano. Laux e Puryear (1984) valutando numerose casistiche hanno distinto tre tipi di dipendenza da BDZ: 1) primaria da alti dosaggi (dosi da 5 volte maggiori di quelle terapeutiche); 2) primaria da bassi dosaggi (terapeutici); 3) secondaria (nell’abuso di più farmaci, in particolare associata all’alcoldipendenza)... |
|
C. Peter Rydell, Susan S. Everingham |
| Bureau of
Justice Statistics # Drugs, Crime, and the Justice System. A National Report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics www.bjs.gov/ December 1992 |
|
John DiNardo, Thomas Lemieux |
|
Giuseppe Ayala #
Droga
legale, cosche ko Giuseppe Ayala: la proposta di Claudio Martelli costringerebbe i clan a cambiare attivita' . ma prima di ogni mossa e' necessario un accordo internazionale sul tema. dichiarazioni di Adriano Bompiani, Marco Taradash, Raffaele Morelli, Umberto Bossi e don Ciotti... Infliggeremmo un duro colpo alla mafia, quanto duro dipende dall' ampiezza del mercato in cui si legalizzerà", dice l' ex magistrato del pool antimafia con Falcone e Borsellino, Giuseppe Ayala, deputato del Partito repubblicano. "Con la legalizzazione - aggiunge Ayala - la mafia resterebbe sul mercato solo in maniera molto marginale...". |
| Diane
Blais, Louise Petit # Benzodiazepines : dependance et approche therapeutique pour un retrait graduel Can Fam Physician 1987; 33:2545- 2548 The extensive use of benzodiazepines in treating anxiety and insomnia makes clinicians ask themselves about the risk of addiction relating to these drugs. Indeed, it is estimated that in Canada, the United-States, and Western Europe, between 10% and 20% of persons use tranquilizers or hypnotics (mostly benzodiazepines) during a one-year period. Of these persons 70% are 50 years of age or more. It has been noted that 15% of those persons have been using these drugs for more than 12 months. In 1980, Tyrer reported that 50% of the patients who receive a prescription for benzodiazepines renew that prescription without consulting their physician. In this article, the authors briefly review the dependency, risk factors and clinical signs resulting from withdrawal of these drugs. They also define a rational therapeutic approach to discontinuing their use. |
|
- C’è da non crederci.
Iniettano odio nelle vene. Fabbricano mostri, là
dentro. |