Tag: fentanyl

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West Midlands rapper’s ‘County Lines’ drug gang triggering drug deaths spike with deadly additives

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From the Ross-shire Journal, yesterday: County Lines drug gangs reach as far north as Alness, police confirm. THE Highlands are grappling with the grim reality of so-called County Lines drug operations, with 10 separate gangs exploiting vulnerable individuals in its capital city. Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands Division has identified the growing footprint of organised crime over the past 18 months, with devastating consequences for the community. The criminal networks behind County Lines originate in major cities like Liverpool, London, and the West Midlands, and use a combination of coercion, exploitation, and violence to tighten their grip on the drug trade. … Continue reading West Midlands rapper’s ‘County Lines’ drug gang triggering drug deaths spike with deadly additives

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English newspaper looks 10 000 miles south to report opioid crisis in Australia but fails to notice a solution launched THIRTEEN years ago just 400 miles to the north

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By Professor John Robertson OBA The Guardian today has: Australian demand for overdose drug naloxone more than doubles after spike in synthetic opioid deaths but no mention of Scotland in the report. Why might it have? This: Scotland was the first country in the world [2011] to introduce a national naloxone programme, empowering individuals, families, friends and communities to reverse an opiate overdose. https://www.gov.scot/policies/alcohol-and-drugs/naloxone-provision/#:~:text=Scotland%20was%20the%20first%20country,years%20from%202011%20to%202016. From Public Health Scotland in August 2021: Since the establishment of the National Naloxone Programme in 2011/12:• 74,629 THN kits have been issued by services based in the community.• 8,793 THN kits have been issued by prisons … Continue reading English newspaper looks 10 000 miles south to report opioid crisis in Australia but fails to notice a solution launched THIRTEEN years ago just 400 miles to the north

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Unique SNP drug death prevention scheme reduces load on hospitals for 4th quarter in a row and down by one third in only one year

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By Professor John Robertson Why is the above happening? In major part for this reason: After a pilot phase ending in 2018, the Scottish Government began to embed Naloxone opioid overdose reversal kits across NHS Scotland. Shortly after, the kits which can be administered by anyone, were adopted by Police Scotland, ambulances and prisons, and made available to libraries, community centres, taxi drivers and to the friends and relatives of users. Scotland was the first country in the world to introduce a national naloxone programme, empowering individuals, families, friends and communities to reverse an opiate overdose. Anyone in Scotland can … Continue reading Unique SNP drug death prevention scheme reduces load on hospitals for 4th quarter in a row and down by one third in only one year

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England follows Scotland’s world-leading life-saving overdose drug programme after three years of delay

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By stewartb On the UK and Health pages of The BBC News website this morning (14 May): ‘Life-saving overdose drug to be given without prescription’. It’s about extending of availability in England of naloxone, the drug given in an emergency to those at risk of death from an opioid overdose. The same story featured in news bulletins throughout Radio 4’s Today programme. Much praise for the UK government in taking this decision! No mention of Scotland’s world first in making naloxone widely available for emergency use. The Scottish Programme reported on TuS: Scotland was the first country in the world to implement … Continue reading England follows Scotland’s world-leading life-saving overdose drug programme after three years of delay

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Increased supply of SNP’s world-leading opioid overdose reversal kits saving lives and reducing hospital admissions

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By Professor John Robertson From Public Health Scotland today: During 2023/24 Quarter 2 (1 July 2023 to 30 September 2023): At the end of 2023/24 Quarter 2, the ‘reach’ of the NNP (percentage of people at risk of opioid overdose who have been supplied with THN) was estimated to be 73.2%, an increase of 1.5 percentage points compared to 2023/24 Quarter 1 (71.7%). https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/national-naloxone-programme-scotland-quarterly-monitoring-bulletin/national-naloxone-programme-scotland-quarterly-monitoring-bulletin-july-to-september-q2-202324/ This positive news on the use of the opioid overdose reversal drug Naloxone, a world-first for the Scottish Government, comes on top of previous, uncovered by the media, news on a massive fall in drug-related hospital admissions, … Continue reading Increased supply of SNP’s world-leading opioid overdose reversal kits saving lives and reducing hospital admissions

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SNP drug death prevention programme leading to massive fall in ambulance call-outs and hospital admissions

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Opiates and opioids, including heroin, morphine and methadone, are implicated in more than 8 out of 10 drug related deaths in Scotland. The picture is the same globally. Naloxone is a medication designed to rapidly reverse opioid overdose. It is an opioid antagonist—meaning that it binds to opioid receptors and can reverse and block the effects of other opioids, such as heroin, morphine, and oxycodone. Scotland was the first country in the world, in 2021, to implement a national naloxone programme, which saw take-home naloxone (THN) given to those released from prison and distributed to community drug services. Naloxone provision has since been … Continue reading SNP drug death prevention programme leading to massive fall in ambulance call-outs and hospital admissions