-
An Evening With Manuel Cardoso – The Man Who Helped Reform Portugal’s Drug Policy
There was a big turn-out on rainy Sydney evening for drug law reform meeting. Tuesday 5th June 2018. St Stephen’s Church, Macquarie Street, Sydney, for “An evening with Manuel Cardoso – the man who helped reform Portugal’s drug policy”. The take-home message to get through to our politicians: decriminalisation is now proven to save lives, money […]
-
Medical Postcard from New York: Overdose Crisis Summary from NYU
Dear Colleagues, During a recent New York visit I had numerous encounters in the medical, public health and dependency fields. The opioid overdose crisis dominates conversation, media and even the White House has been involved. Below is a summary of one key lecture I attended followed by some other events which may be of interest. […]
-
Bart G, Wyman Z, Wang Q, Hodges JS, Karim R, Bart BA. Methadone and the QTc Interval: Paucity of Clinically Significant Factors in a Retrospective Cohort. J Addiction Medicine pre-publication 2017.
Large study shows torsade risk remote and ECG non-predictive in methadone maintenance. Bart G, Wyman Z, Wang Q, Hodges JS, Karim R, Bart BA. Methadone and the QTc Interval: Paucity of Clinically Significant Factors in a Retrospective Cohort. J Addiction Medicine pre-publication 2017. Dear Colleagues, Dr Bart and co-authors have examined the medical records of […]
-
Benzodiazepines For Patients on Opiate Maintenance Treatment
Bakker A, Streel E. Benzodiazepine maintenance in opiate substitution treatment: Good or bad? A retrospective primary care case-note review. Journal of Psychopharmacology 2016 1-5 Dear Colleagues, Finally we have some strong evidence that prescribing benzodiazepines for patients on opiate maintenance treatment is not only safe and effective but in some cases may be obligatory, under […]
-
Medical postcard from New York, April 2016
Dear Colleagues, I can report that spring has sprung in New York. After a cold start, April has seen a wonderful transition from winter bareness to a colour-wheel of splendid blossoms, bulbs and canopy greenery. Easter was early this year and so were the cherry blossoms which are at their peak over a week before […]
-
Managed Alcohol Programs – (MAP). Slow progress of effective hostel protocol to save money, suffering and dignity of our most marginalised citizens.
Dear Colleagues, I have been writing these summaries for many years but there is little more dramatic I can think of than the findings of three published studies and numerous other reports of allowing alcohol to alcoholics in refuges under strict supervision with psychosocial supports. I wrote enthusiastically about a Canadian study by Tiina Podymow […]
-
Drug Overdose Increasing – Known Solutions Ignored
Dear Colleagues, BMJ article: increasing overdoses but they ignore known solutions (+ Hari TED talk). There is no more ‘final’ statistic regarding drug use than overdose deaths. And in England the official figures go back to Victorian times, then often involving opium, laudanum and other strong drugs including alcohol. The British Coroner’s Act of 1844 […]
-
BMJ article: increasing overdoses but they ignore known solutions (+ Hari TED talk).
Dear Colleagues, There is no more ‘final’ statistic regarding drug use than overdose deaths. And in England the official figures go back to Victorian times, then often involving opium, laudanum and other strong drugs including alcohol. The British Coroner’s Act of 1844 was ahead of its time and even pre-dated the famous Broad Street Pump […]
-
The Final Statistic
There is no more ‘final’ statistic regarding drug use than overdose deaths. And in England the official figures go back to Victorian times, then often involving opium, laudanum and other strong drugs including alcohol. The British Coroner’s Act of 1844 was ahead of its time and even pre-dated the famous Broad Street Pump reports of […]
-
Medical Postcard from New York, April 2015
Dear Colleagues, It has been my privilege again to spend a month in Manhattan learning about American developments in alcohol and drugs issues as well as passing on some of the Australian experience. My main mission in New York this year concerned our current plague of stimulant use in Australia and whether there were any […]