In this issue

Citation

(2011), "In this issue", Drugs and Alcohol Today, Vol. 11 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/dat.2011.54411caa.002

In this issue

Article Type: In this issue From: Drugs and Alcohol Today, Volume 11, Issue 3

Policy discussions are led by Marcus Roberts with a preview of policy changes, including the radical redesign of the drug treatment landscape as we know it including the abolition of the National Treatment Agency, Primary Care Trusts and Strategic Health Authorities. In “The quiet revolution”, he cautiously welcomes the inclusion of drug and alcohol treatment into the wider public health agenda, but notes that expectations of continuing service provision have not been secured by any safeguards or ringfenced funding. Nor has it been made clear how the new arrangement will support the “recovery” agenda. Reviewing some of the sector’s achievements, Roberts suggests a constructive engagement built on close cooperation with other government agencies.

The impact of policy decisions is assessed in two papers on treatment looking, respectively, on gaps in drug and alcohol treatment for certain populations and the coming of Payments by Results.

In “Providing drug and alcohol services to female offenders: exploring gender and geographical barriers”, Stephen Moore discusses the gaps in service provision for women offenders inside the criminal justice system in rural areas. The article documents how services are not meeting the needs of clients by not factoring in their roles as mothers and partners.

In another exploration of how policy changes are impacting on service providers Chris Fox, Kevin Albertson, Karen Williams and Mark Ellison calculates the costs and benefits of implementing an Alcohol Treatment Requirement (ATR) in Stockport. Using a Payment by Results approach to funding the paper “Estimating the costs and benefits of an Alcohol Treatment Requirement“ calculates that an ATR would need to achieve a 12 per cent reduction in re-offending to break-even.

Over the past two years, Fiona Measham, Karenza Moore and colleagues have researched into the use of different legal and illegal highs on the UK clubscene. The latest in a series of papers on emerging drug trends and co-authored with Jeanette Østergaard tracks the popularity of different powders following the scheduling of Mephedrone in April last year. So far mephedrone has not been replaced by any new legal (or illegal highs) but has simply been added to existing polydrug repertoires. Given the uncertainty among clubbers about the identity of different substances, their legal status, medical consequences both short and long-term, young people in the north west of England simply refer to any unidentified white powder as “Bubble”.