The Druglink archive
 The Druglink archive

DrugWise: Druglink magazine archiveEffectiveness bank home page. Opens new window Collection
The Druglink archive

Articles specially written by Drug and Alcohol Findings for DrugScope’s Druglink magazine starting with the analyses most recently added or updated, totalling today 9 documents. Though no longer published, more articles from Druglink can be seen in the Druglink magazine archive of the DrugWise web site

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DOCUMENT 2014 HTM file
Should dependent drinkers always try for abstinence?

For many alcohol treatment services in the past and now, the only acceptable and feasible drinking goal for alcoholics is abstinence. That mould was decisively cracked when in 1973 researchers showed that even physically dependent drinkers could learn to drink in moderation. Controversy was fierce, reaching to the US Congress, TV networks and the courts.

DOCUMENT 2014 HTM file
How many drinkers should be in treatment?

Depending on the criteria, Britain’s performance in ensuring needy drinkers enter treatment can look anywhere from an abysmal 7% to an excellent 40%. Does where you draw the line depend on how you want to portray Britain’s performance?

DOCUMENT 2013 HTM file
Rewarding virtue

Can we dispense with counselling, therapy, treatment as we know it, and just punish or deprive patients of rewards when they use substances in undesired ways, and reward them when they behave as we/they would wish? British services are trialling an approach about which many clinicians express major ethical concerns – contingency management.

DOCUMENT 2013 HTM file
Community loses from failure to offer maintenance prescribing in prisons

An international team of experts has argued that failure to implement effective opioid maintenance programmes in prison represents an important missed opportunity to engage high-risk drug users in treatment, at possibly substantial costs to the individuals and to the community. Is Britain too losing out, and how does the future look?

DOCUMENT 2013 HTM file
Sometimes best to break the rules

Motivational interviewing’s ‘Do not dos’ like avoiding confrontation were intended to sidestep the traps which provoke clients to dig in their heels or disengage. Imagine then the upset of discovering that in certain circumstances, the opposite is the case; the explanation appeared to lie in coming across as ‘genuine’.

DOCUMENT 2013 HTM file
When confrontation was challenged

Focus is on a seminal study from motivational interviewing’s originator which more than any other heightened the profile of the therapist’s interpersonal style in substance use counselling, seeming to confirm that heavy drinkers react best to non-confrontational nudging rather than the more bludgeoning style typical of the time.

DOCUMENT 2012 HTM file
Alcohol licensing, price and taxation

Traces the stuttering and in some political quarters reluctant progress to accepting a minimum unit price for alcohol in the UK, where Scotland is in the vanguard of that issue and also of licensing law. In all the debates, the benefits drinkers themselves feel they get are rarely valued in to cost-benefit calculations.

DOCUMENT 2012 HTM file
Will intensive testing and sanctions displace treatment?

Enforce frequent drug or alcohol testing and levy swift, certain and meaningful sanctions for substance use, and many dependent users stop using without treatment. Is this increasingly how problem use will be dealt with, or just a niche option applicable to users over whom society can exert sufficient leverage?

DOCUMENT 2012 HTM file
Has methadone been rehabilitated?

Arousing visceral opposition and passionate defence, prescribing opiate-type drugs for as long as needed has for decades been the mainstay of heroin addiction treatment in Britain. With the weight of government behind them, that position was challenged by ‘recovery’ advocates; in 2012 an expert report sought to reconcile the competing perspectives.