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February 2015
Keith Gregory
Melinda Grady
Build Link Connect Newsletter
Harm MinimisationDebate (confusion?)
continues.
The North Richmond
community is debating the
trialling of supervised
injecting rooms in the area
to help manage the impact
of heroin use. See the link
below to a recent Herald
Sun article.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victor
ia/angry-richmond-traders-and-residentssay-heroin-shooting-gallery-is-not-theanswer/story-fni0fit3-1227219987366
Whilst there seems to be a
commitment to harm
minimisation in the rhetoric
from the State Government,
supervised injection rooms
are off their agenda despite
evidence of their
effectiveness in Sydney and
across the globe. Now go to
this link to see what is
happening in Portugal and
some background into
addiction itself.
As a result of former
premier Jeff Kennet’s
work with Beyondblue, he
has shifted the position he
held as Premier, that
being, safe injecting
rooms will not be
established in Victoria, to
one of support for the
strategy. Read the article
he has penned for the
Herald Sun here and
ponder the strangeness of
the world we live in and
consider why a
commitment to evidenced
based policy making still
has to wear the label of
being soft and far left of
centre.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/o
pinion/sydney-has-shown-us-theway-on-drugs-with-safe-injectingfacility/story-fni0ffsx-1227223196005
Early intervention
reduces harm to the
individual and the
costs to society (as
if you didn’t already
know).
Pegasus Economics have
produced a report
suggesting extremely
conservatively that 9.1
billion dollars could be
saved annually by health
professionals addressing
issues of childhood trauma
and making appropriate
referrals, amongst other
initiatives
Go to:
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/reportfinds-government-could-save-9billion-in-healthcare-costs-byaddressing-childhood-trauma20150203-134ozc.html
http://www.truthout.org/news/item/29118-portugal-cutaddiction-rates-in-half-by-connectingdrug-users-with-communities-insteadof-jailing-them
February 2015 | P.O. Box 752, Geelong, 3200 | Page 1 of 8
An international team led
by Australian and US
universities has studied a
new treatment for cocaine
addiction that could also
have implications for all
types of drug addictions,
the ABC reports.
Go To:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/20
15-02-04/cocaine-addictiontreatment/6069544
A new study debunks
previous theories that
suggest moderate
consumption of alcohol may
actually be good for
health.How many of you have
picked up a glass of alcohol over
the weekend and thought “It’s ok
to have a drink as studies
suggest moderate drinking
doesn’t do any harm?” If you’re
one such person, you may want
to think again.
Though many studies have
touted the health benefits of
moderate consumption of
alcohol, a new study debunks all
such theories.
The study was conducted by the
researchers from University
College London with 35,000
British as respondents. After
influencing factors such as
personal, social, economic and
lifestyle factors were accounted
for, researchers noted that the
study participants showed little to
no health benefits when they
consumed alcohol in moderate
amounts. “Based on the findings
from this study, alcohol
consumption appears to confer
little to no protection against
mortality [death] in most age-sex
groups,” said study author Craig
Knott, a research associate in the
Department of Epidemiology and
Public Health at University
College London, according to a
Health.com report.
The study questions findings of
earlier studies which suggest that
drinking alcoholic beverages in
moderate amounts may lead to
some degree of protection
against early death and illness,
with people who have fewer than
two drinks per day living longer
than both those who drink more
and those who don’t drink at all.
Such studies were found to be
flawed because they included
light drinks with those who didn’t
touch a drop of alcohol in their
entire life.
“Importantly, former drinkers
appear to be less healthy and at
greater risk of mortality than
never drinkers,” he said. “With
existing research having largely
grouped former and never
drinkers together, there was the
possibility that protective effects
seen among lighter drinkers may
be less a consequence of a real
biological relationship and more
a statistical artefact arising from
their comparison against people
who are simply less healthy.”
Professor Mike Daube of Curtin
University in Australia noted that
there are a number of
conclusions that should be drawn
from this research. He said that
health officials should discourage
findings that suggest alcohol
usage can bring about any health
benefits. Also, alcohol companies
should refrain from using such
studies to promote their products,
according to Medical News
Today.
(IBT)
February 2015 | P.O. Box 752, Geelong, 3200 | Page 2 of 8
Find the Family
Focus Toolkit
developed by
EDAS here:
http://nceta.flinders.edu.au/file
s/6513/0948/1146/EDAS_Fam
ily%20Focus%20Toolkit.pdfna
.flinders.edu.au/file
Album of the Month
S
Check out the
Sustaining
Community Blog on
Community
Development
Families and
Community at:
https://sustainingcommunity.w
ordpress.com/2015/02/19/dvsocial-networks/
/6513/0948/1146
/EDAS_Family%2
0Focus%20Toolki
t.
s
Indonesia's imposition of
the death penalty for drug
crimes breaches its
international obligations
Irrespective of what Indonesian
law may say on the matter, and
irrespective of the imposition of
the death penalty in some
countries for the most serious
categories of murder, the
imposition of capital punishment
for drug crimes is not permissible
under international law to which
Indonesia is subject. Go to:
http://www.theage.com.au/comm
ent/indonesias-imposition-of-thedeath-penalty-for-drug-crimesbreaches-its-internationalobligations-2015021713gqo5.html
(The Age)
A Resource Kit for Family Work in
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February 2015 | P.O. Box 752, Geelong, 3200 | Page 3 of 8
fflcohol & Other Drug Sector
Marajuana has forever
been associated with
the munchies, ever
wondered why?
Go to:
http://www.smh.com.au/techn
ology/sci-tech/scientists-findout-why-marijuana-gives-youthe-munchies-2015021813irdx.html
Find out about Destiny
Transformations, a church
based rehab program for
Methamphetamine users
and others, interestingly
Methamphetamine use is
described as a pandemic
on the ABC’s AM
program. Go to:
http://www.abc.net.au/am/
content/2015/s4183670.ht
m
Find more info on Destiny
Transformations at:
http://www.transformation.
net.au/page/5/transformati
ons-campuses
According to
researchers at
Brandeis University,
the University of
North Florida and
Johns Hopkins
University,
policymakers must
look beyond
painkiller abuse, also
called non-medical
use, in their efforts to
reduce opioid
overdose deaths.
Go to: http://www.newsmedical.net/news/20150205/P
olicymakers-need-to-lookbeyond-painkiller-abuse-toreduce-opioid-overdosedeaths-say-researchers.aspx
We cannot stress enough
the value of YoDDA!!
For updates, support,
resources etc go to:
http://yodaa.org.au/
DRUGS and
MUSIC
Electronic Dance Music
(EDM) and illicit drugs go
hand in hand, especially
powders and pills. There
have been several deaths at
some recent music festivals
in NSW. The police
response is to continue to
use sniffer dogs at these
events despite evidence
suggesting this motivates
some people to injest their
drugs quickly to avoid
detection and this has lead
to overdose. In Europe,
there are drug testing
facilities at many festivals
that feedback results quickly
to festival goers. Evidence
indicates that where drugs
are of poor quality or
mixtures of painkillers etc
people often ditch their
drugs rather than take
something which they
consider may harm them.
Police in NSW indicate this
will not happen there. Go
to:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/conte
nt/2015/s4181233.htm
February 2015 | P.O. Box 752, Geelong, 3200 | Page 4 of 8
Alcohol‘s burden of
disease in Australia
Burden of disease (BoD)
analyses provide a powerful
method to estimate the
number of deaths,
hospitalisations and Disability
Adjusted Life Years (DALYs)
due to different risk factors.
Such studies combine
estimates of exposure to a risk
factor (e.g. the consumption of
alcohol) with the relative risk
of harm in a number of
disease, illness and injury
categories which may be
classified as acute (e.g. motor
vehicle accidents) or chronic
(e.g. cancers). In this way,
BoD studies paint a picture
about the relative amounts of
harm that are attributable to
different risk factors.
In the 2010 Global BoD study,
alcohol was estimated to be
the eighth highest risk factor in
Australia for disease, illness
and injury, contributing to
2.1% of total deaths and 2.8%
of total DALYs. Our novel
study “Alcohol’s Burden of
Disease in Australia”
employed an improved
methodology to estimate
deaths, hospitalisations and
DALYs in Australia and each
Australian jurisdiction.
We estimate that alcohol was
responsible for 3.9% of deaths
and 4.1% of total DALYs in
Australia in 2010, with
significant differences across
jurisdictions. Although these
updated percentages are still
lower than Global BoD
estimates of some other risk
factors such as smoking and
physical inactivity, it does not
mean that alcohol-related
harm is less important.
For example, 3,467 male
deaths and 2,087 female
deaths were attributable to
alcohol in our analysis, and
the overall number of alcoholattributable hospitalisations
were estimated to be 101,425
for males and 55,707 for
females. In males, injuries
were responsible for the
highest proportion of alcoholrelated deaths (36%), followed
by cancers (25%) and
digestive diseases (16%). For
females the highest proportion
of alcohol-attributable deaths
was for cardiovascular
diseases (34%) followed by
cancers (31%) and injuries
(12%).
Although this study adopted
the most up to date
methodology in the alcohol
BoD literature, figures are
likely an underestimation of
total harm. Alcohol-attributable
burden for many diseases are
still difficult to estimate
because of technical,
methodological and comorbidity issues. Also for all
conditions protected against
by alcohol, detrimental effects
co-exist (low level of drinking
is protective, whereas high
level of drinking is harmful).
The current methodology
cannot capture these
detrimental effects in such
conditions because they are
masked at the population
level. Alcohol has diverse
impacts on the human body
causing negative effects in the
circulatory, digestive, urinary
as well as nervous systems,
and often acts as an
accelerator of development
and progression of diseases in
conjunction with other risk
factors.
However the current BoD
methodology is still not able to
evaluate these complicated
causal relationships, causing a
significant underestimation of
alcohol attributable burden.
Different from many major
health risk factors, drinking
alcohol contributes to both
chronic and acute conditions
including falls, assaults and
self-harm, which contribute
significant burden on a wide
range of service providers in
the community including
hospitals, ambulance services,
alcohol and drug treatment
agents and police. There are
also social costs related to
alcohol misuse, which often
transcend measurements
reported in BoD studies.
These include direct costs to
the community (e.g. law
enforcement and the social
welfare system), and the
individual (e.g. physical and
psychological harm to the
individual and others), in
addition to indirect costs such
as productivity lost at work.
DrinkTank
February 2015 | P.O. Box 752, Geelong, 3200 | Page 5 of 8
PROFESSOR Peter
Gøtzsche,
Co-founder of what has come
to be known as the flag bearer
of evidence-based medicine,
the Cochrane Collaboration,
rarely holds back.
Outspokenly critical of
population breast cancer
screening programs and the
pharmaceutical industry, the
prolific scientific writer and
head of the Nordic Cochrane
Centre has recently turned his
attention to the reform of
mental health medicine. “We
kill an enormous amount of old
people with psychotropic
drugs, for example, which they
tolerate very poorly,” he said
in an interview with MO ahead
of an Australian lecture tour.
“So they fall and break their
hip and 20% of them die, so
this idea of preventing disease
in the elderly is a doubleedged sword that actually kills
them.” Professor Gøtzsche
nominates antidementia drugs
and antidepressants among
those classes which largely
“don’t work”. Doctors, he says,
often mistakenly think the drug
industry is “a good and
trustworthy partner” and many
“still accept visits from drug
sales people”. But prescription
drugs, he warns, are the third
leading cause of death after
heart disease and cancer.
Concerned that scripts for
antidepressants are
skyrocketing, Professor
Gøtzsche fears we are in the
midst of a psychiatric drug
epidemic.
“My studies of the research
literature in this whole area
lead me to a very
uncomfortable conclusion —
the way we currently use
psychiatric drugs is causing
more harm than good,” he
said. We should use them
much less, for shorter periods
of time and always with a plan
for tapering off to prevent
people from being medicated
for the rest of their
lives.” According to Professor
Gøtszche, the rise in
antidepressant scripts reflects
patient dependency on the
drugs, particularly the SSRIs,
which came into favour after
widespread warnings about
benzodiazepines and
addiction. “In patient surveys,
half say that SSRIs are
addictive and in trials half get
abstinence symptoms and
have great difficulty stopping,”
he said. “Withdrawal
symptoms are often
misdiagnosed as a return of
the disease or the start of a
new one, for which other
drugs are prescribed leading
to an increase in the number
of drug-dependent, long-term
users,” he said. “We have
turned many temporary
problems in life into chronic
ones with the drugs we use.
We need to focus far less on
drugs and far more on
psychotherapy.”
Late last year, the
ADCA Board
established an
Independent
Committee to
conduct a
consultation on the
establishment of a
new national AOD
peak body and
provide a report to
the board on options.
The Committee is cochaired by Rebecca
McBean QNADA CEO
and Larry Pierce,
CEO of the Network
of Alcohol and Drug
Agencies. It is
conducting
consultations with as
many stakeholders
as possible, before
submitting a report
to the ADCA Board
on possible
structures for a new
national peak body in
mid-2015.
Medical Observer
February 2015 | P.O. Box 752, Geelong, 3200 | Page 6 of 8
Researchers at the Centre of
Research Excellence in
Mental Health and
Substance Use, National
Drug and Alcohol Research
Centre, University of New
South Wales, are inviting
service providers in drug
and alcohol or mental health
settings to complete an
anonymous online survey.
The survey asks about
views and experiences in
working with adolescents in
Australia who have post
traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) and/or substance
abuse.
The survey takes
approximately 10-15 minutes
to complete and participants
will be invited to enter a draw
to win a $100 Westfield gift
voucher. Please see this link
for more information:
http://comorbidity.edu.au/news
/online-survey-adolescentmental-health-and-substanceuse-service-providers%E2%80%93-we-need-you.
To complete the survey please
click on this link or copy and
paste it into your internet
browser:
http://www.surveys.unsw.edu.
au/f/160029/bec1/
Dual Diagnosis
In Practice.
Cost: $27.50 (GST included)
Fully Catered: All delegates
will receive a high quality
Conference bag.
Registrations and enquiries
to: Angela
[email protected] .
Please email Angela to
request a registration form.
Invoice will be forwarded to
you by mail.
Conference date: Friday 10th
April.
Time: 9.30am to 4.30pm.
Venue: South-West TAFE 3rd
Floor Conference rooms.
Corner Kepler St and Timor St
Warrnambool 3280
Presenters:
Dr Fraser Todd
Senior Lecturer,
National Addiction Centre NZ.
MB ChB (Otago) FRANZCP
Sheridan Meulblok
Private Psychologist.
Dr Fraser Todd
(Senior Lecturer) PhD,
MBChB FRANZCP FAChAM
This event offers material from
the latest workshop series by Dr
Fraser Todd. The current series
address service development,
cultural considerations,
engagement and motivation,
assessment and management
strategies.
Designed to help Practitioner
build on from the person centred
wellbeing-orientated care
approach which has provided
workers with the initial
understanding of the person
(values, meaning, wellbeing etc)
and focusing on enhancing
wellbeing not just treating
disorder (which is a part, but only
a part, of it)……… to go beyond
the standard treatment
integration approaches.
Fraser graduated from the
University of Otago in 1985,
undertook training in psychiatry
in London and Christchurch and
gained his FRANZCP in 1997.
He has been employed in the
position of Senior Lecturer at the
NAC, University of Otago,
Christchurch, since March 1997.
He also works as a consultant
psychiatrist at Youth Specialty
Services, Hillmorton Hospital,
and is the Senior Clinical Advisor
at Matua Raki (National Addiction
Workforce Development).
His areas of special interest
include cannabis and co-existing
substance use and mental health
problems. He headed the
development of guidelines for the
"Assessment and Management
of People with Substance Use
and Mental Health Disorders"
undertaken at the NAC, and is
involved in research into the
effects of alcohol and cannabis
use on the presentation and
outcome of people admitted with
a first episode of psychosis.
Sheridan Meulblok is a
psychologist in private practice
specialising in the treatment of
eating disorders and is also
employed by the Western Region
Alcohol and Drug Centre to
provide consultations to a diverse
population of clients. Sheridan
has held leadership roles in both
CAMHS and headspace. Whilst
key roles as Community
Education Officer at the Eating
Disorders Foundation of Victoria
and a research role with the Kent
Drug Action Team in the U.K
has provided her with a unique
understanding of comorbidity
issues in individuals with
problematic relationships with
both substances and food.
February 2015 | P.O. Box 752, Geelong, 3200 | Page 7 of 8
About The Workshop
This interactive two-day workshop develops skills and confidence in
providing culturally appropriate services to Aboriginal children and
their families.
We provide information, resources and strategies for working with
Aboriginal children and families who have experienced trauma with
a strong focus on their healing journey.
The content focuses on Aboriginal cultural norms, history, social and
emotional wellbeing model, cultural identity, spiritual experiences
and understanding and working with symptoms of anxiety,
depression and suicide from an Aboriginal perspective.
Who Should
Attend
People who are working
with Aboriginal young
people in the Geelong
region
Cost: Free
About The Day
17th & 18th March 2015
8:45 am – 4.30 pm
(Morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea
provided)
Barwon Youth
12-14 Halstead Place Geelong West
Bookings: email Keith at:mailto: [email protected]
February 2015 | P.O. Box 752, Geelong, 3200 | Page 8 of 8