News and Notes

In late May, the Canadian Government put up a bill making changes to the cannabis laws. Under the proposals included in the bill, cannabis possession and production will remain illegal, but the penalties and general approach to enforcement will change. Law enforcement officers will have the discretion to give out a ticket (similar to those for parking offences) to people found with small amounts of cannabis—between 15 and 30 g—for personal use. To strengthen the warning against illegal growers, the maximum penalty for production of more than 50 plants will be doubled from 7 to 14 years’ imprisonment. The proposed reforms are part of Canada's Renewed Drug Strategy, announced by the Government on 27 May, which sets aside CA$245 million over 5 years to further its programme of reducing both demand and supply of illicit drugs. In a Government press release, rising rates of marijuana use and failing support for incarceration as a penalty for cannabis possession are given as the impetus for change. Public opinion polls consistently show majority support for decriminalization, if not outright legalization. The bill follows two recent parliamentary committees during 2002, one of which—the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs—came out in favour of legalization. Newspaper reports suggest that Canada has also been subject to pressure from their neighbours, the USA, who have been increasingly anxious about illegal trafficking and the possibility that falling prices will influence cross-border trade—hence the bumping-up of proposed penalties for traffickers. Over in the UK, the Home Secretary's plans to downgrade cannabis from a Class B to a Class C drug have been placed on temporary hold. The plan had been to commence the new measures in July 2003, but following criticism from senior police officers, whose staff will be responsible for implementing the changes, the matter has been subsumed into the wide-ranging Criminal Justice Bill now proceeding through parliament with a view to being enacted in the new year. In the context of reforms to the licensing laws making their slow progress though parliament, and the long-awaited National Alcohol Strategy currently being formulated by the Cabinet Office, the UK charity Alcohol Concern has launched the findings of its Commission on the Future of Alcohol Treatment Services. The Commission's chairman, Sir William Utting, drew attention in the foreword to his report to the ‘benign neglect’ by government of the alcohol treatment services, which he said were suffering from serious under-funding and being sustained largely through the ‘interest, stimulus and persistence of voluntary organizations’. Over a 9 month period, the Commission took evidence from workers in the sector and service users, as well as harnessing the expertise of its own members, public health specialists and project managers. It found that alcohol services around the country were handling 100 000 referrals a year; research suggests that three times that number (not counting family members) need support. Principal recommendations include: a tripling—to £300 million—of money spent on alcohol counselling and treatment; bringing the service into parity with drug services and integrating them; and a coordinated structure at national level for service planning, including training needs. Also suggested is a levy on alcohol advertising, stronger focus on community initiatives such as bar staff awareness and late-night public transport and more training for front-line medical staff such as general practitioners. Alcohol Concern (2003) Commission on the Future of Alcohol Services: What Services are Needed, Who Needs Them, and How They Should Be Provided. £15. To purchase a copy, phone the Alcohol Concern Information Unit on + 44 (0)20 7 922 8667 or order online at http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk A 14-page executive summary can be downloaded free of charge from the website. Scientific research in a country such as Brazil—where research activity is relatively high compared with other countries in the region—is handicapped by difficulties of dissemination, especially where studies are published in Portuguese or Spanish. The Scientific Electronic Library Online (SciELO) has emerged as a regional model for the electronic publishing of scientific journals from Latin America, the Caribbean and Spain. Launched in 1997 as a cooperative project between the State of Sao Paulo Science Foundation and the Latin American and Caribbean Center on Health Sciences, it has grown rapidly and now covers over 85 public health and health science journals. SciELO is developing norms and standards for electronic publishing in the sector, as well as advising on software. A related initiative is the Virtual Health Library, a network of information sources on the Internet (http://www.bireme.br). A strategic aim is to tackle the problem of the ‘invisibility’ of published research by creating strong regional databases to parallel the large international bibliographic sources. The quality of scientific journals in the region is highly variable, and SciELO aims to develop its own models to measure usage and impact rates. It is hoped that these developments will make local and national research more visible, not only to academics but also to workers in NGOs and community agencies. Alongside them is an initiative that is transforming access to the international literature. A dedicated electronic portal launched in 2002 by CAPES (Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior), a funding agency that supports postgraduate courses, makes available full-text articles from more than 2400 scientific journals (including Addiction) and has links to MEDLINE and other indexes: http://www.periodicos.capes.gov.br. Mark Dickerson writes The 12th International Conference on Gambling and Risk-taking was held in Vancouver (British Columbia) from 26 to 30 May 2003. Three hundred delegates attended over the period of the conference, which ran six concurrent streams of presentations. Papers covered a wide range of topics related to the gambling industry, government regulation and policy concerning gambling and its impacts and community attitudes and reactions to the costs and benefits of legalized gambling. It was organized and sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada, Reno (http://www.unr.edu/gaming/index.asp). Under the leadership of the Director of the Institute, Professor Bill Eadington, this series, held every 3 years, has established a reputation as one of the key international conferences dealing with all aspects of inquiry into gambling. The conference attempts to achieve the difficult balancing act of providing a forum for all those involved in the study of gambling. Thus, delegates from around the world included senior management from casinos, government employees responsible for developing policy options, representatives of the helping professions treating problem gamblers and their families and academics from a variety of disciplines. The content of the sessions ranged from industry economic and management issues, to mathematical models of gaming, to policy and regulatory matters, to cross-cultural comparisons, to the prevention and treatment of problem gambling. In the past, the opportunity for debate and exchange between all the key stake-holders in the contemporary development of legalized gambling worldwide has shown significant dividends. These dividends have included an acceptance that gambling does have significant negative impacts on the individual gambler and that increased availability of gambling does inevitably result in an increase in the prevalence of such harm, as well as collaborative efforts to fund research. The latter has resulted in the establishment of several research centres in Canada that provide funding for competitive rounds of peer-reviewed research projects. This 12th conference in the series maintained the valuable intersector exchange, but very much at the cost of the scholarly quality of presentations. This may have been due in part to the absence of several leading academics. For example, of 30 or more presentations of empirical data that focused on psychological themes relating to gambling and its harmful impacts, only a small proportion addressed a conceptual question. Indeed, across all disciplines and interests it was noted by Professor Jan McMillen (Australian National University) that there was a lack of theoretically driven arguments or solutions to social and policy issues. Innovations in European Drug Policy. The Richard L. Rachin conference. Florida State University School of Criminology and Criminal Justice in conjunction with Journal of Drug Issues. The Radisson, Tallahassee, FL, USA, 18–19 September 2003. Contact: Turnbull Conference Center, Florida State University, 555 West Pensacola Street, Tallahassee, FL 32306–1460, USA. Tel.: + 1 850 644 7569; fax: + 1 850 644 3803; e-mail: register@cpd.fsu.edu; website: http://www.learningforlife.fsu.edu. Etiology and Treatment of Addiction: a Biomedical Approach. 5th annual meeting of the International Society of Addiction Medicine (ISAM). Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 24–27 September 2003. Contact: Secretariat, ISAM 2003/AIAR, Keizersgracht 818, 1017 EE Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Tel.: + 31 20 320 1635; fax: + 31 20 639 2473; e-mail: pouw@aiar.nl; website: http://www.aiar.nl/events/isam2033. International Society for the Prevention of Tobacco-induced Diseases. 2003 International Scientific Conference. Winnipeg, Canada, 29 September−1 October 2003. Contact: ptidsociety@aol.com or http://www.umanitoba.ca/faculties/dentistry/oral_biology/research/conference. Deep in the Heart of Prevention: Collaboration for Accountability and Effectiveness. 17th Annual National Meeting on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse and Violence Prevention in Higher Education. Organized by the US Department of Education. Hyatt Regency Hotel, Austin, TX, USA, 16–19 October 2003. Contact: http://www.edc.org/hec/natl/2003. 20 : 20 Vision. Alcohol Concern annual conference and AGM celebrating 20 years of Alcohol Concern's work. The Law Society, London, UK, 5 November 2003. Contact: Ewa Cwirko-Godycka, Alcohol Concern, Waterbridge House, 32–36 Loman Street, London SE1 0EE, UK. Tel.: + 44 20 7 928 7377; fax: + 44 20 7 928 4644; e-mail: contact@alcoholconcern.org.uk; website: http://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk. Advice From On High: Addictions and Government Pronouncements. Society for the Study of Addiction Annual Symposium. Hotel Metropole, Leeds, UK, 6–7 November 2003. Submissions are invited for oral and poster presentations. Contact: Christine Weatherill, Leeds Addiction Unit, 19 Springfield Mount, Leeds LS2 9NG, UK. Tel.: + 44 113 295 1333; fax: + 44 113 295 1310; e-mail: training@lau.org.uk. Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. European conference, Padua, Italy, 20–22 November 2003. Contact: karl.fagerstrom@swipnet.se. Methadone and Other Substitutive Therapies. EUROPAD Italian Conference. Centro Culturale ‘Luigi Russo’, Pietrasanta, Italy, 4–6 December 2003. Contact: http://www.europad.org/conf2003.asp. Surviving and Thriving in Difficult Financial Times. National Conference on Tobacco or Health. Boston, MA, USA, 10–12 December 2003. Contact: 2003 National Conference on Tobacco or Health, 1700 Research Boulevard, Suite 400, Rockville, MD 20802–3142, USA; website: http://www.tobaccocontrolconference.org. Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco. 10th annual meeting. Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort, Scottsdale, AZ, USA, 18–21 February 2004. Call for abstracts by 19 September 2003. Contact: SRNT, 7600 Terrace Avenue, Suite 203, Middleton, WI 53562, USA. Tel.: + 1 608 836 3787; fax: + 1 608 831 5122; e-mail: meetings@srnt.org; website: http://www.srnt.org/meeting/2004. WATCH 2004. 3rd World Assembly on Tobacco Counters Health. New Delhi, India, 7–10 March 2004. Call for papers by 30 September 2003. Contact: cancerak@del6.vsnl.net.in; website: http://www.watch-2000.org. News and Notes welcomes contributions from its readers. Send your material to Susan Savva, News and Notes Editor, Addiction, National Addiction Centre PO48, 4 Windsor Walk, London SE5 8AF, UK. Fax: + 44 20 7 703 5787; e-mail: s.savva@iop.kcl.ac.uk. Subject to editorial review, we will be glad to print, free of charge, details of your conference or event, up to 75 words and one entry only. Please send your notification 3 months ahead of time and specify in which issue you would like it to appear.

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