Illicit Drugs - Science topic

According to the (UNODC, 2015), illicit drug use is a multi-facet problem which is affects millions of people world-wide. The consumption of illicit drugs has increased over years in the Mauritian population, and it is affecting the population at large, cutting across all age groups and classes, in particular touching the youngsters; presently there is 40% of youngsters aged between 15 and 25 years who consume synthetic drugs in Mauritius (L’Express, 2018). This phenomenon leads to a massive impact to social harm, health issues and economic complications.

The article of Dr. T. Ibrahim and Dr. S. Peerally 2019 sheds light on public health measures that is helpful in tackling the current problem of illicit drug use in the island of Mauritius.

An increase in statistical figures year after year in Mauritius is causing chaos in the population. Institutions like the educational system, the police force and road traffic Management are relentlessly facing real problems like, increased rate of school failures, domestic violence, divorce, road traffic accidents, crime as well as a decrease in the work force of the country (Ibrahim, T. et al. 2019)

The judiciary in Mauritius, relates that from statistics gathered, there is decrease in safety, couple with an increase in criminality rate can precipitate a drop in the amount of tourist and subsequently a drop in the economy of Mauritius. Mauritius depends on the tourist economic as it is one of the main pillars of the island (Ibrahim, T. et al. 2019)

Hii, I have a project to implement as part of my graduate Masters in Public health degree. I need to adapt and tailor life skills training sessions to refugee youth between 12-17 years. I need to know what assessment tools I can use? The data shows that they have mental health problems as well as illicit drug use. But I only have 2 months for the project and it's a school based, I am not sure its ethical to conduct surveys about drug alcohol and tobacco use with the youth, and I don't know what should I ask the teachers, it's an informal school for refugees who cannot access formal education and the intervention is a 14 life skills sessions to prevent risky behaviors including drug use, so it's just a general universal and primary prevention program. Anyone has ideas of what needs assessment work here?

Good Morning,

I am currently compiling information regarding my thesis paper with regard to parental illicit drug use and the probability of their children developing a drug habit. Please send any information, for it will be greatly appreciated ! In addition, I will be posting the RAT and juvenile interpersonal cyber crime shortly. Before I post, I need to proofread again.

Thank You,

Jennifer

Is the article, Should patients who use illicit drugs be offered a second heart-valve replacement? Does it have IRB approval? Thanks

We have now done analysis on prevalence of doping in different collectives using alsmost the same randomized response technique.

Prevalence of "Cognitive enhancement", or illicit drug use, or a recreational misuse of prescription drugs for "hobby-doping purposes" in our general population tends to be roughly 15% in western societies.

Doping prevalence in junior elite sports is relatively low! Almost sero in the south-west german schools of elite sports (we only published a conference abstract on this; at that time we thought it is an unimportant information) and roughly 6.8% in national elite junior athletes.

Doping prevalence is very high in top-elite athletes (see link) to our recent study.

What do do?

Shall we put even more pressure on our elite athletes? Is it justified to use this result to infringe the personal rights of elite athletes even more? Is there a sense in extensive funding going into analytical attempts at all?

I would be interested in your opinion what science could possibly contribute to improve the fight against doping.

What is the most reasonable next step or shall we step out of the system and rather do something else?

We are trying to study the differences in causes of death due to suicide (ICD-10: X60.0 - X84.9) between illicit drug users in contact with drug treatment services and those without from national General Mortality Register (GMR), the underlying cause of death is encoded according to ICD-10, selected underlying cause of death linked to external causes of injury and poisonings. Data from GMR are regularly reported to the WHO.

As we are talking about illicit drug users, where suicide by overdose is relatively frequent we would like in our study to introduce concept of direct cause of death-suicide (by overdose, poisoning with psychoactive substances) and indirect (where death-suicide is not a direct consequences of drug) according to EMCDDA. Considering this and causes of death by ICD-10 (among poisonings e.g. X62 Intentional self-poisoning by and exposure to narcotics, while among self- harm e.g. X70 Intentional self-harm by hanging, strangulation and suffocation) in our opinion should be appropriate to divide suicides in direct by self-poisoning (overdose) and indirect those by self-harm. Unfortunately one of  experts (in the field of suicide) insists that group of suicide by self harm is not acceptable as per definition of WHO self harm could not finish in death.

Thank you in advance for comments and suggestions.

I'm currently exploring the literature on older illicit drug users (heroin, cocaine methamphetamine etc) and there seems to be very little on interventions for this particular cohort. While acknowledging the studies and reviews of interventions with older alcohol and prescription drug users, I would be really interested in hearing from people who have carried out therapies, treatments (excluding methadone) with older (45+) clients/patients.

I am interested in criminological empirical studies on illicit drug markets. In particular, the studies conducted on specific cities or regions. I have a preference for qualitative research in these markets.