Hot topics
Below is a list of all 45 hot topics – essays by Drug and Alcohol Findings explaining the background and evidence relating to topics which sometimes prompt heated debate. They are a popular way to get up to speed on the issues which matter in drug and alcohol policy and practice in Britain, and often too internationally. Starting with the most recently added or updated hot topics, the list shows in orange the type of entry, the year the hot topic was last updated, and the type of file you will download when you click on the title. In blue is the hot topic’s title followed by a brief description.
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HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
‘Recovery’: meaning and implications for treatment
Since 2008 the “recovery” objective has been at the heart of British drug treatment policy. Where did it come from and what does it mean for treatment services?
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Treatment staff matter
By focusing on the intervention as if it were a mechanical lever, research has not just ignored but sought to eliminate what now seems a more important factor – the influence of the practitioner and how they relate to the patient.
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Motivational interviewing: fast and flexible counselling style
Introduces and evaluates the most influential approach in substance use counselling in Britain – one perhaps as widely misunderstood as it is practised. Great advantage is applicability to substance users from the risky to the dependent.
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
The therapeutic potential of patients and clients
The recovery agenda emphasises the transformation of problem substance users into solutions to those problems through peer support and involvement in their own care – but perhaps at a deeper level, the patient or client has always been the author of their own recovery.
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
‘Everyone’s not doing it’ message offers hope for prevention
‘Normative education’ comparing the recipient’s use levels to population norms retains some of its shine as the great hope for school- and college-based prevention, but accumulating data demands a reappraisal.
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Harm reduction: what’s it for?
Opposing agendas have led to a shifting balance between seeing harm-reduction as acceptable only in the service of the greater good of reducing or eliminating drug use, versus seeing it as the overriding objective, one which should never be sacrificed to an anti-drugs agenda.
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
What makes for an effective treatment service?
Different treatment services can vary hugely in their outcomes. What characterises an effective treatment service, and how can these attributes be boosted?
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
What is addiction treatment for?
The answers to the title question might seem obvious, but who drug addiction treatment is for and what it should aim to achieve are contested territory.
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Drug education yet to match great (preventive) expectations
Once relied on as the best way to prevent substance use and related problems across a population, drug education in schools has failed to deliver on this agenda: wrong agenda, or wrong education?
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Individualising treatment: an obviously ‘good thing’?
Individualisation might seem an obvious and basic prerequisite to substance use treatment, but in fact services have often striven for uniformity.
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