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. Sorted by the main topic addressed, 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.
Click blue titles to view full text in a new window Use the selectors at the bottom to turn to the next page in the list of documents Re-order the list by the most recently added or updated hot topics
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HOT TOPIC 2018 HTM file
Cycle of Change: change promoter or benevolent fiction?
Its simplicity is beguiling, but does the ubiquitous cycle of change model simply describe the change process, or help predict and accelerate it?
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Is it futile to match alcohol treatments to the patient?
Even if overall one type of therapy for problem drinking is no better than another, surely this is just because certain therapies worked best with certain patients? Expectations that ‘matching’ would lead to improved outcomes were dashed in what was intended to be the definitive test, but it would be premature entirely to dismiss the idea.
HOT TOPIC 2021 HTM file
‘Dangerous data’: drinking after dependence
Controversy was fierce, reaching the US Congress, TV networks and the courts. Explore the history and contested research behind an issue facing every dependent drinker starting treatment.
HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Prizes for not using drugs?
Contingency management programmes reward patients for complying with treatment or not engaging in undesired substance use. It works, but often only temporarily – and perhaps at the cost of eroding the patient’s confidence and motivation.
HOT TOPIC 2018 HTM file
Acupuncture: potential value of a ‘theatrical placebo’
Asks whether acupuncture helps treat substance use problems and, if it does, whether this is ‘just’ a placebo effect. Is there something valuable here which has not yet been proven to work, or is trying to find proof a dead end?
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 2017 HTM file
The ‘explosion’ that never happened; crack and cocaine use in Britain
In 1989 a whirlwind of concern was stirred up by a US drug enforcement officer who foresaw a US-style “explosion” of violence associated with the ‘almost instantly addictive’ crack version of cocaine in Britain. That did not happen – but what did, where do those claims stand today, and what of cocaine powder, for decades seen as the ‘champagne set’s’ favourite drug?
HOT TOPIC 2017 HTM file
Cannabis is worth bothering with
Despite heroin, crack and overdose deaths at record levels, we examine the proposition that cannabis use is worth bothering with, including reports that stronger products are aggravating harms, prospects of recovery from problem use, and the emerging response to synthetic forms of cannabis like ‘spice’.
HOT TOPIC 2017 HTM file
Protecting the children
How to protect the children of problem substance users can hardly be a more emotive and – since a US-inspired project came to Britain offering to pay drug users to be sterilised – contentious issue. Despite the issue’s profile, truly informative studies are few.
HOT TOPIC 2017 HTM file
Focus on the families
Both as a treatment resource for the patient and a group needing support in their own right, a UK report described families affected by substance use as the “forgotten” carers. Here we turn the focus on the “unheard and unseen victims when a loved one uses drugs or alcohol”.
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