Effect of initiating drug treatment on the risk of drug-related poisoning death and acquisitive crime among offending heroin users.

BACKGROUND: A recent Cochrane review of randomised trials identified a lack of evidence for interventions provided to drug-using offenders. We use routine data to address whether contact with treatment services reduces heroin users' likelihood of a future acquisitive offence or drug-related poisoning (DRP) death. METHODS: Heroin-users were identified from probation assessments and linked to drug-treatment, mortality and offending records. The study cohort was selected to ensure that the subject was not: in prison, in treatment or had recently left treatment. Subjects were classed as initiators if they attended a triage appointment within two weeks of their assessment; non-initiators otherwise. Initiator and non-initiators were compared over a maximum of one year, with respect to their risk of recorded acquisitive offence or DRP-death. Balance was sought using propensity score matching and missing data were accounted for using multiple imputation. RESULTS: Nine percent of assessments identified for analysis were classed as initiators. Accounting for observed confounding and missing data, there was a reduction in DRPs associated with initiator assessments, however there was uncertainty around this estimate such that a null-effect could not be ruled out (HR: 0.42, 95% CI 0.17-1.04). There was no evidence of a decrease in the recidivism risk, in fact the analysis showed a small increase (HR: 1.10, 95% CI 1.02-1.18). CONCLUSION: For heroin-using offenders, initial contact with treatment services does not appear to reduce the likelihood of a future acquisitive offence

Human rights, Public health and Medicinal cannabis use

This paper explores the interplay between the human rights and drug control frameworks and critiques case law on medicinal cannabis use to demonstrate that a bona fide human rights perspective allows for a broader conception of ‘health’. This broad conception, encompassing both medicalised and social constructionist definitions, can inform public health policies relating to medici-nal cannabis use. The paper also demonstrates how a human rights lens can alleviate a core tension between the State and the individual within the drug policy field. The leading medicinal cannabis case in the UK highlights the judiciary’s failure to engage with an individual’s human right to health as they adopt an arbitrary, externalist view, focussing on the legality of cannabis to the exclusion of other concerns. Drawing on some international comparisons, the paper considers how a human rights perspective can lead to an approach to medicinal cannabis use which facilitates a holistic understanding of public health

Factors influencing AIS effectiveness among manufacturing SMEs: Evidence from Malaysia

This study examines accounting information systems (AIS) effectiveness and its influence factors in the specific context of small and medium manufacturing enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. The proposed model examines the impact of AIS sophistication, manager participation in AIS implementation, manager AIS knowledge, manager accounting knowledge, and effectiveness of external experts such as vendors, consultants, government agencies, and accounting firms on AIS effectiveness. We included 232 SMEs registered with the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) in testing the model. The results show that manager accounting knowledge, and the effectiveness of vendors and accounting firms significantly contributed to AIS effectiveness. Overall, this study suggests that managers of SMEs need to acquire sufficient accounting knowledge to better understand business information requirements. Second, SMEs should engage qualified vendors who have experience and understand unique characteristics of SME to overcome their lack of AIS knowledge. SMEs should also exploit their good relationship with accounting firms to help them implement effective AIS. Finally, it is important for SMEs to learn from AIS implementation so that opportunities can be recognized and priority can be given to those initiatives that support their information needs

Critical Public Health Human rights, public health and medicinal cannabis use Human rights, public health and medicinal cannabis use

This paper explores the interplay between the human rights and drug control frameworks and critiques case law on medicinal cannabis use to demonstrate that a bona fide human rights perspective allows for a broader conception of 'health'. This broad conception, encompassing both medicalised and social constructionist definitions, can inform public health policies relating to medicinal cannabis use. The paper also demonstrates how a human rights lens can alleviate a core tension between the State and the individual within the drug policy field. The leading medicinal cannabis case in the UK highlights the judiciary's failure to engage with an individual's human right to health as they adopt an arbitrary, externalist view, focussing on the legality of cannabis to the exclusion of other concerns. Drawing on some international comparisons, the paper considers how a human rights perspective can lead to an approach to medicinal cannabis use which facilitates a holistic understanding of public health

Dangerous liaisons: Personality disorder and the politics of risk

In July 1999, radical and controversial proposals were put forward by the UK government for a new approach to the management of dangerous individuals with severe personality disorders. The Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) programme involved service development and research but its most contentious part was the proposal for new legislation to provide civil and criminal powers for the detention of DSPD individuals in new specialist high-secure units. The programme has been viewed by many commentators as evidence that concerns about risk have become the over-riding driver of contemporary mental health and penal policy and it has been described as a 'psychiatric manifestation of the risk society'. In this article, it is argued that while the DSPD initiative does indeed embody the ascendance of 'risk thinking' in recent years, the idea of risk needs to be broadened out and understood as a complex, multi-faceted and mobile formation. Crucially, it needs to be viewed in a more 'substantively political light' rather than simply as a technocratic or instrumental development. © 2008 Sage Publications

Inventing Drugs:A genealogy of a regulatory concept

The trade in, and consumption of, illicit drugs is perhaps the archetypal `wicked problem' of our time ± complex, globalized, and seemingly intractable ± and presents us with one of the very hardest legal and policy challenges of the twenty-first century. The central concept of a `drug' remains under-theorized and largely neglected by critical socio-legal and criminological scholars. Drawing on a range of primary archival material and secondary sources, this article sets out a genealogy of the concept, assembled a little over a century ago out of diverse lines of development. It is argued that the drug label is an invented legal-regulatory construct closely bound up with the global drug prohibition system. Many contemporary features of the `war on drugs' bear traces of this genealogy, notably how drug law enforcement often contributes to racial and social injustice. To move beyond prohibition, radical law and policy reform may require us to abandon the drug concept entirely