JANUARY

As people are getting over their festive hangovers, the chief medical officer starts 2016 by revising the UK’ s alcohol guidelines. The official recommenda tion is now that men should drink no more than 14 units per week, bringing the level in line with that for women and making the UK’ s recommended consumption levels among the lowest in the world. An early day motion on the government’ s Psychoactive Substances Bill, meanwhile, brands the document‘ evidence-free and prejudice-rich’.

MARCH

The bleak news continues as a report by the Recovery Partnership finds that nearly 60 per cent of residential services have reported a decrease in funding, along with almost 40 per cent of community services. The govern- ment, meanwhile, delays its beleag- uer ed Psychoactive Substances Act.

people first’. The event’ s outcome document, however, receives a decidedly lukewarm response – despite some welcome language on human rights and harm reduction, the need for consensus renders it‘ watered down’ and‘ generally a huge disappointment’, Transform’ s Steve Rolles tells DDN. The seemingly unstoppable flow of new psychoactive substances continues in Europe, with EMCDDA now monitoring almost 600 of them – a sixth of which were reported for the first time in 2015.

Bill’ s chief architect, justice secretary Michael Gove, will be sacked the following month. MDMA, meanwhile, is once again European young people’ s‘ stimulant drug of choice’, according to EMCDDA, with figures showing increased levels of use in nine out of 12 countries, along with stronger pills. The Psychoactive Substances Act, meanwhile, finally limps into UK law.

JUNE

FEBRUARY

The ninth annual service user conference in Birmingham sees powerful presentations, heated debate and a rousing closing speech from Big Issue founder John Bird.‘ The skills you used to score and beg – use them.’ he told delegates.‘ Don’ t let anyone tell you that you don’ t have valuable skills!’ As austerity policies continue to bite, a survey of directors of public health finds that 70 per cent of them expect drug and alcohol services in their area to face cuts.

APRIL

The UN convenes its first special session of the General Assembly( UNGASS) on drugs since 1998, with UNODC executive director Yury Fedotov telling the session that the world needs drug policies that‘ put

MAY

In one of the grimmest developments yet in the‘ war on drugs’, Rodrigo Duterte is elected president of the Philippines, vowing to eradicate crime in the country in six months – a plan, he says, that would see him‘ fatten the fishes’ in Manila bay on the bodies of dead criminals, drug dealers and drug users. Closer to home, the Queen’ s Speech contains major reforms to the UK’ s struggling prison system –‘ the biggest shake-up’ since the Victorian era, says the government – although the Prison

As the UK’ s Brexit vote sends shock- waves through the world, consensus on the country’ s drug legislation continues to shift as a report by the two major public health bodies calls for personal possession of all illegal substances to be decriminalised. A Times editorial on the document goes further, stating that full legalisation should‘ still be the ultimate goal’. Alcohol-related hospital admissions continue their upward curve, and the idea that problems in the prison service are‘ all down to NPS and over- crowding’ is naïve, former gover n or of Brixton and Belmarsh, John Podmore, tells DDN.‘ It’ s looking for a quick fix, and there is no quick fix in this.’