Mexican navy said the 1,967-pound of cocaine was seized aboard a ship bound for the United States during a weekend raid

19:46 Mexico's military cracks down on the cartels moving South American narcotics north. 0 Comments

Mexican navy said the 1,967-pound of cocaine was seized aboard a ship bound for the United States during a weekend raid last week in the Puerto Progreso harbour on the Yucatan Peninsula. Navy inspectors in the port town of Progreso on the southeastern shore of Mexico said they slit open one of the frozen sharks after detecting an anomaly on an X-ray and black bags filled with rectangular cocaine packets spilled out. Drug gangs are coming up with increasingly creative ways of getting drugs into the United States in sealed beer cans, religious statues and furniture as Mexico's military cracks down on the cartels moving South American narcotics north.

United Kingdom is the cocaine capital of Europe

10:22 United Kingdom is the cocaine capital of Europe 0 Comments

United Kingdom is the cocaine capital of Europe, with more than a million regular users taking the drug, according to a new report.And one of Scotland's top drug experts said yesterday that given the biggest per capita consumption was north of the Border, the country was probably Europe's capital of the class A substance.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said the UK was Europe's largest cocaine market. But its report said the quality of the drug had declined dramatically in recent years.The report said a crackdown on traffickers had pushed cocaine prices up and led to dealers diluting the drug even more.Some seizures by police revealed that substances being passed off as cocaine that were only 5 per cent pure.The UN found dealers mixing their product with cutting agents such as dental and veterinary anaesthetics, which mimic the effects of cocaine but are much cheaper.There are estimated to be 860,000 cocaine users in England and Wales and about 140,000 in Northern Ireland and Scotland combined. The World Drug Report 2009 revealed that cocaine use had increased dramatically in the UK from the mid-1990s, but remained stable over the past two years.

Data given to the UN by the UK's Serious Organised Crime Agency shows that wholesale prices have risen to record levels. The cost of a kilogram of cocaine has increased by 50 per cent – from £30,000 to £45,000 – since 2007.

The report says: "The UK thus continues to be – in absolute numbers – Europe's largest cocaine market, with its second highest cocaine use prevalence rate."
Professor Neil McKeganey, director of the Centre for Drug Misuse Research at Glasgow University, said he was not surprised at the UN's conclusions."A few years ago I said that in due course cocaine would overtake heroin, and I think that's what we're going to see. Heroin use may have plateaued at quite a high level, but cocaine use has been rising quite dramatically."He added:

"Scotland typically is the highest centre of drug consumption in the UK anyway, so it could well be that it is the cocaine capital of Europe."

Families of chaotic drug users are to be given an antidote to keep their relatives alive in the event of a heroin overdose

10:18 at King's Health Partners in London , Professor John Strang , the director of the national addiction centre 0 Comments

Families of chaotic drug users are to be given an antidote to keep their relatives alive in the event of a heroin overdose in a pilot scheme to be launched this week.
The drug, naloxone, and training in how to use it, will be given to 950 families in 16 areas of the country, but could be rolled out eventually to a quarter of a million. Experts believe it could save hundreds of lives."It virtually instantaneously reverses the overdose," said Professor John Strang, the director of the national addiction centre, at King's Health Partners in London, one of the new academic health sciences centres. "For many years ambulance crews have had it. This is the logical next step."Surveys of families have revealed that about a quarter have at some time been present when a relative or partner has accidentally overdosed. At the moment, all they can do is ring for an ambulance and hope it arrives in time.Strang's team asked families whether they would like to be taught how to deal with an overdose. "They virtually bit our hands off with enthusiasm," he said. "The results were so obvious you can't believe we haven't spotted this and introduced it years ago."

One in 25 deaths across the world are linked to alcohol consumption

10:15 men are five times more likely to die from alcohol-related illness than women 0 Comments

One in 25 deaths across the world are linked to alcohol consumption, Canadian experts have suggested.Writing in the Lancet, the team from the University of Toronto added that the level of disease linked to drinking affects poorest people the most. Worldwide, average alcohol consumption is around 12 units a week - but in Europe that soars to 21.5. The report authors warn the effect of alcohol disease is similar to that of smoking a decade ago. We face a large and increasing alcohol-attributable burden Dr Jurgen Rehm.The analysis also found that 5% of years lived with disability are attributable to alcohol consumption. The paper says that, although there have been some benefits of moderate drinking in relation to cardiovascular disease, these are far outweighed by the detrimental effects of alcohol on disease and injury. In addition to diseases directly caused by drinking, such as liver disorders, a wide range of other conditions such as mouth and throat cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, depression and stroke are linked to drinking. Drinking patterns do vary around the world, and the researchers point out that most of the adult population - 45% of men and 66% of women - abstain from drinking alcohol for most of them for their life. Across the Americas, average consumption is 17 units per week, while the Middle East was the lowest at 1.3 units per week. For 2004, the latest year for which comparable data are available on a global level, 3.8% of all global deaths (around 1 in 25) were attributable to alcohol. Overall, alcohol-attributable deaths have increased since 2000 mainly because of increases in the number of women drinking. Europe had the highest proportion of deaths related to alcohol, with 1 in 10 deaths directly attributable.
Within Europe, the former Soviet Union countries had the highest proportion at 15%, or around one in seven deaths. This study is a global wake-up call Professor Ian Gilmore, Royal College of Physicians president

Globally, men are five times more likely to die from alcohol-related illness than women.

And young people are more likely to have a disease linked to alcohol than older people.