The global war on drugs should be abandoned and they should be legalised an establishment think tank has declared.A study by the International Institute of Strategic Studies found that the global war on narcotics had failed to contain the scourge of illegal stimulants.

The drugs trade has spread to Africa and Eastern Europe in recent decades and entrenched its standing in its traditional strongholds of Asia and the Americas.

Nigel Inkster, the former assistant chief of MI6 and author of the study, said there was a growing revolt against the cost of the fight in developing countries.

Only “vested interests” in countries where illegal drugs are consumed stood in the way of a change in approach, he said.

Research indicated that the authorities would need to stop 70 per cent of all drugs shipments to disrupt the trade. While no figures for the proportion of the trade stopped are available, the figure is almost certainly far below that threshold.

Therefore ramping up the security services fight against drugs is almost certainly doomed to failure.

“As any doctor is told on his first day, you should not just double the dose,” said Mr Inkster, who is the most senior figure to have worked within the fight against narcotics to openly call for a review. “If your initial diagnosis doesn’t work don’t just double the dose.”

The corrosive effects on security of the narco-economy also weighs as an argument for ending the war. “You can’t do counter-insurgency and counter-narcotics simultaneously,” he said. “Our investigation has shown us that the so-called war on drugs fundamentally undermines international security.”

The report, Drugs, Insecurity and Failed States, highlights two alternative systems.

Either decriminalisation of all personal possession, as Portugal instituted a decade ago- or a licensing scheme such as that which brought the gin trade under control in London in the 1700s.

Licensing would also allow states to begin to apply the lessons of antismoking campaigns which have curtailed tobacco use.

Taxation, public health messages and social legislation could marginalise drug use.

A ban on tobacco displays is coming into force in England today – with ministers promising it will help curb the number of young people taking up smoking.Cigarettes and other products will have to be kept below the counter in large shops and supermarkets, while small outlets are exempt until 2015.

Other parts of the UK are planning similar action to drive down smoking rates.

Andrew Lansley Health Secretary said: “Firstly, it reduces the visibility of tobacco and smoking to young people. And, of course two thirds of smokers started smoking before they were eighteen.

“So, if we can, literally, arrive at a place where young people just don’t think about smoking and they don’t see tobacco and they don’t see cigarettes – then I hope we can make a big difference.”

He said the government recognised the pressures on retailers to comply with the ban but added: “We want to arrive at a place where we no longer see smoking as a normal part of life. We’re doing it by stages with constant active pressure.”

A fifth of adults smoke – a figure which has remained steady in recent years after decades of rapid falls.

A plan to force manufacturers to put cigarettes into plain packets is also expected to be put out to consultation later this year.

The display ban will apply to shops of more than 280 sq m (3,014 sq ft).

Public health minister Anne Milton cited evidence from Ireland which suggested the measure could play an important role in discouraging young people in particular from smoking.

“We cannot ignore the fact that young people are recruited into smoking by colourful, eye-catching, cigarette displays.  Most adult smokers started smoking as teenagers and we need to stop this trend.”

Jo Butcher, of the National Children’s Bureau, agreed: “It’s essential that we create a culture that promotes and protects public health and tobacco legislation is a significant factor in making this happen.”

Jean King, of charity Cancer Research UK, said the ban would help stop children who are attracted to brightly coloured tobacco packaging from taking up smoking but further action was still needed.

“Of course we want to see the pack branding taken away as well. This is not a normal consumer product, it kills people. We want to protect the next generation of children,” she said.

Andrew Opie, from the British Retail Consortium, said it was wrong to believe the legislation would have a major effect on young people and it was supermarkets and other shops which were bearing the brunt of the costs needed to comply with the ban.

He said the organisation had calculated that it cost more than £15 million to ensure everything was sorted out before the ban came into place.

He said: “Children are more likely to smoke when they’re in a household where parents smoke and also they tend to get their cigarettes from either parents, or older peers, not directly from supermarkets.

The display ban was announced by the government last year as part of its tobacco control strategy.

Although the legislation allowing it to happen was actually put in place by the Labour government before it lost power in 2010.

A number of countries, including Canada, Ireland, Iceland and Finland, have already introduced similar bans.

Prof David Hammond from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said the ban led to a decline in smoking – especially among the young – in Canada.

“The declines were greatest in the provinces where the ban had been implemented the longest. And that’s consistent with the idea that when you remove something like marketing, it takes some time for the residual marketing to wear out.”

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17626133

Homeopathic treatments funded by the NHS are “biologically implausible” and risk damaging patients’ health by discouraging them from getting proper treatment, a leading researcher has claimed.Edzard Ernst, Professor of Complementary Medicine at Exeter University, said homeopathic remedies had not been proven to work in clinical trials.

People who still maintain the treatments are effective are “ignoring or misrepresenting the best evidence available”, he added.

Homeopathy could even be dangerous because it is sometimes used instead of scientifically proven medical procedures such as immunisations, he added.

Prof Ernst, a former homeopathist, is an outspoken critic of unproven treatments provided on the NHS. He once labelled the Prince of Wales a “snake-oil salesman” because of his support for “unproven and disproved” medicine.

The NHS spends about £4 million a year on homeopathy, which is based on the theory that patients can be cured through exposure to a diluted form of the substance that caused their symptoms.

Writing in The Biologist magazine Prof Ernst, now a professor of complementary medicine, said this belief “Is in contrast with the laws of physics, chemistry and pharmacology. Homeopathy is thus biologically implausible.”

He said: “Homeopathy could be (and often is) used as an alternative to effective interventions. For example, the advice from homeopaths not to immunise has become a major cause of low vaccination rates.”

The strategy of using homeopathy as a placebo can only work if doctors hide the truth from their patients, he added.

Homeopathists insist that the form of treatment is not suited to the design of conventional clinical trials because they do not take into account the benefit that many patients have been shown to experience in observational studies.

They say that the method of administering extremely diluted substances works by triggering the body’s natural healing systems, which can lessen symptoms and lead to eventual cures.

Dr Mark Downs, Chief Executive of the Society of Biology, said: “The UK spends billions of pounds every year ensuring that the new and existing conventional medicines we take are effective, safe and fit for purpose.

“It makes no sense to allow other treatments available through public expenditure to be made available without application of the same rigorous standards. That is what is happening with homeopathic treatments. It needs to stop.”

Síle Lane of the Sense About Science campaign group added: “When a treatment like homeopathy is offered by the NHS, people will think the evidence for it has undergone the same level of scrutiny as conventional medicine.

“It misleads people into thinking there is something in it when there isn’t.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Homeopathy-biologically-implausible

People can significantly reduce their chances of being diagnosed with cancer by taking an aspirin a day for as little as three years, according to new research.The cheap drug not only appears to stop cancers developing in the first place, but also prevents them from spreading to other parts of the body, the new work shows.

Those who start taking low dose (75mg) aspirin daily in their 60s appear to benefit just as much as those who start taking it earlier.

The study Effect of daily aspirin on risk of cancer metastasis published in The Lancet, add to the argument that low dose aspirin should be taken widely from middle-age, said the lead author, Professor Peter Rothwell, of Oxford University’s Stroke Prevention Research Unit.

His team found that taking low dose daily aspirin for between three and five years reduced the chance of being diagnosed with cancer at that time by 19 per cent. Five years or more after starting taking aspirin, the reduction rose to 30 per cent.

He said: “These data do push the argument in favour of taking daily low-dose aspirin, particularly if you have a family history of heart disease or cancer.

“We showed previously that daily aspirin substantially reduces the long-term risk of some cancers, particularly colorectal cancer and oesophageal cancer, but that these effects don’t appear until about eight to 10 years after starting treatment.

“The delay is because aspirin is preventing the very early development of cancers and there is a long delay between this early stage and the eventual clinical presentation with a cancer.

“What we have now shown is that aspirin also has short-term effects, which are manifest after only two to three years.”

The effect was just as marked in those who started taking it after they had turned 60.

The short-term effect appeared to be caused by aspirin slowing the progression of cancer. Another new study showed aspirin almost halved the chances of diagnosed cancer spreading to other organs, over 6.5 years.

Prof Rothwell said: “This is important because it is this process of spread of cancer, or ‘metastasis’, which most commonly kills people with cancer.”

After five years, the chance of having died from cancer if on aspirin was 37 per cent lower.

The findings also raised “the distinct possibility that aspirin will be effective as an additional treatment for cancer – to prevent distant spread of the disease”, he said.

Aspirin has long been hailed for its blood-thinning properties, leading some to argue that it should be prescribed to those who are at a higher risk of heart attack or stroke, even if they have never had one.

However, researchers have been increasingly worried that the benefits of reduced heart attacks and strokes are cancelled out by the raised risk of stomach bleeds, which are occasionally fatal.

But Prof Rothwell said the new research showed that aspirin had a far greater effect on reducing cancer than reducing heart attacks and strokes. Nine out of 10 deaths it prevented were “non-vascular”, according to one of the studies.

Critics of widespread aspirin use point out that it triggers stomach bleeding in some people, which can occasionally be fatal. Even advocates concede it should be used with caution in over 75s.

Prof Rothwell said their studies showed that while aspiring doubled the risk of bleeds in the first three years, after that the risk fell so there was no difference to not taking it. Aspirin also did not increase the risk of fatal bleeds, he said.

Cooling the brains of people who have just had a stroke could have as dramatic effect on reducing deaths and long term disability as ‘clot-busting’ drugs new reserach has found.Reducing a patient’s body temperature to 35C induces a kind of hibernation in the brain that helps protect it from damage, pilot studies indicate.

The technique – which can involve introducing cold saline solution into the veins, and putting ice-packs on the body – is already used for patients with traumatic head injuries and for some babies hurt during birth.

Now academics across Europe are setting up a £9 million study, funded largely by the EU, to test the theory in 1,500 volunteers.

Dr Malcolm Macleod, head of experimental neuroscience at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at Edinburgh University, said: “Our estimates are that hypothermia might improve the outcome for more than 40,000 Europeans every year.”

Pilot studies indicate at least seven or eight per cent of stroke patients will benefit from the cooling therapy, he said- similar to the proportion helped by thrombolysis.

Dr Macleod noted cooling appeared to work for up to six hours after the stroke, compared to about 4.5 hours for thrombolysism. He also said it could also be used in the vast majority of stroke patients, which is not the case for clot-busting drugs, which can only be used for about one in five.

He continued: “It’s a treatment that might in time be available to give in the back of ambulances.”

The larger study is needed to verify the pilot study results, he said.

Dr Clare Walton from The Stroke Association said: “Cooling is a particularly promising area of stroke research because we know body temperature often increases following a stroke and patients with very high temperatures tend to make poorer recoveries.

“We already know that cooling is effective in reducing the amount of brain damage in patients who have acquired brain injuries from accidents. We look forward to finding out whether it has the same positive effect in stroke patients.”

A record number of new legal highs were identified last year by British scientists.The scientists – who’ve advised the government before – said that more than 41 new substances were detected across Europe in 2011, breaking the previous year’s tally.

They are mainly from China and being bought by UK users over the internet.

The official figure is set to be confirmed later in the year by the EU drugs agency, the EMCDDA.

Because the substances haven’t been tested yet the long term effects are unknown.

Katy MacLeod from Edinburgh Crew 2000, a charity that helps young people with substance issues, said legal highs were difficult to deal with.

“We already know quite a lot about cocaine, ecstasy and ketamine,” she said.

“It’s probably easier to treat people with those kind of drugs, because we have much more pieces of research done. With legal highs, the same knowledge base isn’t there yet.”

In just a couple of weeks, they treated 34 people who had all been poisoned by Ivory Wave, which has now been banned.

The government says it will use powers that came in in November to ban all potentially dangerous new substances while they’re being tested.

But Dr Stephen Potts, who works at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, says he’s worried about new legal highs emerging as soon as others are banned.

“The people who take them don’t know what’s in them,” he explains. “The people who sell them don’t know what’s in them, and we as the doctors certainly don’t know what’s in them.”

Dr John Ramsey tests new legal highs in his laboratory at St George’s medical school in London.

He told Newsbeat that some of the new substances he comes across are potentially very dangerous: “We’ve got a compound we found a couple of days ago which is potent at 100 micrograms – that’s a tiny amount.

“Most drugs are active at about 100 milligrams. This one is about a 1000 times more potent.  The risks people are taking are just not worth it.”

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/16866929

Viagra helps ailing hearts to recover in a surprising way – by making them less stiff and allowing them to pump more efficiently scientists have learned.The impotency drug causes too-rigid heart chamber walls to become more elastic. The research explains how Viagra might benefit patients with diastolic heart failure.

People with the condition have abnormally inflexible ventricles, the heart’s major pumping chambers, that do not fill sufficiently with blood.

This leads to blood ”backing up” in the lungs and breathing difficulties.

Scientists found that Viagra activates an enzyme that causes a protein in heart muscle cells to relax.

The effect was seen in dogs with diastolic heart failure within minutes of the drug being administered.

Study leader Professor Wolfgang Linke, from the Ruhr Universitat Bochum (RUB) in Germany, said: ”We have developed a therapy in an animal model that, for the first time, also raises hopes for the successful treatment of patients.”

Viagra has a similar effect on blood vessels, which is why it was originally developed as a treatment for high blood pressure and heart disease.

The drug’s active ingredient, sildenafil, inhibits an enzyme involved in the mechanism that regulates blood flow.  However, the enzyme is slightly different in different parts of the body.

The British scientists behind Viagra found to their initial disappointment that it was not a great help to patients with high blood pressure. But it had a miraculous effect on men with erectile dysfunctin.

The drug successfully suppressed the enzyme phosphodiesterase (PDE) in the penis, increasing blood flow to the organ.

Prof Linke’s team found that it worked on the same enzyme in heart cells. This had the effect of causing a cardiac muscle protein called titin to become more elastic.

”The titin molecules are similar to rubber bands,” said the professor. ”They contribute decisively to the stiffness of cardiac walls.”

The research was initially published in the journal Circulation of the American Heart Association.

Almost half of emergency patients admitted to hospital with heart failure have a diastolic condition.

Various medical conditions can cause the ventricles to become ”stiff”. They include high blood pressure, blocked arteries, and cardiomyopathy heart disorders.

Sildenafil is already being tested on heart failure patients taking part in the Relax trial in the US.

Patients with hypertension, or chronic high blood pressure, are often given drugs to lower their risk of heart disease and stroke but the medication could also benefit a wider group of patients.Researchers found that people with prehypertension, where blood pressure is higher than normal but not as severe as in hypertension, had a 22 per cent lower risk of stroke if they took the drugs.

An analysis of 16 studies, covering 70,664 patients, found that treating 169 prehypertensive people with blood pressure-lowering medication for 4.3 years would prevent one stroke from happening.

High blood pressure is the biggest risk factor for stroke, and an estimated 40 per cent of strokes could be prevented if people took steps to control their blood pressure levels.

US data shows that about 10 per cent of Americans have prehypertension, with a blood pressure between 120/80mm Hg and 139/89mm Hg – higher than the upper boundary of “normal” but below the lower limit of hypertension.

Ilke Sipahi of the Harrington-McLaughlin Heart and Vascular Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, who led the study, published in the Stroke journal, said patients would be better off trying to lower their blood pressure through a healthy diet and physical activity than by taking pills.

He said: “We do not think that giving blood pressure medicine instead of implementing the lifestyle changes is the way to go … however, the clear-cut reduction in the risk of stroke with blood pressure pills is important and may be complementary to lifestyle changes.”

Dr Sharlin Ahmed of The Stroke Association said: “Making a few simple lifestyle choices, such as eating a healthy diet low in salt, giving up smoking, and exercising regularly can help to keep your blood pressure under control and can reduce your risk of stroke.

“As highlighted in this study, it may also be beneficial for some people with borderline high blood pressure to take blood pressure lowering medication, however this needs to be discussed with your GP.”

The ‘morning after pill’ which was being offered over the phone in a controversial new scheme over the Christmas period is “not effective” when a woman is most fertile, a consultant gynaecologist has warned.Dr Kate Guthrie said Levonelle One Step, the form of emergency contraception being offered by the British Pregnancy Advice Service (bpas), was “not effective” for up to five days around ovulation.

Dr Guthrie, a member of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health, was concerned that women could take the pill during these days and wrongly think they would avoid pregnancy.

She said: “There’s very clear evidence showing that it’s not effective in the couple of days running up to ovulation, and probably not very effective in the 36 hours afterwards.”

The aim of the bpas scheme is to cut the number of women seeking abortions over the festive season.

The idea is that women will be able to pop the pill on the morning after accidentally having unprotected sex, rather than having to get an appointment, which can be difficult over the Christmas break.

Part of the rationale is, as bpas puts it, “the sooner the morning after pill is taken after unprotected sex, the more effective it is.”

Dr Guthrie, who works in East Yorkshire, agreed with that, saying that Levonelle should always be taken within 72 hours of sex.

However, she was concerned that women would not be sufficiently informed of Levonelle’s limitations.

While she welcomed immediate access to emergency contraception, she said: “You have to know how effective or ineffective it is.”

Guidance from the faculty, published this August, states that Levonelle “has been shown to be no better than placebo at suppressing ovulation when given immediately prior to ovulation, and is not thought to be effective once the process of fertilisation has occurred”.

Dr Guthrie said that, if a woman has had unprotected sex at this time of the menstrual cycle, she should see a doctor about obtaining another form of emergency contraception.

Alcohol drinkers should have two alcohol free days every week warn MPs- who claim current guidelines give the false impression that daily consumption is healthy.The Science and Technology Committee says current advice on “regular” safe intake is confusing, and wrongly leads people to believe that enjoying a few pints of beer or glasses of wine every day will not harm health.

It wants the Department of Health in England to carry out the first proper review of drinking guidance in more than 15 years, which should follow the example of Scotland in recommending two “dry” days a week.

The MPs also want new rules on what would count as a dangerous night of “binge-drinking”, new lower safe levels for older people and a website where people can work out individual intake based on their age, weight and family history.

They say few people understand what constitutes an alcoholic unit, the basis of the drinking advice, and tell ministers that the guidelines do not seem to change behaviour.

Although the Committee’s report concedes that the drinks industry is needed to help improve labelling on bottles and glasses, it warns of potential conflicts of interest if the Government works too closely with brewers and shops.

Andrew Miller, the Committee’s chairman, said: “Alcohol guidelines are a crucial tool for Government in its effort to combat excessive and problematic drinking. It is vital that they are up-to date and that people know how to use them.

“Unfortunately, public understanding of how to use the guidelines and what an alcohol unit looks like is poor, although improving.

“While we urge the UK Health Departments to re-evaluate the guidelines more thoroughly, the evidence we received suggests that the guidelines should not be increased and that people should be advised to take at least two drink-free days a week.”

The MPs’ report, published on Monday following public hearings and written submissions last year, states that the first Government health advice on sensible drinking was not published until the 1980s.

Originally, the public were told that men could safely have 18 “standard drinks” a week and women half that number, while in 1987 this was revised in favour of weekly “sensible limits” of 21 units for men and 14 for women.

Medical research later suggested that moderate daily alcohol intake could be good for the health, by lowering levels of bad cholesterol in the blood, while giving weekly limits could “mask episodes of heavy drinking”. In 1995, therefore, daily limits were introduced that recommended men should not drink more than three to four units a day, and women two to three.

Some experts, however, raised concerns that this switch from weekly to daily limits appeared to increase the weekly “allowance” of alcohol while also appearing to “endorse daily drinking”.

The MPs say more recent studies have cast doubt on the health benefits of regular drinking, and recommend that England follows Scotland’s lead in urging “at least two alcohol-free days a week”.

They back current specific advice for children and pregnant women, and say “there could be merit” in producing new rules for older people as well as limits for “individual drinking episodes”, but find no evidence for increasing current general safe limits.

The Committee says an expert group, including civil servants as well as scientists, should review current evidence on the health effects of alcohol in order to “increase public confidence”.

They say people should be made aware of the difference between the short-term effects of binge drinking and the long term harm caused by alcoholism, and should be helped to understand how many units are in different drinks.