In June 2018, a report that examined community experiences of serious organised crime (SOC) in Scotland was published by the Scottish Government.¹ The study aimed to examine three areas:

• Relationships that existed between SOC and communities in Scotland
• Experiences and perceptions of the scope and nature of SOC among residents, stakeholders, and organisations
• Impact of SOC on community wellbeing, and whether harms linked to SOC can be alleviated.

The launch of The drug economy and youth interventions: an exploratory research project on working with young people involved in the illegal drugs trade was held on 30 April 2019.¹ The study was carried out by Dr Matt Bowden of the Technological University Dublin and is published by CityWide Drugs Crisis Campaign. As well as a presentation on the report’s key findings, the launch included:

• The findings of research into the views and experiences of drug dealers by Dr Fiona O’Reilly
• The experiences of those delivering interventions with young people affected by the ‘drug economy’:
  •  Angela Birch of the Ballymun Regional Youth Resource discussing the Easy Street project
  •  Karl Ducque and Gary Lawlor of the Targeted Response to Youth (TRY) intervention
• A closing statement by John Lonergan, former governor of Mountjoy Prison, Dublin.

The National Drug Treatment Reporting System (NDTRS) is a national surveillance database on treatment for problem drug and alcohol use in Ireland. In March 2019, the NDTRS published its latest alcohol treatment figures, which cover the seven-year period 2011–2017. Over this period, 55,675 cases were treated for alcohol as a main problem.¹

The treatment demand indicator (TDI) is an epidemiological indicator, used in the European Union (EU), with the aim of providing a common format on collection and reporting of data on people seeking treatment for problem drug use. A recent study reviewed the implementation of the TDI and the data analysis and trends it has provided.¹

On 10 December 2018, the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Drug and Alcohol Task Force (DLRDATF) launched their report, ‘Just maintaining the status quo’? The experiences of long-term participants in methadone maintenance treatment.¹ The report documents the findings of a qualitative study examining the experiences of people engaged in long-term methadone maintenance treatment in the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown area of South Dublin.

Opiate use disorder (OUD) is a problem worldwide.¹ European statistics show that there are approximately 1.3 million high-risk opioid users in the EU, where opioids are found in 82% of fatal overdoses.² The most recent Irish data from 2014 estimated that there were 18,988 opiate users in the Republic of Ireland, giving a rate of 6.18 per thousand population aged 15–64 years (95% CI: 6.09–6.98).³

Recent research has shown that the number of emergency hospitalisations among those experiencing homelessness in Ireland has increased significantly in the last 10 years.¹ The profile of those using emergency department services suggests that they are, in the main, chronically or episodically homeless and thus represent a relatively small proportion of the overall homeless population. Nevertheless, these subjects are heavy users of various costly services. Furthermore, a number of Irish studies have suggested that homeless people exhibit relatively high levels of mental health difficulties and may be over-represented in psychiatric settings.^1,2

Alcohol is one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide. A causal relationship has been established between alcohol and over 60 health conditions, such as female breast cancer, bowel cancer, and high blood pressure.¹ Despite the growing evidence on the contribution of alcohol to the global burden of disease and mortality, research in other countries demonstrates poor public knowledge of the association between alcohol and a range of alcohol-related health conditions, including cancer.^2,3 The aim of this research was to establish public knowledge of six alcohol-related health conditions in Ireland, namely liver disease, pancreatitis, stomach ulcers, high blood pressure, female breast cancer, and bowel cancer.