The Health Research Board (HRB) recently published a review entitled Treatment services for people with co-occurring substance use and mental health problems: a rapid realist synthesis.¹ This report is part of the HRB Drug and Alcohol Evidence Review series and was undertaken by a team from the Georgia Health Policy Center. The three initial research questions guiding the review were:

What interventions improve treatment and personal functioning outcomes for people with co-occurring substance use and mental health problems and in what circumstances do they work?

What aspects of integrative programmes for the treatment of co-occurring substance use and mental health problems trigger positive system outcomes and in what circumstances do these outcomes occur?

What existing models of care for adults with co-occurring substance use and mental health problems lead to positive treatment outcomes and successful service integration?

The medical use of cannabis and cannabinoids is a complex and challenging field. There is a wide range of issues to be considered by policymakers and other stakeholders when making decisions about the best approach to take. In December 2018, the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) published a report on the topic to help support this process – Medical use of cannabis and cannabinoids: questions and answers for policymaking.¹ It is supported by a background paper: A summary of reviews of evidence on the efficacy and safety of medical use of cannabis and cannabinoids.²

Civil society involvement (CSI) in the development and implementation of drug policy is widely considered best practice and promoted at both international and national levels. For example, a focus on the value of CSI is evident in both the EU drugs strategy 2013–2020¹ and the EU action plan on drugs 2017–2020.² One of the 15 objectives of the latter is to ‘ensure the participation of civil society in drugs policy’. It is also a key part of Ireland’s national drugs strategy, Reducing harm, supporting recovery: a health-led response to drug and alcohol use in Ireland 2017–2025.³

The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC) is a global network of 180 non-governmental organisations.¹ It focuses on issues related to drug production; trafficking and use; and promoting objective and open debate on the effectiveness, direction and content of drug policies at national and international levels. The network supports evidence-based policies that are effective at reducing drug-related harm. As part of this work and in the context of the role identified by the work of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for civil society involvement in drug policy,² the IDPC has published Taking stock: a decade of drug policy.³ This report ‘evaluates the impacts of drug policies implemented across the world over the past decade, using data from the United Nations (UN), complemented with peer-reviewed academic research and grey literature reports from civil society’ (p. 7).³