The Scottish Government has written to all health boards offering extra funding for drug treatment services, in order to stop the spread of anthrax among injecting drug users.

Source article on The Scotsman

Drug-dependent users should be fast-tracked into treatment to prevent more deaths from anthrax-infected heroin, according to the drugs charity Addaction.

Source article on The Courier

The number of drugs finds in Scottish prisons has increased in recent years, according to figures released in a parliamentary question raised by MSP Richard Baker.

Source article on HeraldScotland, Scottish Parliament

A further case of anthrax has been confirmed in a heroin user in Scotland, bringing the total number of cases in Scotland to 24. This latest case occurred in the NHS Dumfries and Galloway Board area and the individual is currently receiving hospital treatment.

Source article on Health Protection Scotland, see also Scottish Drugs Forum, BBC News, The Courier, HeraldScotland, Press and Journal, The Scotsman

Professor Andy Miah, Chair in Ethics and Emerging Technologies at the University of the West of Scotland and a world expert in 'artificial enhancement' in sport, has caused controversy by calling for athletes to be allowed to use banned performance-enhancing drugs.

Source article on HeraldScotland

Licence chiefs in Dundee have called on pub and nightclub owners in the area to ban anyone caught using the 'legal high', mephedrone, commonly known as 'bubbles'.

Source article on Evening Telegraph

Claire Sweeney, Portfolio Manager at Audit Scotland, describes the process of disentangling the spend related to drugs and alcohol in Scotland.

Source article on Film Exchange on Alcohol and Drugs

Pubs and clubs in Aberdeen have united to ban anyone caught using the 'legal high' drug, mephedrone, which was linked recently to the death of a woman.

Source article on Press and Journal, The Scotsman

Eight men are to appear in court in Belfast, Northern Ireland, following a drugs seizure with an estimated value of £2 million at the weekend.

Source article on BBC News

The latest from Health Protection Scotland on anthrax cases involving injecting drug use.

Source article on Health Protection Scotland

A documentary revealing the extent of Scotland's cocaine abuse with an insight into Scotland's specialist drugs crime police force, is being screened this Sunday (14th February ) on BBC One at 22:25 p.m.

Source article on BBC, see also Daily Record

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) and NHS Blackpool can confirm they are investigating the death of a drug injecting heroin user in Blackpool.

Source article on Health Protection Agency

Feature on a controversial scheme in the United States called "Project Prevention", which pays drug dependent users to be sterilised.

Source article on BBC News

In a report issued by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the organisation has predicted stable cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan this year (measured in hectares), with a possible decrease in production (number of tons).

Source article on UNODC

Grampian Drug and Alcohol Partnership have highlighted the dangers of the use of the drug mephedrone after the first overdose of the drug in the Aberdeen area was reported.

Source article on Evening Express

New figures have shown that more than 120,000 cannabis plants, worth £37 million, have been seized by police across Scotland, as part of their drive to tackle the growing problem of gangland drug cultivation.

Source article on HeraldScotland

New research commissioned by the Scottish Prison service has found that combining diazepam and alcohol were 'significant contributors to offending' in the 16-17 year-olds interviewed in the study.

Source article on HeraldScotland

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) and NHS London can confirm that a drug injecting heroin user has tested positive for anthrax and is being treated in a London hospital. Also, tests carried out at the HPA, Germany’s Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and Friedrich-Loeffler Institute (FLI) on the strain of anthrax isolated from a heroin user who died in Germany in mid December have shown it is indistinguishable from strains isolated from anthrax cases in Scotland.

Source article on Health Protection Agency, Health Protection Scotland

The Foreign Office have warned British travellers not to get involved with drugs abroad, as new figures show a large number of those detained are accused of drugs offences.

Source article on BBC News

Fears over the safety of 'legal highs' such as mephedrone, which has been linked recently to the death of a 49-year-old woman in Dunfermline, have prompted Community Minister Fergus Ewing to write to the Home Office, urging action to curb their increased popularity.

Source article on The Courier

Studies have revealed that one in three inmates leaving Edinburgh's Saughton Prison after completing their sentence test positive for illegal drugs.

Source article on The Scotsman

A new study from The Institute for Criminal Policy Research, entitled, Cannabis Supply and Young People: "It's a social thing", has revealed that cannabis supply to young people is largely through social networks and friendship groups rather than through overtly criminal drug markets.

Source article on Joseph Rowntree Foundation

An international group of drug experts have concluded that laws against cannabis have failed to cut its use around the world and have led to policies that are intrusive, socially divisive and expensive.

Source article on STV News

The number of deaths linked to heroin contaminated by anthrax has risen to nine with the latest confirmed death relating to a heroin user in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area.

Source article on The Scotsman, Health Protection Scotland