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The latest COVID-19 research is available online.

Review

Protecting children from tobacco products in retail environments: A review of Australian tobacco control laws
Tess Rooney, Michaela Okninski, Kylie Morphett, Bernadette Richards, Coral Gartner
9 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14033

Original Papers

Patterns of opioid prescribing to opioid-naive patients after surgical and emergency care: A population-based cross-sectional study using linked administrative databases in Nova Scotia (2017–2019)
Roah A. Merdad, Mark Asbridge, Samuel Campbell, Daniel J. Dutton, Jill A. Hayden
7 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14029

Risk communication about high-dose MDMA: Impact of a hypothetical drug alert on future MDMA use
Joel Keygan, Breanna Willoughby, Raimondo Bruno, Monica J. Barratt, Amy Peacock
7 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14037

Measuring recovery among people who have completed residential rehabilitation: Factor structure and scoring of the substance use recovery evaluator
Emma L. Hatton, Peter J. Kelly, Raimondo Bruno, Joanne Neale, Briony Larance
4 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14004

Examining the role of social bonds on prescription misuse among adolescents in the United States
Islam Khalil, Mariana Sanchez, Jessy Devieux, Florence George, Patria Rojas
3 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14034

What drove changes in alcohol sales during the COVID-19 pandemic in Czechia? An interrupted time series analyses
Benjamin Petruželka, Miroslav Barták, Vladimir Rogalewicz, Thomas F. Babor
3 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14035

Expanded access to intranasal naloxone and training among police officers in Western Australia: A pilot evaluation study
Seraina Agramunt, Simon Lenton
26 February 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14032

Alcohol use in Iraq: Perceptions of interviewed students at three Iraqi universities
Mustafa Al Ansari, Angela Dawson, Mohammed S. AbdulZahra, Katherine M. Conigrave
23 February 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14026

Motherhood and medicinal cannabis
Vinuli Withanarachchie, Marta Rychert, Chris Wilkins
18 February 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14027

Brief Reports

Does parental cohort increase the likelihood of underage alcohol consumption in Australia?
Nicholas Taylor, Sarah Callinan, Amy Pennay, Alexandra Torney, Michael Livingston
9 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14042

Estimating the number and growth of tobacconists and vape stores in Queensland in the absence of a retailer licensing database
Hollie Bendotti, David Ireland, Coral Gartner, Henry M. Marshall, Sheleigh Lawler
3 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14038

Parent substance use and child-to-parent violence: A brief report
Ashlee Curtis, David Skvarc, Noa Brittain, Peter G. Miller, Richelle Mayshak, Travis Harries
3 March 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14031

A comparison of the United Kingdom, Australian and Japanese hangover product market
Maureen N. Zijlstra, Sanne E. Schulz, Emina Išerić, Quinten Barré, Andrew Scholey, Joris C. Verster
24 February 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14030

Upcoming Special Section: Understanding the emergence and impact of novel synthetic opioids and how to reduce associated harms

Identification of nitazene-related deaths in Australia: How do we make it accurate and timely?
Jennifer L. Schumann, Jeremy Dwyer, Jared A. Brown, Marianne Jauncey, Amanda Roxburgh
17 February 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14028

Clinical toxicity of nitazene detections in two Australian emergency department toxicosurveillance systems
Katherine Z. Isoardi, Sam Alfred, Courtney Weber, Keith Harris, Jessamine Soderstrom, Rebekka Syrjanen, Amanda Thompson, Jennifer Schumann, Peter Stockham, Paul Sakrajda, Daniel Fatovich, Shaun L. Greene, on behalf of the EDNA and EDNAV Investigators
19 January 2025 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.13998

Call for Papers

This Special Section aims to bring together contributions that leverage the latest advancement in AI to solve substance use and addiction-related problems (including gambling and other behavioural addictions). We prefer studies that build upon deep neural networks, the algorithms that underly all the recent breakthroughs in AI (such as most modern generative AI models including ChatGPT and DALL-E), but we would also consider studies that are based on traditional machine learning methods such as random forest.

If you have any queries about this Special Section, please contact the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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This Special Section aims to bring together key emerging evidence on NoLos within and across research groups globally. Specifically, we welcome papers with empirical data from any country/region on:

• Data that characterises the emergence of NoLo products, product availability and accessibility, and market characteristics;
• Data reporting/analysing the marketing and advertising of NoLos [e.g., analysing strategies used by industries (alcohol and others) to promote the consumption of NoLos, studies on how NoLo marketing impacts use outcomes];
• Attitudes and action of teenagers below the legal drinking age and of teenagers’ parents concerning underage teenagers’ consumption of NoLo beverages with alcohol brands and packaging,
• Data reporting and exploring patterns of purchase and consumption and links with social, commercial and political determinants of health (tactics used by for-profit industries), and the drivers of purchase and consumption among particular population groups (young people, people who are pregnant; abstainers/people seeking to reduce their ethanol intake) with implications for harm/benefit and policy.

If you have any queries about this Special Section, please contact the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Click here for more information.

Drug and Alcohol Review - Clinician's Corner

Patients report long-acting injectable buprenorphine is an acceptable form of opioid agonist treatment in prison

Prior to 2020, methadone and sublingual buprenorphine-naloxone were the primary opioid against treatment (OAT) formulations available in Australian custodial settings, however, both have potential for diversion [1] and daily treatment administration is resource intensive in these environments [2]. In 2019, we conducted an open-label non-randomised trial (the UNLOC-T study) comparing the safety and tolerability of long-acting injectable buprenorphine (LAIB) and oral methadone in New South Wales prisons and observed a reduction in self-reported opioid use and injecting drug use for those receiving LAIB, with 92% retained at week 16 [3]. We also found that this form of OAT was preferred by health care and custodial providers [4] and that it was less costly due to reductions in staff resourcing required to provide this treatment [5].

In addition, we documented patient reported outcomes throughout the trial, results of which were recently published in Drug and Alcohol Review [6]. The importance of inclusion of the patient perspective in trials of medications for opioid use disorder was highlighted by Compton and Volkow [7], with Lintzeris and colleagues [8] reporting patient reported outcomes rather than abstinence as the primacy outcome in a seminal comparative effectiveness randomised trial of LAIB vs. sublingual buprenorphine-naloxone. We found high levels of treatment satisfaction and improved patient reported outcomes among people stabilised onto LAIB, despite 97% experiencing at least one treatment emergent adverse event [3]. Significant improvements were observed over time in global medication satisfaction scores using the Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication (including global satisfaction, effectiveness and side effects subdomain scores), and on the single-item Patient Satisfaction Visual Analogue Scale. Significant improvements were also reported by participants in psychological health (K10, SF-12 and ATOP), quality of life (Total SF-12 and ATOP) and physical health (ATOP).

The use of LAIB for opioid dependent people in custody in New South Wales has increased rapidly, with 45% of patients receiving OAT in custody prescribed LAIB by June 2020 [9]. The current findings are therefore particularly important given that provider preference could be sufficient to expand treatment in this setting, without due consideration of patient perspectives.

Considering the favourable costings, our findings support further scale up to increase coverage of OAT in these settings while maintaining patient safety and satisfaction with treatment. However, we also note the rapid uptake of LAIB in custodial settings from 2020 nationally [10], alongside the growth of the total number of people in OAT in Australia, noting variations by jurisdiction [11]. If the custodial treatment system is initiating more people on OAT, this will have an impact on the number referred for ongoing treatment in the community, which needs to be adequately resourced. Research to assess the impact of the expansion of LAIB in the custodial sector on transition of care to the community, including an examination of patient choice and treatment preference across settings, is clearly warranted.

Adrian Dunlop^1,2,3,4 & Bethany White^4,5,6

¹Drug & Alcohol Clinical Services, Hunter New England Local Health District, Newcastle, Australia
²School of Medicine and Public Health, College of Health, Medicine and Wellbeing, University of Newcastle, Newcastle, Australia
³Healthcare Transformation Research Program, Hunter Medical Research Institute, Newcastle, Australia
⁴Drug & Alcohol Clinical Research & Improvement Network, Sydney, Australia
⁵Edith Collins Centre for Translational Research in Alcohol, Drugs and Toxicology, Drug Health Services, Sydney Local Health District, Sydney, Australia
⁶Specialty of Addiction Medicine, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

Full paper is available Open Access:

White B, Little S, Haber PS, Roberts J, Nolan E, Lintzeris N, Dunlop AJ. Treatment satisfaction and patient reported outcomes among people with opioid use disorder participating in an open-label, non-randomised trial of long-acting injectable buprenorphine treatment in Australian custodial settings. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2025;44:640–8. https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.14005

References

1. Bi-Mohammed Z, Wright NM, Hearty P, King N, Gavin H. Prescription opioid abuse in prison settings: A systematic review of prevalence, practice and treatment responses. Drug Alcohol Depend. 2017;171:122-31.
2. Bandara S, Kennedy-Hendricks A, Merritt S, Barry CL, Saloner B. Methadone and buprenorphine treatment in United States jails and prisons: lessons from early adopters. Addiction. 2021;116:3473-81.
3. Dunlop AJ, White B, Roberts J, Cretikos M, Attalla D, Ling R, et al. Treatment of opioid dependence with depot buprenorphine (CAM2038) in custodial settings. Addiction. 2022;117:382-91.
4. Little S, White B, Moensted M, Butler K, Howard M, Roberts J, et al. Health and correctional staff acceptability of depot buprenorphine in NSW prisons. Int J Drug Policy. 2023;114:103978.
5. Ling R, White B, Roberts J, Cretikos M, Howard MV, Haber PS, et al. Depot buprenorphine as an opioid agonist therapy in New South Wales correctional centres: a costing model. BMC Health Serv Res. 2022;22:1326.
6. White B, Little S, Haber PS, Roberts J, Nolan E, Lintzeris N, et al. Treatment satisfaction and patient reported outcomes among people with opioid use disorder participating in an open-label, non-randomised trial of long-acting injectable buprenorphine treatment in Australian custodial settings. Drug Alcohol Rev. 2025;44:640-8.
7. Compton WM, Volkow ND. Extended-Release Buprenorphine and Its Evaluation With Patient-Reported Outcomes. JAMA Network Open. 2021;4:e219708-e.
8. Lintzeris N, Dunlop AJ, Haber PS, Lubman DI, Graham R, Hutchinson S, et al. Patient-Reported Outcomes of Treatment of Opioid Dependence With Weekly and Monthly Subcutaneous Depot vs Daily Sublingual Buprenorphine: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Netw Open. 2021;4:e219041.
9. Roberts J, White B, Attalla D, Ward S, Dunlop AJ. Rapid upscale of depot buprenorphine (CAM2038) in custodial settings during the early COVID-19 pandemic in New South Wales, Australia. Addiction. 2021;116:426-7.
10. Bharat C, Chidwick K, Gisev N, Farrell M, Ali R, Degenhardt L. Trends in use of medicines for opioid agonist treatment in Australia, 2013-2022. Int J Drug Policy. 2024;123:104255.
11. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. National Opioid Pharmacotherapy Statistics Annual Data collection Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2024. Available from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/alcohol-other-drug-treatment-services/national-opioid-pharmacotherapy-statistics/contents/summary.