Addiction Audio4 Apr 2024

Synthetic opioid production in Europe with Paul Griffiths

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Paul Griffiths about synthetic drug production in Europe including the differences between lab-made substances and diverted medical drugs. They discuss organised crime and its impact on cocaine production, drug availability and the potential for drug contamination. They also cover fentanyl and the potential for a heroin drought resulting from changes in opium production in Afghanistan.

Paul talks about the complexities of European drug markets explaining how they commonly respond to changes in both supply and demand. Elle and Paul then discuss how researchers can monitor drug trends through wastewater analysis and other methods.

“These are often very small labs, but because of the potency of these drugs, it means very small production runs can have quite a big impact on local drug consumption patterns and mortality and morbidity. So we saw a few years ago, ten or fifteen years, one lab in central Europe we had a very brief outbreak of deaths in about three countries all related to a very very small, a kitchen lab it was actually in someone’s kitchen but it had an impact.”

Paul Griffiths is the scientific director for the EMCDDA – the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction

Original article: Opioid problems are changing in Europe with worrying signals that synthetic opioids may play a more significant role in the future by Paul Griffiths and colleagues. Published in Addiction (2024)

The opinions expressed in this post reflect the views of the host and interviewees and do not necessarily represent the opinions or official positions of the SSA or Addiction journal.

The SSA does not endorse or guarantee the accuracy of the information in external sources or links and accepts no responsibility or liability for any consequences arising from the use of such information.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(127)

Fentanyl, poly-substance use and the US opioid epidemic with Joseph Friedman

Ben Scher talks to Dr Joseph Friedman about his research on fentanyl overdoses. Joseph explains the four waves of opioid overdoses in the US and how opiate and opioid overdoses have changed.They discu...

13 Sep 202315min

Vaping and smoking cessation with Vassilis Sideropoulos

Rob Calder talks to Vassilis Sideropoulos about a recent paper on the role of vaping products in smoking cessation. The first author for this paper was Dr Catherine Kimber.Vassilis talks about the arr...

24 Aug 202324min

Overdose risk, opioid agonists and other medications with Eleni Domzaridou

Rob Calder talks to Dr Eleni Domzaridou about her recent article on the risk of overdose among people prescribe medication for opioid use at the same time as being prescribed other medication - such a...

17 Aug 202318min

Methamphetamine, psychosis and family history with Rebecca McKetin

In this episode Ben Scher talks to Dr Rebecca McKetin about her recent article looking the relationship between psychosis, psychotic symptoms and methamphetamine use. They discuss the implications and...

10 Aug 202318min

Hallucinogen use, young adults and monitoring the future with Katherine Keyes

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr Katherine Keyes about her study examining changes to hallucinogen use among young adults in the US. Katherine also talks about using the Monitoring The F...

3 Aug 202323min

Perspectives on gambling from 1561 with Louise Nadeau

In this episode Ben Scher talks to Professor Louise Nadeau about her recent article anaysing the content of a Latin-language treatise on gambling addiction written nearly 500 years ago. Ben and Louise...

28 Jul 202323min

Risk of bias in tobacco cessation trials with Jamie Hartmann-Boyce

In this episode, Chloe Burke talks to Dr Jamie Hartmann-Boyce about new guidance from the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group (TAG) on assessing and minimising risk of bias in tobacco cessation trials. J...

20 Jul 202320min

Cannabis legalisation in Canada with Janni Leung

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr Janni Leung about her work on a systematic review of the evidence on cannabis arrests, cannabis products and prices since Canada legalised cannabis. Jann...

13 Jul 202325min