Patients are frequently found carrying illicit drugs in the gastrointestinal tract in hospitals sited close to international airports. Drugs, usually heroin or cocaine, are wrapped in cellophane packets or condoms. Packages are concealed by being swallowed or passed into the rectum. Conservative treatment is appropriate providing bowel osbstruction or package perforation has not occurred.
The present study estimated the associations among three groups of drug users (chronic drug users, injecting drug users and non-drug users) and three types of health services utilisation (emergency room use, outpatient care and inpatient care).
A principal, perhaps dominant, motivation for this research is that it can inform policy and lead to reductions in the nation's drug problems. It is unclear that the existing work, summarized in the first half of this chapter, does so; the second half of the chapter describes how a more policy-relevant research agenda might be developed.
This paper examines how the performance of different aspects of forces strategies, such as diversion and enforcement activity, might be measured and the extent to which performance indicators might be constructed from operational data already being collected by the police.
The Board has prepared this special report, in cooperation with WHO, to identify governments that have not yet fully implemented the INCB recommendations on access to medications for medical needs, and to propose measures to improve the availability of opiates for medical purposes.
