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The COVID-19 pandemic is presenting significant challenges for health and social care systems globally. The implementation of unprecedented public health measures, alongside the augmentation of the treatment capacity for those severely affected by COVID-19, are compromising and limiting the delivery of essential care to people with severe substance use problems and, in some cases, widening extreme social inequities such as poverty and homelessness. This global pandemic is severely challenging current working practices. However, these challenges can provide a unique opportunity for a flexible and innovative learning approach, bringing certain interventions into the spotlight. Harm reduction responses are well-established evidenced approaches in the management of opioid dependence but not so well-known or implemented in relation to alcohol use disorders. In this position paper, we explore the potential for expanding harm reduction approaches during the COVID-19 crisis and beyond as part of substance use treatment services. We will examine alcohol use and related vulnerabilities during COVID-19, the impact of COVID-19 on substance use services, and the potential philosophical shift in orientation to harm reduction and outline a range of alcohol harm reduction approaches. We discuss relevant aspects of the Structured Preparation for Alcohol Detoxification (SPADe) treatment model, and Managed Alcohol Programs (MAPs), as part of a continuum of harm reduction and abstinence orientated treatment for alcohol use disorders. In conclusion, while COVID-19 has dramatically reduced and limited services, the pandemic has propelled the importance of alcohol harm reduction and created new opportunities for implementation of harm reduction philosophy and approaches, including programs that incorporate the provision of alcohol as medicine as part of the substance use treatment continuum.

Alcohol intoxication is usually associated with drowning, falls, overdoses, fires, occupational accidents, physical and sexual abusements, domestic violence and traffic accidents. Therefore, alcohol considered an important factor for the explanation of the occurrence of many types of injuries. For many purposes such as forensic, it is important to establish a detection method to ensure whether the subject or the patient have consumed alcohol at a level that would be the reason for the accidents or injuries occur. Therefore, in this work, a simple, rapid and low-cost method was developed and validated for the detection of the alcohol in saliva as a function of blood alcohol concentration (BAC). The method is based on fabricated a biosensor consisted of chromium oxide nanoparticles deposited on filter paper. The validation of the biosensor was tested on 50 participants which categories into two selected groups (1 and 2). Group 1 consisted of 20 subjects from an organized party (no alcohol), they usually consumed three to four drinks as an average per week while Group 2 consisted of 30 subjects from an organized party the local bar (alcohol group), usually consumed two to three drinks per day. The results of the present study have shown that 95% of group 1 demonstrated positive results with variable colour intensities of the BAC in comparison to the 80% only of subjects from group 2. The present study has approved that the fabricated biosensor can effectively detect 0.02% or more of BAC which can be a useful test for many purposes such as medical, forensic, research and workplace.

In this work, the types of products and their proportions, the evolution characteristics of the functional groups and gases products, the pollutants emission of combustible solid waste (CSW), paper mill sludge (PMS) and their blends were investigated by Py-GC/MS and TG-FTIR. For the blends, the proportions of PMS were 10%, 30% and 50%. The percentage of pyrolysis products (acid, hydrocarbon, aldehyde, alcohol, benzene, furan, phenol, ester and ketone) was pointed out. Among these, the content of acid was the maximum. Blended with 10% PMS, the percentage of alcohol reached the greatest. Both single sample and blends could be divided into two decomposition phases. The residue mass of blends increased from 17.74% to 30.47% with the PMS ratio increased. OH, CH, CO, CO, SO2, NO, HCl, CO, CH4 and CO2 were the main functional groups and gases products surveyed from the FTIR spectrums during co-pyrolysis. Adding PMS into CSW could reduce the emission of the pollutants and the lowest yield of pollutants (SO2, NO, HCl, CO and CO2) would be obtained covered with 50% PMS.

The aim of this study is to provide methodological insights using the case study of a large remote RCT which aimed to assess the efficacy of a digital intervention, Drink Less, in helping increasing and higher risk drinkers to reduce their alcohol consumption.

Porous foams from cellulose nanofibres (CNF) and poly-vinyl alcohol CNF/PVA were prepared by uni-directional freezing to create a homogeneous pore structure. The CNF was derived from paper mills sludge (PMS), a by-product of paper manufacturing waste-water treatment. Sodium tetraborate decahydrate (borax) was used as a crosslinking agent. The density of the CNF/PVA foams were 0.03 g cm−3 with a compressive strength of 116 kPa at 20% strain. The foams were competitive to commercial expanded polystyrene (EPS) foam.

We conducted a review to analyze the 100 most-cited studies on binge drinking (BD) in the Web of Science (WoS) database to determine their current status and the aspects that require further attention. We carried out a retrospective bibliometric analysis in January 2021. The year of publication, authors, design, subject, journal, institution and lead author’s country, as well as the definition of BD, were extracted from the articles. The data on the country, year, thematic category of the journals and their rank were obtained from the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) Journal Citation Reports 2020. The number of citations was collected from the WoS, and the h index was collected from the Scopus database. The citation density and Bradford’s law were calculated. The majority of the articles were empirical quantitative studies with a cross-sectional design published between 1992 and 2013 in 49 journals. There were 306 authors, mostly English-speaking and from the USA. The definitions used to describe BD are not homogeneous. The most-cited topics were the analysis of consequences, determinants and epidemiology. There is a need to unify the definitions of BD and base them on scientific evidence. The multidisciplinary nature of BD is not well reflected in each of the thematic areas discussed in this work.

Paper spray ionization mass spectrometry (PS-MS) is employed herein as a convenient platform to investigate an on-surface catalytic process, that is, the oxidation of alcohols induced by ruthenium salts. The tag-charged benzyl alcohol 1 (m/z 166), used as a suitable prototype starting substrate, is quickly oxidized by tert-butyl hydroperoxide (TBHP) in an on-surface process catalyzed by ruthenium trichloride (RuCl3). The PS(+)-MS revealed the formation of products from the oxidation of alcohol 1. RuCl3 and TBHP played a crucial role in this process since when salts of other metals (platinum, palladium, and iron) and another oxidizing agent (hydrogen peroxide) are employed, no reaction is observed. Moreover, UV radiation and heating accelerate the on-surface alcohol 1 oxidation. Finally, an exciting possibility is to employ PS-MS to investigate similar organic catalytic reactions to accelerate them and detect unstable intermediates, indiscernible in the condensed phase.