The Guardian/Mixmag survey questioned 15,000 users about their drug experiences over a four month period. Photograph: David Hoffman/Alamy
Sign up to Society daily email briefing
Today's top SocietyGuardian stories
• Recreational drug users take medicines to control side effects, survey finds
• Police could face annual fitness tests and compulsory redundancies
• Breastfeeding advice unhelpful to mothers, researchers claim
• High street outlets ignoring guidelines on providing calorie information
• Legal aid bill suffers ninth Lords defeat
• The truth about depression: six people speak out
• Living with social anxiety doesn't have to be a secret struggle
• Boris Johnson admits he has fallen short on election promises
• The pro-choice fightback
• Nicky Clark: Police ignorance about autism must end
All today's SocietyGuardian stories
On the Guardian Professional Networks
• Social care white paper must focus on integration, say Jules Acton and Don Redding, of National Voices
• What public managers can do to support stressed staff
• To engage younger volunteers, volunteer managers must target them and offer opportunities that are right for them and the beneficiary, argues Sam Sparrow from vInspired
• Last year's sudden revival of right to buy has forced local authorities to review their housing strategies
On my radar ...
• The Guardian/Mixmag drug survey, which reveals the extent of reckless behaviour among a new generation of high-risk drug takers. Some 15,500 people took part in the poll, one of the largest ever surveys of drug use, which found that a fifth of young drug users admit to taking "mystery white powders" without any idea what they contain. This clever animation explains the headline findings of the survey, while Alexandra Topping looks at how the survey exposes a generation of drug-users willing to take significant risks with their health, including taking unknown substances and legal highs. Analysing the results, Patrick Butler writes that the detailed new insights provided by the survey reveal that alcohol is the bigger problem:
The question for policymakers is how to use this kind of detailed user intelligence data to design and implement appropriate public health responses, based on the evidence of what drugs people take, how and why they consume them, and what consequences they report.
The first policy stop might be that most potent of legal substances, alcohol. Over half of the survey respondents reported drinking at levels that the World Health Organisation would class as harmful (though some of this group believed they were only drinking "average" amounts). Asked which drug they would most like to cut down on, 36% of respondents said alcohol (a figure only exceeded by the 64% who wanted to cut down on tobacco).
When it comes to drugs, we are fascinated and horrified by the fashionable, illicit and notorious. But the deeply mundane finding of our survey is that the most prevalent, damaging and antisocial drug of all – and the one most users want help to kick – is still the one in your fridge and supermarket trolley: booze.
• A new series on care cuts from the TUC-backed research group False Economy. Blogger Kate Belgrave is travelling across the country, interviewing families who are dealing first-hand with council cuts and welfare reform changes. Her eyeopening first interview is with Colin and Jen Dalley, of Chorley in Lancashire, who have four children - including three daughters with learning disabilities. Belgrave lists the cuts, new service charges and welfare reform changes affecting the Dalleys:
Proposed introduction of means-testing (charging) for school transport for children and young people with special educational needs (£1000 or £1200 per child, depending on distance from school. A charge of £500 or £600 per child is proposed for children from families on benefits. The council says it is aware that concern about affordability "is an emerging issue from early responses to the consultation"). The council expects to raise between £300,000 and £475,300 from charging. About 3000 children and young people use the service. The council insists that no decisions have been made.
Proposed closure of a short-break unit for children with disabilities. No decision has been made. The council says that it is "modernising" provision.
Tightened eligibility criteria under fair access to care bands. Adults are eligible for paid-for care services in Lancashire if they are assessed as having substantial or critical needs. Before 2011, adults with moderate needs were also eligible.
Disability living allowance reassessment.
And Kate reports:
Both Colin and Jen have been called scroungers by strangers and even family.
• Question of the day is posed on the TUC's Touchstone blog by Nicola Smith: Is permanent austerity inevitable? She writes:
Imagine a society in which a universal right to flexible working and high quality health and social care services allowed more people to choose to work for longer in jobs where they could make a productive contribution. Where a rebalanced economy meant that more better paid employment was being created, and real action to boost the quality of part-time work meant that it didn't simply consign most people in these jobs to poverty wages. This could be a world where many people chose to delay their retirement, boosting economic capacity and tax revenues and reducing benefit spending in the process, while those who wanted or needed to could still recieve their state pension at the same point as many do today. Greater taxes on wealth could raise important revenues from the best off, and the economic and social benefits of maintaining universal services could be such that progressive taxation was accepted as a means to fund them. And in a more equal society with higher employment rates our tax base would be far more secure than at present. Utopian? It doesn't have to be – we have decades to get there. But to do so the political choices that could shape a version of this economic future need to start now.
• An eye catching tweet from writer and consultant Lucy Sweetman:
If you work with vulnerable young people, watch this...
She's shared a link to social work research scientist Dr Brené Brown's TED presentation. Sweetman says on her blog:
She has some really interesting things to say about vulnerability and our avoidance of it at all costs. It really struck a chord with me after an interesting conversation during the training I was running yesterday. We talked about how some care leavers are quick to throw the emotional shutters down because they don't want to open up, mostly because it's too hard and there's no trust. I think Dr. Brown has a lot to say to us and them. If we can open up and embrace our vulnerability, we can be happier.
It's worth 18 minutes of your time. Really.
• A fascinating piece from the New York Times on measuring patient satisfaction in healthcare. Oncology nurse Theresa Brown wans that hospitals aren't hotels, writing:
... evaluating hospital care in terms of its ability to offer positive experiences could easily put pressure on the system to do things it can't, at the expense of what it should.
To evaluate the patient experience in a way that can be meaningfully translated to the public, we need to ask deeper questions, about whether our procedures accomplished what they were supposed to and whether patients did get better despite the suffering imposed by our care.
We also need to honestly assess our treatment of patients for whom curative care is no longer an option.
... Hospitals are not hotels, and although hospital patients may in some ways be informed consumers, they're predominantly sick, needy people, depending on us, the nurses and doctors, to get them through a very tough physical time. They do not come to us for vacation, but because they need the specialized, often painful help that only we can provide. Sadly, sometimes we cannot give them the kind of help they need.
(link via Trish Groves and Dr Fiona Pathiraja)
• How can social media be used as a recruitment tool in fostering and adoption? It's the subject of a British Association for Adoption & Fostering and Net Natives event coming up next week. The seminar, supported by the Guardian, will hear how local authorities are successfully using social media as an engagement and marketing tool, and Patrick Butler will discuss the Guardian's social media strategy with emphasis on social care.
Other news
• BBC: £90m pothole spend 'not enough'
• Children & Young People Now: Disparities in child healthcare exposed
• Community Care: Social justice strategy could leave families worse off
• Independent: Senior civil servants avoid scrutiny by hiding behind ministers, says Margaret Hodge
• Inside Housing: Pickles: councils lack will to tackle 'beds in sheds'
• LocalGov.co.uk: Council to create private trading company
• Public Finance: Scots councils face difficult choices, say auditors
• Telegraph: Liberal Democrats select Heroine of Hackney Pauline Pearce as council candidate
• Third Sector: Government should fund leadership development in charities, says MP
Events and seminars
Digital communications and campaigning for charities
Thursday 19 April, Kings Cross, London
This half-day seminar will enable you plan, implement and manage your online campaign to maximum effect. It will give you practical advise on how to get the most out of popular social media websites as well as help you define your target audience. This event is a must for anyone needing to plan a campaign to create relationships with supporters to champion your long-term aims.
Local Government Leaders Quarterly
19 April 2012, Kings Place, Kings Cross, London
This series of evening events has been designed to help public leaders discuss the key issues facing local authorities as they struggle to manage punishing funding cuts while spearheading a revolution in public service delivery. The event, consisting of a debate followed by round table discussion groups, will offer a forum to share problems and find solutions with your council peers.
Places are free but limited and available by application only.
SocietyGuardian blogs
Patrick Butler's cuts blog
Sarah Boseley's global health blog
SocietyGuardian on social media
Follow SocietyGuardian on Twitter
Follow Patrick Butler on Twitter
Follow Clare Horton on Twitter
Follow Alison Benjamin on Twitter
SocietyGuardian's Facebook page
SocietyGuardian links
SocietyGuardian.co.uk
Guardian cutswatch - tell us about the cuts in your area
Public Leaders - the Guardian's website for senior managers of public services
The Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page
Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs
SocietyGuardian editor: Alison Benjamin
Email the SocietyGuardian editor: society@guardian.co.uk