On 6 June 2011 the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland presented the Minister for Health, Dr James Reilly TD, with the results of the first baseline research into community pharmacy practice in Ireland. A key element of the research was to examine the current service offering within pharmacies across the country, with a particular emphasis on the extent of the provision of ‘enhanced pharmacy services’, i.e. ‘services implemented in pharmacies that are additional to or not routinely provided with prescribed or non-prescribed medicines’. The following table outlines the responses with regard to two drug-related services. www.pharmaceuticalsociety.ie

Between 22 and 24 September 2011 the European Society for Social Drug Research held its 22nd annual  conference in Aarhus, Denmark. The results of two Irish research projects were presented. (1) A longitudinal pathways analysis of drug use among homelessness young people (Paula Mayock and Mary Louise Corr). The presenters focused on the relationship between the homeless and drug pathways. They describeda connection between downward transitions in drug consumption and positive housing experiences, on the one hand, and upward transitions in drug use and chronic housing instability, on the other. They argued for a conceptual shift towards a focus on housing, rather than homelessness, when attempting to explain change in the drug consumption patterns of young people who negotiate the experience and consequences of homelessness during the transition to adulthood. (2) A qualitative study, using grounded theory, of treatment‐seeking among heroin users (Anne McDonnell and Marie van Hout). Describing the social and contextual factors which enable change in perception of heroin use, recovery and treatment, the study supports the view that the concept of ‘turning points’ in the life course are valuable when thinking about how people give up the use of drugs. www.essd-research.eu