Annual reports from the UK Advisory Council detailing the main issues considered by its committees and working groups. They also include information about the Advisory Council’s terms of reference, membership and administration arrangements.

This consolidated annual report from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), provides an overview of our work from January 2020 to December 2022. During this period, the ACMD was exceptionally busy and continued to provide evidence-based, independent scientific advice through a number of high-quality reports addressing a range of areas related to drug misuse and harms in the UK. These included:
• Misuse Of Fentanyl and Fentanyl Analogues
• Cannabis Based Medicinal Products for Human Use
• COVID-19 Emergency Legislation to Enable Supply of Controlled Drugs
• GHB, GBL and closely related compounds
• Consumer CBD products
• Synthetic opioids
• Barriers to research using controlled drugs
• Nitrous Oxide: An Updated Harms Assessment

During this period, the ACMD has also taken steps to review and improve the transparency of our data collection, evidence analysis and approach towards decision-making. This continues to facilitate the ACMD’s ongoing commitment to rigorously examine a diverse array of topics to ensure our work directly addresses Government priorities and UK-wide drug-related issues, as well as improve how the Council provides recommendations to Government. To support this commitment, the Council will consider whether further advice is required on a given topic 10 years after publication (Annex G). In addition, the ACMD is currently writing a Classification Standard Operating Procedure (SOP). This will be incorporated within our existing SOP on the use of evidence within ACMD reports.

To deliver the body of important advice across our broad and complex portfolio requires a diversity of expertise and evidence that the ACMD can consult. The ACMD is exceptionally grateful to the continued support of a large group of co-opted national and international experts who supported the provision of valuable advice during the reporting period. The ACMD also completed several public calls for evidence and would like to thank all those who provided evidence submissions and considerable inputs during this period.