TY - JOUR T1 - Highlights from this issue JF - Emergency Medicine Journal JO - Emerg Med J SP - 867 LP - 867 DO - 10.1136/emermed-2021-212151 VL - 38 IS - 12 AU - Simon Smith Y1 - 2021/12/01 UR - http://emj.bmj.com/content/38/12/867.abstract N2 - Welcome to the December edition of the EMJ. I would like to wish you ‘Season’s Greetings’ and to suggest some highlights in this edition.Readers of Victorian literature will be familiar with the portrayal of drug use and the use of opium, especially laudanum, by many authors. Possibly the most famous and controversial was Thomas de Quincey, who in 1821 described his experience of opiate use, initially to relieve pain, in his ‘Confessions of an English opium-eater’. He also described his addiction to, and recovery from opium abuse;“…opium had long ceased to found its empire on spells of pleasure; it was solely by the tortures connected with the attempt to abjure it that it kept its hold.”Ease of access to opiates was the main cause of this widespread use, especially prior to the 1868 Pharmacy Act in Britain. In the modern era, despite restrictions on legal use of these drugs, there is now much published concern over the ‘opioid epidemic’ . The historical similarities, including introduction of legislation to reduce use, are clear and stark.The iatrogenic harm of prescribed opioids is a growing international concern, both for … ER -