The intersection of substance use with broader public health concerns.
Public Health
Tobacco and Cancer Science Policy Webinar: E-Cigarettes
Debate continues over risks from e-cigarettes, such as encouragement of smoking among young people, while some observers stress possible reductions in numbers of existing tobacco smokers. This webinar features key experts presenting current...
Lethal Highs: How U.S. Customs and Border Protection Laboratories Are Protecting America from Designer Drugs
This article summarizes the work of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) in the area of counternarcotics. The CBP describes the challenges to addressing substance use when molecular...
Contingency Management and Drug Disorders
The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) defines contingency management as “a general behavioural intervention technique used in the treatment of drug dependence … designed to weaken drug use and strengthen...
What are the Second-Hand Effects of Alcohol Consumption?
The ‘second hand effects’ of alcohol use can be defined as the negative consequences of drinking experienced by people other than the drinker. They can include, for example, serious acts of sexual and physical violence as well as more...
Scottish Courts Rule in Favour of Minimum Price for Alcohol
After more than four years of industry delay tactics, yesterday’s ruling from the Court of Session in Edinburgh has finally paved the way for the introduction of a minimum price for alcohol in Scotland, a policy approved by MSPs back in...
Parenting Styles and Alcohol Use
Alcohol use is common among children and adolescents despite the fact that this particular form of risk-behaviour can have a negative impact on one’s psychological and social development. A recent article published in the journal Drugs...
Afghanistan National Drug Use Survey 2015
This five year survey is a global model for its rigor – the only national prevalence survey that I know of in the world where questionnaires were combined with 100% toxicology testing of three biological samples per person (hair, urine...
Is There a Biological Link Between Anti-Depressants and the Effects of Alcohol on the Body?
The ‘self-medication hypothesis’ is commonly known to refer to a human behaviour which sees people with depression turn to alcohol as a way of coping. New research published in the journal Nature Communications has now discovered a...
Marijuana and Maternity: What Are the Effects?
Four US states currently allow recreational marijuana use and twenty-four allow medical marijuana. However, little research has been carried out to uncover the drug’s effect on the development of human embryos if smoked or consumed in...
Opioid Abuse Linked to Heroin Use
New research published in the journal Addictive Behaviors has found the likelihood of 18- to 34-year-old nonmedical prescription opioid users having a prescription opioid use disorder has increased between 2002 – 2014. More specifically...