International evidence suggests “awareness” campaigns are not the best way to address harmful methamphetamine use. Fear-based approaches can increase stigma and drive people from treatment.
There may be career-ending sanctions for sportspeople who have inadvertently tested positive to a performance-enhancing drug after having consumed an illicit drug.
There is no doubt methamphetamine can cause harm. But when politicians hijack drug issues and overplay them for political purposes, that too can cause harm.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott today launched a taskforce to tackle the growing problem of ice. But while Australia certainly has a problem with ice, it’s hardly an epidemic.
How does the ACC report help inform the debate around methylamphetamine, and what practical lessons can Australian society and law enforcement draw from it?
The World Anti-Doping Authority looks on from the sidelines in case there is an opportunity to punish athletes’ involvement with illicit drugs out of competition.
Paul Hayes, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
You would be forgiven for thinking that Russell Brand, that radical left-winger and advocate of revolution, and Iain Duncan Smith, Conservative secretary of state for work and pensions, didn’t have anything…
It will come as no surprise to anyone that drugs are big business, so when a drone crashed in a car park of a US border town weighed down with several kilos of narcotics, it was just another example of…
Paul Hayes, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Drug use is common, drug addiction is rare. About one adult in three will use an illegal drug in their lifetime and just under 3m people will do so this year in England and Wales alone. Most will suffer…
Last year almost 80,000 people took part in the Global Drug Survey and helped us produce the world’s first harm-reduction guide. These experts are people who like taking drugs but want to keep themselves…
Women smoking while pregnant has been an uncomfortable reality for decades. Whatever the reason – whether a lack of concern about the risk, belief it’s too hard to quit or even reports that a resultant…
According to the UK government’s “first evidence-based study”, released at the end of last week, tough laws for personal possession of illicit drugs fail to lower levels of their use. This is not news…
Despite the language we use about drugs, many people don’t see themselves as “drug users” but as rational adults who aren’t on a mission to seek moral disintegration and cause themselves harm. People who…
Almost half (46%) of regular cannabis users drop out of high school and just 12% become degree qualified, according to a study published today in The Lancet. Teens who smoke cannabis daily or weekly are…
Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel Trainspotting tells the fictional story of a group of disaffected, heroin-addicted young men (and one violent drunk) in Leith, Edinburgh, and the gritty, dirty, terrifying – and…
The number of new HIV diagnoses in Australia remains the highest in 20 years, according to data released today by UNSW’s Kirby Institute. While rates have remained stable over the past two years, the number…
There are stories some people might not expect to read about Iran – and its progressive drugs policy is one. As a number of countries begin to slowly reconsider their approach towards illicit drugs, following…
Two different sets of statistics on Scottish illegal drug use have been published in the past few days – the Scottish drug misuse database (SDMD) on initial assessments for specialist drug treatment; and…