It’s not a thought that occurs to most of us, but flushing the toilet doesn’t just mean disposing of our bodily waste. We’re also flushing away some of the medicine we take down with it. Our contraceptive…
Australian Federal Police posing with a large bag of ice seized as part of a record haul. But will this make any difference to the market for crystal methamphetamine?
AAP/Australian Federal Police
Yesterday’s record 585 kg crystal methamphetamine seizure made headlines, but then so do many others. Was this one big enough to deserve special attention? And what effect does a seizure like this have…
Doctors and sports scientists have to negotiate the goals of their employers with the expectations of their profession.
Quinn Dombrowski
The Australian Crime Commission (ACC) findings about the actions of “specific coaches, sports scientists and high-performance staff” in condoning or orchestrating the administration of prohibited substances…
The findings of the Australian Crime Commission’s (ACC) report Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport have come as a shock to many and become an enormous media story.
Should we be surprised? Are these just…
Australian sport was supposed to be clean. What went wrong?
AAP/Lukas Coch
The Australian Crime Commission report, Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport, has come as a hammer blow to Australian sport. According to a review of cycling released only last month, Australia is supposed…
El Bronx, Columbia. Where addicts disappear and dealers hustle.
Steven Bunce
Recent findings by the Australian Crime Commission suggest Australians are consuming more cocaine than ever. Far from the buzzing beach-side nightclubs of Sydney, where I grew up, I recently had a chance…
The products marketed as “legal weed” might cause more harm than the real thing.
prensa
Synthetic cannabis is a lab-made product that mimics the effects of cannabis to give users a high when smoked. It has been sold in Australia since 2011 under various brand names, with a range of chemical…
“It’s time to remodel our drugs in sport controls in order to get a proper balance …”
www.YoVenice.com
Lance Armstrong is the flavour of the month when it comes to doping and anti-doping discussions at the moment, but closer to home there are some real and pertinent issues to debate.
Australian government…
It’s going to be a night to remember … or maybe not.
Sterneck
Mephedrone (4-methylmethcathinone) is a fairly new “party” drug that has exploded in popularity over the last few years. On the street, it has a variety of names: Drone, M-Cat, Bubbles, Meow. It’s also…
Common boosting practices by athletes include breaking their own toes.
Foxtongue
Over the next few weeks, the newspapers in Australia and overseas are going to be full of stories describing Paralympians as inspirational role models. Such reports might or might not be true … it just…
Sleeping pills aren’t the answer to sleep on demand.
Drake Guan
Insomnia is far from a modern concept, with sleep remedies such as opioids, chamomile and valerian root recorded in the earliest existing medical writings. The word insomnia itself dates back to at least…
Benefits and risks have to be assessed when looking for medical uses of drugs.
Harsh Vardhan
Should governments make it easier to perform human research to discover medical uses of illicit drugs such as cannabis, ecstasy (MDMA) and LSD?
Professor David Nutt of Imperial College London argued recently…
Neuroscientists are making great strides in addiction studies, even with a limited access to drugs.
reidmix
By Jhodie Duncan, The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
Criminalisation of many drugs of abuse has done little to deter their use. Recent estimates tell us nearly one in 20 individuals aged between 15 and 64 are experimenting with illicit drug use worldwide…
US-led enthusiasm about so-called “smart drugs” may be problematic.
rafa2010
Do so-called “smart pills” enhance performance in students? Are they part of a widespread, growing phenomenon? You would be forgiven for thinking so.
In a recent article on The Conversation, Simon Outram…
Should cannabis to be considered a “performance-enhancing” drug by the World Anti-Doping Agency?
pietroizzo
It has been widely reported that representatives from a group of Australian sporting codes – including athletics, cricket, rugby league and Australian Rules Football – met with the director-general of…
Headlines such as “Thousands at Risk” are guaranteed to cause worry.
Nate Steiner
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently revised the safety labels for statins, widely used anti-cholesterol drugs. They mandated label warnings saying statins may increase the risk of type 2…
Drugs smuggled into a South Australian prison. If jails can’t be kept drug free, what hope is there for wider society?
AAP/Thuy On
Australians have always loved their drugs – more so than any other nation in which those same drugs are proscribed and used under threat of native, criminal penalties.
Drug taking is a national trait…
Brazilian police patrol a favela in Rio De Janiero.
EPA/Marcelo Sayao
Former Brazilian President, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, has argued that the war on drugs has failed and cannabis should be decriminalised. He argued that the hardline approach has brought “disastrous” consequences…
Despite some alarming findings, recreational mephedrone use appears to be on the rise.
Robert Conrad Photography
Human use of cathinones for their psychoactive properties traces back to prehistory. Known as “khat” by the people of eastern Africa, the leaves and twigs of the Catha edulis shrub have been chewed for…
Shamed senior police officer Mark Standen is lead away from King St Supreme Court after being found guilty of attempting to import a massive haul of pseudoephedrine.
AAP/Tracey Nearmy
The Australia21 report on illicit drugs draws much-needed attention to many serious issues, including the major role played by corrupt police in drug distribution networks.
The role played by drugs in…
Drug hauls are not a sign of successful drug policy.
AAP/Lee Besford
It’s 1974 again.
I am 25 and a member of Lionel Murphy’s national Drug Advisory Council. Occasionally I am a drug educator with my mate, psychologist Simon Haselton, for the NSW Health department.
As…
It’s worth taking another look at Bob Carr’s record on decriminalising drugs.
AAP Image/Lukas Coch
The Australia21 thinktank has today released a report describing the war on drugs as a failure.
Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr, part of the working group that developed the report, today told the ABC…
Using lab rats allows us to experiment in ways that would not be acceptable in humans.
ressaure
Many forms of mental illness can affect our moods. But that isn’t all they do: they can also damage our willpower. Problems such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity…
Have scientific standards negatively affected legal reasoning?
Alberto Martin/EPA
On the day the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) handed down its decision on the Alberto Contador doping case, Cadel Evans – Australian Tour de France champion – was quoted in the cycling press repeating…
Slain underworld figure Carl Williams, who made a living trafficking illicit drugs, is carried from his 2010 funeral in a gold coffin.
AAP
Policy making is supposedly influenced by scientific evidence, which in turn leads to better political, social and economic outcomes, depending on the issue at hand. One would like to think that in a moderately…
Married people are less likely to commit crime.
Flickr/Marcus Hansson
More than half of all murders in Australia involve family members. The majority of them are committed by men who kill their partners. Here, as in many other countries, violence in the home is a major social…
Are we entering an era of better memory, less fear, greater popularity?
Divine Harvester
When people think about taking a new drug that can enhance who they are, or consider giving it to their child, their most immediate and appropriate concern centres on the potential health dangers.
While…
Doctors' wining and dining by drug companies distort prescribing patterns and may influence them to recommend less-than-ideal drugs.
PhillipC/Flickr
This week Radio National’s Background Briefing looks at how pharmaceutical companies market their products to doctors.
The program is presented by Ray Moynihan, an award-winning journalist, columnist…
The Australian Ambassador is doing everything he can for the Australian boy detained in Bali, but Indonesian children aren’t so lucky.
AFP/Sonny Tumbelaka
This week the nation has been in an uproar over the arrest of a 14 year old Australian boy in Indonesia, accused of buying drugs.
TV news reports discussed the terrible conditions of the prison, where…
Australia’s Ambassador to Indonesia, Greg Moriarty, has been working to secure the release of the 14 year old, amid huge media interest.
AFP/Sonny Tumbelaka
The arrest of a 14 year old Australian boy accused of possessing marijuana in Bali has provoked a media storm. The Australian Ambassador to Indonesia says the case is his “top priority”, and even the Prime…
