People with bipolar use more cannabis than others with mental health problems, but what do they think about its effects?
Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan inside a holding cell as they wait for their final appeal against the death sentence at Denpasar District Court in Bali, Indonesia in 2010.
EPA/Made Nagi
Performance enhancing or doping substances such as anabolic steroids and erythropoietin, a hormone that enhances the production of red blood cells and increases oxygen consumption in the body, are no longer…
Easier access to marijuana doesn’t necessarily lead to more addicts.
Image of person smoking via Stanimir G.Stoev/Shutterstock
At present, cannabis is fully legalized in Colorado and Washington and will soon be fully legalized in Oregon and Alaska. Additionally, medical cannabis is legal in 23 states. The writing is on the wall…
In states like Massachusetts, heroin overdoses have skyrocketed in recent years.
vidguten/Shutterstock
In the 1930s, Harry J. Anslinger, the first head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, embarked on a fierce anti-marijuana campaign. Highlighted by the 1936 anti-marijuana film Reefer Madness – where marijuana…
Molly is one of the most popular party drugs in the US. But what a lot of people may not know is that molly is actually a form of ecstasy (MDMA), and this misunderstanding can put young people at risk…
Housing First is a program that offers housing to homeless drug users – regardless of whether or not they’re drug free – with a goal of social recovery.
Bryan Guilas/Flickr
Over the past decade, drug use in the US has risen dramatically, with heroin use reaching epidemic proportions. The country’s policy for combating abuse has involved incarceration, abstinence-only treatment…
Will stricter controls on painkillers curb abuse and addiction?
Stock images of pills from www.shutterstock.com
Americans consume a staggering amount of the opioid painkiller hydrocodone - about 99% of the world’s supply. In October, after 10 years of debate the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) reclassified medications…
Opioid addicts now being armed with overdose antidote.
Gretchen Ertl/Reuters
Many first responders’ – even some university police officers – are carrying a new tool in their first-aid kits. It’s naloxone, the opioid overdose antidote drug, and today it’s more widely available than…
In one respect, the world’s drug problem is not getting much worse. The UN believes that the use of drugs such as cocaine and heroin has stabilised, for example. In fact, the ground in the drugs battle…
Pain, sleeplessness and ‘difficult’ behaviour: just some of the reasons we overprescribe.
Gary Cameron/Reuters
It should be no surprise that older adults are the largest users of prescription medication. After all, older adults are far more likely to have chronic health conditions than are younger people. It follows…
The use of performance- and image-enhancing drugs such as steroids is on the rise in Australia, with more users accessing sterile injecting equipment from needle and syringe programs (NSPs). Between 1995…
In contrast to War on Drugs rhetoric, many young people report that illicit drug use is manageable, pleasurable and creates social opportunities.
Poldavo
The idea that illicit drugs could hold value in the lives of young people is bewildering to most people, who tend to assume that illicit drug use is necessarily destructive. This becomes even more distressing…
The final episode of the award-winning American TV show Breaking Bad aired last night. Set against the backdrop of illicit crystal methamphetamine production, the series highlights the huge problem parts…
Dependence on opioids, including heroin, causes the greatest health burden (overall death and illness) of all the illicit drugs.
Eric Constantineau
The global burden of death and illness attributable to mental disorders and illicit drug abuse has risen steadily in the last 20 years, two new studies have shown, but experts say policy is not keeping…
Hepatitis C is a blood borne virus and a major cause of liver disease and liver cancer. Around 150m people globally are estimated to suffer from the virus and in the UK, and many developed countries, people…
Brits need to clean up their act when travelling overseas.
Flickr: wanderinghome
Emily Lindsay Brown, La Conversation Canada et Josephine Lethbridge, La Conversation Canada
Deaths, arrests, missing passports, hospitalisations, rapes and sexual assaults - it’s holiday season and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has published its annual report on British behaviour…