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…
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…
Regular cocaine use significantly raises the risk of heart attack and stroke for otherwise healthy young people, a new study has found. The study, presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Jhodie Duncan, 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…
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…
Pharmaceutical companies will be required to disclose more details about their financial ties to doctors under a revised self-regulatory code, but they have resisted calls to name doctors individually…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 a…
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…