Focus
The African opioid epidemic you haven’t heard about
August 29th, 2019 Weakly regulated painkillers are causing untold damage in West Africa, but stricter controls could have dire consequences for patients with chronic pain. Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt unpicks an opioid crisis that is even more complex than...
‘Profound’ growth in South Africa’s heroin market fuels drug crisis
April 28th, 2019 James Mashakeni, 22, began smoking nyaope, a heroin-based narcotic, after a blowout fight with his dad nine years ago, writes Krista Mahr for the Los Angeles Times. When his father burned his clothes and schoolbooks, friends offered him the street...
Opioid addiction crisis lawsuits target billionaire family and Purdue Pharma
April 28th, 2019 Five states have sued super-rich members of the family that controls Purdue Pharma. Together they are accused of encouraging an opioid addiction epidemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans in two decades. Recently a coalition of more than...
Marijuana’s decriminalisation in America and South Africa – Implications
April 28th, 2019 Every year on 20 April marijuana advocates from Johannesburg to California celebrate cannabis culture, writes The Conversation. The publication ran a serious of articles on that date, ranging from a look at statistical evidence on the legalisation...
Tough cannabis policies do not deter young people – Study
March 11th, 2019 There is no evidence that tough policies deter young people from using cannabis, writes Mattha Busby for The Guardian. Analysing data about cannabis use among more than 100,000 teenagers in 38 countries – including the UK, US, Russia, France,...
Smokers misunderstand risks of smokeless tobacco product snus
March 11th, 2019 American smokers mistakenly think that using snus – a moist snuff smokeless tobacco product popular in Scandinavia but newer to the United States – is as dangerous as smoking tobacco, according to a Rutgers University study published in the...
Truth telling about tobacco and nicotine in an e-cigarette era
March 11th, 2019 Debate among public health professionals over approaches to tobacco and nicotine regulation has intensified with the rise of vaping. Researchers at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation explore the contours of the debate and the need to...
How safe are e-cigarettes? The debate continues
March 11th, 2019 A clinical review from the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary in Scotland recently summarised the latest evidence concerning the use of e-cigarettes, writes Dr Catharine Paddock for Medical News Today. But with research on e-cigarettes in its infancy, it...
Is marijuana as safe as we think?
February 11th, 2019 Permitting pot is one thing, promoting its use is another, writes Malcolm Gladwell for The New Yorker. Especially since a cloud of mystery surrounds cannabis – including its medicinal value, its possible relationship to mental illness and...
What a breakthrough e-cigarette study illustrates about addiction
February 11th, 2019 The first large, systematic study of whether e-cigarettes help people to quit smoking was published on 30 January in the New England Journal of Medicine, and covered by The New York Times, the BBC and many other major outlets, writes psychologist...
Constant cravings – Is addiction on the rise?
January 14th, 2019 Addiction was once viewed as an unsavoury fringe disease, tethered to substances with killer withdrawal symptoms, such as alcohol and opium. But now the scope of what humans can be addicted to seems to have snowballed, from sugar to shopping to...
Little international agreement over burning issue of vaping
January 14th, 2019 Despite much debate in the United Kingdom and United States there is little agreement over how safe e-cigarettes are, write University of Edinburgh public health Professor Linda Bauld and the University of Liverpool’s Dr Suzi Gagein The...
Nigeria isn’t doing enough to reduce tobacco use. Here’s why
January 14th, 2019 Tobacco remains the biggest public health threat, killing more than seven million people globally every year. The World Health Organization has recognised progress in Nigeria, but concerns remain about effective implementation, write researchers...
When common sense and sound judgment go up in smoke
December 5th, 2018 Government’s proposed anti-tobacco bill lacks any scientific assessment as an underlying principle of legislation, argues Tim Cohen, senior editor of Business Day. In a news story, Nick Hedley says tobacco company Philip Morris International sees...
Troublesome issues in e-cigarette policy in America
December 3rd, 2018 The Tobacco Harm Reduction (THR) and e-cigarette policy scene continues to evolve in a direction that will result in substantially more tobacco-related addiction, illness and death, than what would likely occur with the skilled addition of a THR...