What’s up your Butt?? Apparently, it’s… Rectal drug use (“boofing”, “plugging” or “booty bumping” if you like?!?) is sold as a clever hack for a faster high, but it’s basically playing Russian roulette with some of the thinnest, most vulnerable tissue in your body. It can feel cleaner or “safer than injecting”, yet the mix...
Scotland holds a devastating distinction: the worst drug death rate in Europe. Three and a half times higher than equally deprived areas across the border in England. Glasgow alone spends £50 million annually on its ‘treatment’ budget. The result? Twenty-three rehab beds. That’s all recovery gets. The rest maintains people in a system designed merely...
US President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order establishing the Great American Recovery Initiative, marshalling federal resources to tackle the nation’s drug and alcohol addiction crisis. The coordinated effort brings together health, justice, and social services agencies under unified leadership to support prevention, treatment, and long-term recovery. “There’s nothing more important than what we’re...
When alcohol sales started dropping in 2025, the industry didn’t adapt—it doubled down. A new global investigation reveals how multinational alcohol corporations responded to declining consumption and growing cancer awareness not by reforming their practices, but by intensifying their efforts to block health policy, saturate digital spaces, and shift blame away from their products. The...
In a powerful presentation for the IASIC Speaker Series, Dr Yasmin Hurd, Ward Coleman Chair in Translational Neuroscience at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine, delivered compelling evidence on how cannabis exposure during pregnancy and adolescence fundamentally alters brain development. Moreover, her research demonstrates how this exposure increases psychiatric vulnerability across the lifespan. The Complexity...
The Turning Point report reveals something crucial about drug driving behaviour: people describe it not as aberrant, but as embedded in everyday routines (work, socialising, stress management). This apparent ordinariness, however, must be understood within a broader policy environment where harm reduction has been promoted in relative isolation from robust prevention and supply reduction. The...
A Washington State Institute for Public Policy study reveals troubling health consequences for people living near cannabis shops. The September 2025 report found that residents across Washington State who lived close to licensed marijuana retailers proved significantly more likely to develop cannabis use disorder. The research assessed Medicaid recipients between ages 12 and 64, examining...
Buffalo, New York has left most of its opioid settlement funds untouched whilst more than 500 residents have died from overdoses. The city spent less than a third of nearly $6 million in Buffalo overdose crisis funding over three years, sparking outrage amongst frontline workers who say they could have saved lives. Moreover, city officials...
The morning after a celebration often brings more than just a headache. Look in the mirror and you might notice puffiness around your eyes, a dull complexion, or unexpected redness across your cheeks. Whilst lack of sleep plays a role, the alcohol effects on skin are usually the main culprit. Understanding how alcohol damages skin...
Schools across the UK are reporting something alarming. Students need medical attention after vaping in class. In the Netherlands, researchers discovered many teenagers wake up at night specifically to vape. A widely shared image from New Zealand showed a teenager’s blackened, shrivelled lung after just three years of vaping. These stories reveal a troubling reality....