Drugs originally developed to manage type 2 diabetes and obesity are attracting growing scientific interest for a very different purpose: treating substance use disorders. Researchers have found that GLP-1 receptor agonists are being investigated across a range of addiction conditions, but studies remain heavily concentrated in alcohol and tobacco use, leaving significant gaps for other...
General anaesthesia has long been described to patients as “going to sleep.” It is a reassuring comparison, and in many respects an understandable one. People close their eyes, lose awareness, and wake up with no memory of what happened in between. But a major new study published in PNAS in May 2026 confirms what researchers...
Collective Trauma and Substance Cravings: The Reflexive Response Nobody Talks About When a national tragedy unfolds, the psychological fallout runs far deeper than grief or anxiety. New research in the Journal of Health Psychology shows that collective trauma and substance cravings are directly linked. Regular tobacco and cannabis users report an immediate spike in the...
Applications Now Open for the STAR Loan Repayment Programme The federal government has reopened the STAR loan repayment programme, giving clinicians a real chance to clear hundreds of thousands of dollars in student debt. The 2026 Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Loan Repayment Program accepts applications through 23 June 2026. It offers eligible healthcare...
Quitting alcohol for a month is something more people in the UK are choosing to do. Whether prompted by a health scare, a New Year resolution or simple curiosity, stepping away from drink is no small thing. The benefits begin almost immediately. Changes arrive in waves, from better sleep in week one to measurable improvements...
Doctors and researchers are raising fresh concerns after new data revealed a sharp and sustained rise in alcohol use in cancer patients requiring unplanned hospital care across the United States. The findings, presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, paint a troubling picture of how harmful drinking intersects with some of...
Introduction In May 2026, the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) marked thirty years of its Drug Trends program with a quiet announcement and a new bulletin series. NDARC framed the launch as a milestone: three decades of monitoring Australia’s drug markets, a commitment to drawing together multiple data sources, and a new series...
A Drug Market Growing in the Shadows Ketamine has long occupied an unusual position in medicine. Developed in the 1960s as a safer anaesthetic alternative to phencyclidine (PCP), it earned a place on the World Health Organization’s (WHO) list of essential medicines thanks to its reliability, affordability and effectiveness in settings where conventional anaesthesia is...
Australia’s addiction medicine workforce is shrinking at exactly the wrong moment. Substance use disorders now affect roughly one in 30 Australians, yet the country has fewer than 250 specialists equipped to treat them. A new Flinders University study in BMC Medical Education says the situation is urgent and the fix is simpler than expected. The...
Gen Z Cigarette Smoking: A Trend That Refuses to Go Out Gen Z cigarette smoking is back in the cultural conversation. Outside bars across the United States and beyond, young people are lighting up. They know the risks, having grown up with graphic anti-tobacco warnings and public health campaigns. Yet none of it seems to...