A sweeping new analysis of more than 180 studies has confirmed what clinicians have long suspected. Cannabis use and psychosis onset move together, and the link grows stronger with age. The study appeared in Biological Psychiatry. It pooled data from 18,272 cannabis users and 52,801 non users across 149 studies. As a result, it stands as the largest quantitative review...
Youth Prevention
Alcohol Related Cancer Deaths in America Have Doubled in Three Decades, Study Finds
Alcohol related cancer deaths in the United States have doubled over the past three decades. That is the central finding of a major new study published in The Lancet Regional Health Americas. Researchers found that annual deaths rose from 11,361 in 1990 to 23,126 in 2023. The trend touches far more than the liver. The analysis was led by researchers...
Why Young Adults Are Swapping Alcohol For Prescription Drugs On Nights Out
Prescription drug socialising is emerging as the new way many young adults cope with a night out. Doctors are increasingly worried about where it leads. For 22 year old Matt, a warehouse worker from the north of England, ordinary conversation once felt impossible without alcohol. He would drink until he felt sick just to get through a social gathering. Two...
Unregulated THC Drinks Are Turning Up Next to Ordinary Soda on Supermarket Shelves
Walk into an ordinary corner shop in the United States and you might grab a can that looks just like iced tea. In fact, it could just as easily be a cannabis drink. Unregulated THC drinks have become a common sight on refrigerator shelves across the country. They often sit beside chocolate milk, energy drinks and coconut water. Still, most...
Half of Teenage Marijuana Users Now Meet the Criteria for Addiction
New federal survey data have delivered a sobering picture of teen marijuana addiction in the United States. More than half of young people who used the drug in the past year now meet clinical criteria for a use disorder. The figures come from the 2025 National Survey on Drug Use and Health. It was conducted by the Substance Abuse and...
Mental Health Struggles Push Young People in Foster Care Toward Higher Substance Misuse
New research has confirmed what many carers and clinicians have long suspected. Youth in foster care who live with a mental health diagnosis are far more likely to misuse alcohol, cannabis or nicotine than their peers. They also respond less well to the brief support sessions designed to help them cut down. The study appears in the journal Addiction. It...
Prenatal Opioid Exposure Tied to Vision, Attention and Learning Struggles at School, Major Review Finds
Children exposed to opioids before birth face a higher risk of vision problems, attention difficulties and learning delays once they reach school age. That is the finding of a major systematic review published in the journal Addiction. The review was led by Dr Louise Marryat of the University of Glasgow. It brings together the clearest picture yet of what happens...
US Adults Report Record Cannabis and Nicotine Use in 2025 as Alcohol Falls
Cannabis and nicotine use among American adults has climbed to some of the highest levels ever recorded. A major national survey covering 2025 confirms the trend. The findings come from the Monitoring the Future Longitudinal Panel Study. It is an annual survey backed by the National Institutes of Health. The study has tracked drug use among adults aged 19 to...
Why Today’s Marijuana Is Nothing Like the Plant of the 1960s
Why Today’s Marijuana Is Nothing Like the Plant of the 1960s A new commentary from authors Sue Homola and Dr Raymond Wiggins is drawing attention to a fact that hasn’t kept pace with public perception: the marijuana available today bears little resemblance, chemically speaking, to the plant smoked a generation ago, and the potency shift carries consequences that are only...
New Screening Tool Aims to Catch Problematic Alcohol Use Among University Students Early
Universities have long grappled with alcohol among the many pressures facing young people, and a newly developed scale out of Turkiye offers a fresh, evidence based way to flag problematic alcohol use before it spirals into something harder to manage. Researchers at Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University’s Center for Combating Addiction Application and Research surveyed 599 students and used an AI...
Teen Vaping in Scotland Falls for a Second Year as Friends Remain the Main Source
Fewer Scottish teenagers are picking up a vape. New survey data published by the Scottish Government shows that teen vaping in Scotland has fallen for a second consecutive year. Even so, the products remain remarkably easy for young people to find. The figures come from the 2026 ASH Smokefree GB Youth Survey. YouGov runs the annual study on behalf of...
New Interactive Tool Shares Evidence Based Strategies for Youth Vaping Prevention
A New Tool for Youth Vaping Prevention Despite a federal law that raised the minimum age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 21, vaping rates among young people remain stubbornly high. To help close that gap, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has released a new interactive presentation aimed at strengthening youth vaping prevention efforts in...
Teen Cannabis Use Linked to Slower Growth in Memory and Thinking Skills
A major new study has identified a clear pattern of teen cannabis cognitive decline. Adolescents who begin using cannabis develop memory, attention and thinking skills more slowly than their peers who do not use it. Scientists at the University of California San Diego led the research. They published their findings in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. The study followed more than 11,000...
New Study Links Social Media Addiction to Increased ADHD Symptoms in Teenagers
A new study has found a link between social media addiction and rising ADHD symptoms in teenagers. The pattern was strongest among adolescent boys. Researchers published the findings in JAMA Network Open. The study followed 11,286 young people across five annual assessments. It formed part of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study. This is one of the largest studies of...
Child Cannabis Poisoning Cases Soar 461 Per Cent Across US Hospitals, Senator Warns
Child cannabis poisoning is rising fast across America. New figures show a dramatic surge in emergency room visits among the youngest children. Senator Ted Budd highlighted the numbers this week. Hospitals treating cases of child cannabis poisoning rose by 461 per cent between 2018 and 2023. He called the increase deeply concerning. Products that look like popular sweets and snacks...
The Vape in Your Teenager’s Room Might Not Be What You Think
Finding a vape in your child’s bag used to mean one conversation. Nicotine, maybe. Cannabis, possibly. These days, that conversation is a lot more complicated, because a growing number of the vapes turning up in schoolbags and bedrooms across the UK aren’t cannabis at all. They’re spice vapes, and most of the young people using them have no idea. Spice,...
New Canadian Data Sharpen the Case Against Cannabis Smoking’s Toll on the Lungs
Rising rates of cannabis use worldwide have renewed scientific attention on a question long overshadowed by the tobacco debate: what does inhaling burnt cannabis actually do to the human airway? A newly published Canadian investigation, presented recently through the IASIC Speaker Series webinar “The Lung Health Implications of Cannabis Smoking,” moderated by Dr Russell Kamer, MD, FACP, has added the...
Different Contexts, Common Aspirations: What Young People Are Already Telling Us about Prevention
Today marks International Youth Day 2026, observed each year on 12 August. This year the United Nations has themed the day Different Contexts, Common Aspirations. According to the Division for Inclusive Social Development at UN DESA, different national and local realities shape young people’s lives around the world. Yet their aspirations remain remarkably similar, spanning dignity, opportunity, meaningful participation, decent...
Nicotine and Cannabis Are Now the Closest Pair in Teen Substance Use, Study Finds
For decades, the assumed teenage vice kit came in three predictable pieces: alcohol, cigarettes and cannabis, usually tried in roughly that order. A new look at one of America’s largest ongoing studies of youth development suggests that old order has quietly been reshuffled by shifting adolescent vaping trends. The tightest bond between substances is no longer built around a can...
No Universally Safe Level: Major New Review Confirms the Link Between Cannabis and Psychosis
A major new review in The Lancet Psychiatry has delivered one of the clearest verdicts yet on cannabis and psychosis, concluding that regular use is a contributory cause of the illness rather than simply something that happens to occur alongside it. The review, led by Professor Wayne Hall and colleagues from the University of Queensland, the University of Bath and...
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Philadelphia Faces New Opioid Threat with the Emergence of Nitazenes
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