Nicotine use among young people is climbing sharply across the United States. Public health officials are raising serious concerns about the role social media influencers play in driving that trend. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, nicotine pouch use by people under 21 nearly quadrupled between 2022 and 2025. In 2024, almost 8% of high schoolers reported...
Youth Prevention
What Research Now Tells Us About Helping Young People Avoid Substance Use
A leading Harvard researcher has issued a clear warning. Youth substance use prevention is not receiving the sustained investment it needs. Young people continue to fall through the cracks at every stage of care. Dr John F Kelly is the founder of the Recovery Research Institute and the National Center on Youth Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery at Massachusetts General Hospital....
Feeling Lonely? New Research Shows the Hidden Link Between Loneliness and Substance Use in Young Adults
Loneliness has quietly become one of the defining public health concerns of our time. Long before the U.S. Surgeon General declared it an epidemic in 2023, researchers were already tracking its ripple effects on mental and physical wellbeing. Now, a new study adds fresh weight to that evidence. Loneliness and substance use in young adults are more closely linked than...
Could Cannabis Be Fuelling the Rise in Cancer Among Young People?
Cannabis is now linked to rising cancer rates in young people, and the evidence is growing harder to ignore. A major new study suggests that cannabis and young adult cancer risk are more closely connected than previously thought, with cannabis use potentially driving an alarming increase in breast and testicular cancer among adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 39....
Vape Sales to Children Nottingham: Seven in Nine Shops Failed Age Checks
Selling Vapes to Minors: Nottingham Results Are a Wake-Up Call Seven out of nine businesses in Nottingham sold vapes to minors during supervised test purchases. Nottinghamshire Police and Trading Standards revealed the findings earlier this month. Volunteers under 18 carried out the purchases under close supervision. The exercise was part of a targeted enforcement operation. The results point to a...
Over 1.3 Million Illegal Vapes Seized by UK Councils in 2025
UK councils carried out more than 1.3 million illegal vape seizures in 2025. Freedom of Information data, analysed by Vape Superstore, puts the total at 1,318,389 products removed from 3,494 premises. The findings raise serious concerns about unregulated nicotine products reaching consumers, particularly young people. Councils also removed 16,635 illegal nicotine pouches from 38 local authorities during the year. Together,...
Experts Sound Alarm on Youth Tobacco Use as Calls Grow for Tougher Laws in Oman
Public health experts have renewed calls for stronger tobacco control laws. They warn that smoking remains one of the world’s leading causes of preventable death. According to the World Health Organisation, tobacco claims more than eight million lives every year. That figure accounts for roughly one in every ten deaths globally. Of those, over seven million are direct smokers. Meanwhile,...
Child Care Crisis & Chaos – The ‘Substance’ in the System! Why Prevention Must be the Priority
Queensland’s child safety system is not just failing children; it is warehousing them, exposing them to abuse, and then acting shocked when the damage shows up as violence, exploitation, and chaos. But if this crisis is to be understood properly, it must be framed not only as a care-system failure, but as a prevention and demand-reduction failure. The report makes...
Vaping Damages Lungs and Heart Faster Than Cigarettes, Researchers Find
Young people who vape are developing vaping lung damage far sooner than cigarette smokers typically show comparable injury. New research from the University of Alberta tracked 20 e-cigarette users in their early 20s over three years. All had standard clinical lung tests that appeared normal. Yet detailed analysis found something those tests missed entirely. Around one million Canadians vape regularly....
Ketamine Misuse Is Rising Sharply in the UK and Experts Say Young People Are Most at Risk
Ketamine misuse in the UK is getting worse, and the numbers back that up. An estimated 264,000 people aged 16 to 59 used the drug in the past year, up from 160,000 a decade ago. Once associated mainly with operating theatres and veterinary clinics, ketamine has quietly become one of Britain’s fastest-growing drug concerns, particularly among young people. Over 5,300...
Cannabis and Tobacco Co Use Linked to Lower Cognitive Performance in At-Risk Youth
What the Research Found A new study has shed important light on how cannabis and tobacco co use affects young people already at clinical high risk for psychosis (CHR-P). Published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, this is the first investigation of its kind. The findings carry real implications for adolescent mental health. Researchers drew on data from 1,012...
Europe’s Ketamine Crisis: A Hidden Wave of Severe Bladder and Kidney Damage Is Coming, Experts Warn
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 not possible. Today it is...
Protecting Your Mind and Body: The Powerful Benefits of Substance Abstinence
Building a Healthier Future Through Conscious Choices Making choices that support personal health and long-term well-being is one of the most empowering journeys a young person can embark upon today. In a world full of academic pressures, social media expectations, and peer influences, deciding to look after your mind and body is a profound act of self-reliance. Choosing to live...
How High Purity Street Drugs Led to the Tragic Loss of a 23-Year-Old Welman
The heartbreaking death of a young bricklayer from South Wales has cast a stark light on a growing public health crisis. Jonathan Black was a 23-year-old man from Croesyceiliog in Cwmbran. He tragically lost his life due to severe cocaine brain damage triggered by ongoing substance abuse. The formal inquest recently concluded at Gwent Coroner’s Court. The hearing revealed the...
Understanding Cannabis Risks in Young People: What Parents, Educators and Clinicians Need to Know
Cannabis is not what it used to be, and that matters enormously for young people. Tackling cannabis use disorder in youth starts with understanding just how much the drug itself has changed. In the 1980s and 1990s, cannabis products typically contained around 5 to 10% THC, the primary psychoactive compound. Today’s commercially available cannabis averages approximately 20% THC, and concentrated...
Why Prevention Science Is the Key to Tackling Drug and Alcohol Misuse on Campus
Good intentions alone will not protect college students from drug and alcohol misuse. Professionals working in campus drug and alcohol prevention know this well. They are turning to decades of research to guide their efforts. The evidence is clear about what it actually takes to create lasting change. A new webinar series is helping campus practitioners sharpen their skills across...
Why Schools Hold the Key to Preventing Adolescent Substance Use
Substance use in young people is not a new concern. But a major study published in 2026 has shed important light on where and why it happens. The findings come from over 30,000 adolescents aged 12 to 15 across the south of England. They point clearly in one direction: schools matter far more than we may have realised. Understanding what...
Behind the Branding: How Tobacco and Nicotine Products Are Engineered to Hook a New Generation
Every year on 31 May, the world confronts one of the most deliberately manufactured public health crises of our time. Tobacco and nicotine addiction does not happen by accident. Industries engineer it through flavoured products, sleek devices, and misleading claims designed to pull people in before they recognise the risk. World No Tobacco Day 2026 takes direct aim at this...
Cheap Alcohol Shots Sold for 99p at University Campuses Spark Fears Over Youth Drinking
A new 99p spirit shot landing on university campuses across the UK has drawn sharp criticism from alcohol charities. They warn it is a textbook example of alcohol marketing to young people, dressed up as harmless nostalgia. Sazerac, the company behind BuzzBallz ready-to-drink cocktails and Fireball Whisky, is behind the new product. The brand is promoting it through a van...
Youth Drug Overdose Deaths in the US: What the Latest Data Tells Us About a Growing Crisis
Youth drug overdose rates in the United States are still higher today than before the COVID-19 pandemic. A study published in May 2026 in the journal Cureus examined unintentional overdose deaths among young people aged 10 to 24 between 2018 and 2023. The findings are difficult to read. They are also impossible to ignore. The Scale of Youth Drug Overdose...
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Philadelphia Faces New Opioid Threat with the Emergence of Nitazenes
Philadelphia’s battle against opioid addiction has encountered a new and alarming challenge as powerful synthetic opioids known as nitazenes have...