Data from a previous study of 1036 young people in the Lothian region that indicated an association between unemployment and illegal drug use were examined in more depth to investigate the inter-relation between duration of unemployment and the use of illegal drugs, alcohol, and tobacco. After factors such as social class background and educational qualifications had been taken into account a w...

In September 2012, a group known as Australia 21 called for a rethink on the prohibition against illegal drugs. If the response from Australian Federal, State, and Territory Governments is any guide, the call fell on deaf ears. In recent years, even scholarly debate about the merits of prohibition appears to have subsided. This paper acknowledges that social and financial costs of the prohibiti...

BACKGROUND Research over the last decade has focused almost exclusively on the association between electronic music and MDMA (3,4-Methylenedioxymethamphetamine or "ecstasy") or other stimulant drug use in clubs. Less attention has been given to other nightlife venues and music preferences, such as rock music or southern/funky music. This study aims to examine a broader spectrum of nightlife, be...

BACKGROUND Illegal drug use has long been a global concern. Taiwan and Korea are geographically adjacent and both countries have experienced the illegal use problems of methamphetamine, a predominant prototype of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS). NPS, a term coined by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in recent years, have not been scrutinized for their safety and may become...

During the 1980s sufficient evidence accumulated to suggest that the use of cocaine and other illegal drugs by pregnant women presented a major public health problem (Frank et al. 1988; Neerhof et al. 1989). Prenatal alcohol and other drug abuse was occurring in all racial and ethnic groups and across all social strata. For example, the results of a study conducted in 1989 in Pinellas County, F...

Routine drug testing of traffic fatalities has shown that about 21% of all victims have controlled, illegal substances in their body at the time of the incident. Although we cannot establish a relationship between drug levels and impairment of driving ability, the presence of these drugs in the body is per se evidence of an illegal act. This, with the potential that these drugs have for impairi...

Background & Aims: Substance abuse by adolescents is one of the most important health challenges throughout the world. This study was performed to estimate the prevalence of cigarette smoking, alcohol drinking and illegal drugs use among Iranian adolescents. Method: A total of 2538 secondary and high school students were selected through cluster sampling from 10 provinces in Iran and were surve...

Prohibition of illegal drugs is a failed social policy and new models of regulation of these substances are needed. This paper explores a proposal for a post-prohibition, public health based model for the regulation of the most problematic drugs, the smokable and injectable stimulants. The literature on stimulant maintenance is explored. Seven foundational principles are suggested that could su...

OBJECTIVES Illegal drug use continues to be a major threat to community health and safety. We used international drug surveillance databases to assess the relationship between multiple long-term estimates of illegal drug price and purity. DESIGN We systematically searched for longitudinal measures of illegal drug supply indicators to assess the long-term impact of enforcement-based supply red...