A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Smoking powerful skunk cannabis triples the risk of suffering a serious psychotic episode, scientists have found. In the population studied by the researchers in south London, where cannabis use is widespread, the drug is linked to one quarter of all new cases of psychosis, the team found. The findings add to a compelling body of [...]
"Booze becomes the antidote to too much thinking." - Alan Stokes Source: I am fighting alcohol - and losing I The Sydney Morning Herald Image from Unsplash
Around 40,000 schoolies flock to the Gold Coast each year for a well-earned celebration of 13 years of study, and thousands more head to places like Byron Bay, Bali and even Thailand. A 2012 study revealed that around three-quarters of those involved in the festivities got drunk, and a quarter of all schoolies were injured as a [...]
Women who smoked were 4.4 times more likely to kill themselves compared with women who had never smoked. To the long list of ways that smoking can kill you, experts should add one more cause of death — suicide. So say some sharp-eyed readers of the New England Journal of Medicine. In February, a trio of [...]
Responding to rapidly shifting legal and cultural environments, researchers at the University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine Children's Hospital have found a way to prevent, reduce or delay cannabis use amongst some at-risk youth. Cannabis users are at risk of neurocognitive deficits, reduced educational and occupational attainment, motor vehicle accidents, exacerbation of psychiatric symptoms, and [...]
Ulbricht, who ran Silk Road under the alias "Dread Pirate Roberts" and commissioned five murders at a cost of $US650,000 ($850,000), was sentenced to two life sentences for narcotics distribution and criminal enterprise. - AFP Source: Silk Road mastermind Ross Ulbricht jailed for life
Those who party hard and ugly in Bali could be partying hard in Engadine or St Kilda, except the drinks are cheaper and the waiters are too gentle to tell you to rack off (an expression from my youth, sadly not used much today.) It's a kind of bullying, on an international scale, where those [...]
When university student Jen* faced a seven-hour shift at work after a night of socialising, she turned away from coffee to help her stay awake and picked up a little white pill. The Charles Sturt University student took a Ritalin pill just before midnight and when she got home, she was able to study, tidy [...]
Since the introduction of national tobacco prevention programmes in the 1980s, Australia has experienced declining rates of youth smoking, with the latest figures showing that only 3.4% of 12-17 year-olds smoke daily. Across the wider population we have seen a dramatic shift in the way most Australians regard smoking. Recently, however, novel ways of smoking have come onto the scene which challenge some of the [...]
New research published today in The Journal of Neuroscience identifies a molecular mechanism in the reward centre of the brain that influences how recovering cocaine addicts might relapse after stressful events. Importantly, the study identifies a potential mechanism for protecting against such relapses with treatment. - University of East Anglia Source: Cocaine changes the brain and [...]
