Recent News
Ethical challenges in drug epidemiology: issues, principles and guidelines
No CommentsThe Global Assessment Programme on Drug Abuse (GAP) Toolkit Module 7: Ethical challenges in drug epidemiology: issues, principles and guidelines, was prepared by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as part of the activities of GAP. The main objectives of GAP are to help countries to (a) collect reliable and internationally comparable data on drug abuse; (b) build capacity at the local level to collect data that can guide demand reduction activities; and (c) improve cross-national, regional and global reporting on drug trends.
Depression, antidepressants, and the shrinking hippocampus
No CommentsThroughout human history, it has been apparent that few medical maladies are as devastating in their effects as major depression. And since the 1950s, with the advent of the first generation of antidepressants, it has been apparent that depression is a biological disorder. This has generated the tremendous intellectual challenge of how to understand the material, reductive bases of a disease of malignant sadness.
Doctors press for minimum alcohol pricing
No CommentsDoctors organisations have sought to rally support for the minimum pricing of alcohol. Peter Rice, one of Scotland’s leading medical professionals working in the field of alcohol misuse, spoke on behalf of the BMA when he said minimum pricing would tackle consumption on a number of levels. Dr Rice is also chair of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland.
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More cocaine overdoses in warmer weather
No CommentsWhen the weather gets nicer, frequency of cocaine-related deaths tends to go up, according to a study published last week in the journal Addiction. By comparing New York City mortality data from 1990 through 2006 with average temperature information for the region from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, researchers found that more people died of cocaine overdose when temperatures rose past 75ºF (24ºC) than when it was cooler out.
