Sweden has become the world’s 1st “smoke-free” country, with a daily smoking rate of 3.7%, below the internationally accepted threshold of 5%, according to the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs, which issued data for 2025 in a report…
News Archives
Erica Schwartz to run CDC
President Trump yesterday nominated Erica Schwartz to be director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a position that has been filled mostly on a part-time or interim basis. Schwartz was deputy surgeon general during the 1st Trump administration…
Trump – executive order on ibogaine
The White House is drafting an executive order that would signal the Trump administration’s willingness to further US research into ibogaine, a natural compound used to treat depression, addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. The administration doesn’t plan to reclassify the drug…
Wanted: 3 opioid-related faculty
Arkansas Children’s and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences seek 3 faculty positions at the National Center for Opioid and Addiction Research, a 1st-of-its-kind, state-launched national research center focused on transforming prevention and treatment of the opioid crisis. Review…
High-potency cannabis: psychiatry’s next challenge
When our parents were young, marijuana contained about 4% THC, its main psychoactive compound. Today you find products routinely approaching 20% THC. Concentrates and extracts up THC to 70%-95%. “We have not simply cultivated a plant; we have bioengineered it…
Alcohol crisis hitting high-stress, “high-status” workers
Alcohol use in the US is at a historic low – but amid that there are pockets of the population suffering from disproportionately high rates of alcohol abuse, Vox reported. In general, this is linked to people with low economic…
Canada: why is alcohol use falling?
According to Statistics Canada, per capita alcohol sales declined for the 4th consecutive year, by 18%. Alcohol sales also declined recently in the US, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research at the University of Victoria Timothy Naimi started in The Conversation.…
The Opioid Safety Toolkit
Australia’s Monash University evaluated the efficacy of the Opioid Safety Toolkit – finding evidence that, compared with a gold-standard opioid information website, the Opioid Safety Toolkit increased naloxone requests among Australian adults prescribed opioids for non-cancer pain, although it did…
Wastewater analysis: drug use
The Home Office used a new analytical method, extrapolating data from 42 sites covering 28% of England’s population. Cocaine had the highest consumption and market value, followed by ketamine. Between 2021-2025, consumption increased for ketamine, MDMA, methamphetamine and cocaine and…
