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Readable research linked to original sources
Browse normalized, publication-ready research with direct links to its evidence and source.
Loading articles data…
Readable research linked to original sources
Browse normalized, publication-ready research with direct links to its evidence and source.
24 articles
Newest firstABSTRACTIntroductionIn October 2023, the Australian Capital Territory became the first Australian jurisdiction to decriminalise possession of small quantities of multiple illicit drugs by law, introducing an alternative, legislated pathway enabling police to divert individuals to a health education and information session or issue a $100 expiation fine. This study examined awareness and understanding of this refor…
Open article record in new tab ↗Background Population data on cannabis use-beyond prevalence and frequency of use-in the UK is lacking, yet needed to inform harm reduction messaging about cannabis. This study examined (a) recreational and medical cannabis use; (b) cannabis product use; (c) cannabis risk perceptions via three different routes of administration; (d) how product use and risk perceptions vary by reasons for use and higher risk use.…
Open article record in new tab ↗HintergrundMit dem Cannabisgesetz (CanG) verfolgte die Bundesregierung das Ziel, den Gesundheitsschutz zu verbessern und den illegalen Markt zurückzudrängen. Ein Teilerfolg des CanG würde sich daher in der Verschiebung von illegalen zu legalen Bezugswegen zeigen. Folgende Fragen standen im Zentrum: Wie haben sich die Bezugswege durch das CanG insgesamt und in verschiedenen Gruppen verändert? Welche Gruppen profiti…
Open article record in new tab ↗Background Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been used to quantify drug harms in the United Kingdom, the European Union, Australia, and New Zealand. This paper presents the result of an MCDA conducted in Canada, with the aim of informing Canadian drug policy and contributing to public understanding of drugs' relative harms. Methods A panel composed of 20 experts from six provinces determined 16 drugs to…
In Europe, concentrations of ∆9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in cannabis resin (also known as hash) have risen markedly in the past decade, potentially increasing risks of mental health disorders. Current approaches to international drug monitoring cannot distinguish between different types of cannabis resin which may have contrasting health effects due to THC and cannabidiol (CBD) content. Here, we compared concent…
Background As of November 8, 2023, 24 states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis for both recreational and medical use (RMCL-states), 14 states have legalized cannabis for medical use only (MCL-states) and 12 states have no comprehensive cannabis legislation (NoCL-states). As more states legalize cannabis for recreational use, it is critical to understand the impact of such policies on driving saf…
Open article record in new tab ↗Aims The harms arising from psychoactive drug use are complex, and harm reduction strategies should be informed by a detailed understanding of the extent and nature of that harm. Drug harm is also context specific, and so any comprehensive assessment of drug harm should be relevant to the characteristics of the population in question. This study aimed to evaluate and rank drug harms within Aotearoa New Zealand usi…
Background and aims The U.S. legal cannabis market is saturated with products containing high levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), with no distinction between medical and recreational programs. This omnipresence of potent cannabis products seems to be driven by the recreational realm, where cannabis with the highest THC content is prized. This prevalence of highly potent cannabis is conveyed to medical programs,…
Background Previous work has demonstrated that cannabis laws have had a disproportionate impact on Māori, the Indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. In 2019, the New Zealand Government amended cannabis laws, providing police with the power to determine whether a therapeutic or health-centred approach would be more beneficial than a conviction. In the current study, we use population level data to assess whethe…
Open article record in new tab ↗Aim This article traces recent developments in Danish cannabis policy, by exploring how "cannabis use" is problematised and governed within different co-existing policy areas. Background Recently, many countries have changed their cannabis policy by introducing medical cannabis and/or by moving toward legalisation or decriminalisation. Researchers have thus argued that traditional notions of cannabis as a singular…
Open article record in new tab ↗Background 'Legal highs' began appearing in the UK in the mid-2000s. Whilst many of these substances were controlled under the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act, novel compounds and new variants of controlled compounds were continuously being introduced to the recreational drug market. The Psychoactive Substances Act (PSA) was therefore implemented in 2016 as a blanket ban on all novel psychoactive substances (NPS). Aim To…
Cannabis accounts for the largest share of the illicit drug market, with a high prevalence of use even among adolescents. To tackle this longstanding problem, many kinds of reforms to national cannabis control policies have been implemented in Europe, but their effectiveness is still unclear. This paper analyses the association between selected categories of cannabis policy reforms and changes in perceived cannabi…
Open article record in new tab ↗Aims In October 2019, a citizens' initiative to decriminalise cannabis use started a large debate about drug policy in Finland. This study examines online discussions about the initiative to supplement the current knowledge about citizens' drug opinions. The focus is especially on argumentation techniques that are used to support or object to the decriminalisation. Design Methodologically, the study is based on di…
Open article record in new tab ↗The leading formal drug policy in Israel is the traditional approach of abstinence, probation, and punitive measures based on three main pillars: Enforcement, Treatment and Rehabilitation, and Prevention. However, under the treatment pillar, Israel has adopted a number of harm reduction services, focused mostly on people who use heroin and people who inject drugs. These include Methadone Maintenance Treatment, Bup…
Open article record in new tab ↗Background The opioid epidemic in the United States is a national public health crisis. In recent years, marijuana legalization has been increasingly adopted by state governments as a policy intervention to control the opioid epidemic under the premise that marijuana and opioids are substitutive substances. The purpose of this systematic review is to synthesize the empirical evidence regarding the impact of state…
Open article record in new tab ↗The Canadian government is "taking a public health approach to legalizing, strictly regulating and restricting access to cannabis." There is, however, no universally accepted definition of a public health approach to cannabis. This paper presents what such an approach is, and is not, and discusses its applicability to legal psychoactive substances more generally. It critically reflects on the role of the public he…
Open article record in new tab ↗Drug scheduling within the international system of drug control and national legislation has been recently criticized as having insufficient footing in scientific evidence. The legal harms related to non-medical uses of certain drugs (e.g., cannabis) have arguably exceeded their physiological and social harmfulness compared to legally available substances (e.g., tobacco), which prompted some states to explore alte…
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