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Browse normalized, publication-ready research with direct links to its evidence and source.
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Readable research linked to original sources
Browse normalized, publication-ready research with direct links to its evidence and source.
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Readable research linked to original sources
Browse normalized, publication-ready research with direct links to its evidence and source.
26 articles
Newest firstAim To explore the practices, confidence and perspectives of community pharmacists in deprescribing high-risk psychotropic medicines, including opioid analgesics, benzodiazepine, gabapentinoids and medicinal cannabis. Methods An anonymous, cross-sectional national online survey was conducted between January and April 2025 among Australian community pharmacists. The survey captured data on pharmacist demographics,…
Open article record in new tab ↗Introduction Driving under the influence of drugs is a major risk factor for road traffic collisions. While increasing harms are observed in relation to polydrug use, evidence is needed about this issue in the context of road safety. We examined polydrug use patterns in drivers providing samples for toxicological analysis in Ireland between 2019 and 2020. Methods A cross-sectional study using LC-MS toxicology resu…
Purpose There is increasing interest in the use of cannabis products to alleviate symptom burden among cancer patients. Although data remain limited, some evidence suggests that state legalization of cannabis is associated with reduced opioid use. Indices of area-level social determinants of health may provide insights into the patterns of symptom-managing behaviors in the context of health equity. Methods Residen…
Open article record in new tab ↗Aims To keep track on trends and changes over time, we describe drugs taken, clinical course, and incidence of recreational drug and ethanol poisoning among adolescents in Oslo, Norway, from 2014 to 2023. Methods We included all patients ≤ 20 years presenting to the city's main emergency primary care clinic with recreational drug poisoning in 2014-2023, from 2018 also including sole ethanol poisoning. Data were re…
Open article record in new tab ↗On-site drug screening of oral fluid samples has gained attention because of its convenience and rapid results. The aim of this investigation was to compare the results of preliminary screening for drugs in oral fluid samples collected from suspected drug-impaired drivers using DrugWipe 6S and WipeAlyser reader with the results obtained from blood samples. Additionally, we compared the DrugWipe test results with f…
Novel psychoactive substances (NPS) pose one of the greatest challenges across the illicit drug landscape. They can be highly potent, and coupled with rapid changes in structure, tracking and identifying these drugs is difficult and presents users with a "Russian roulette" if used. Benzodiazepines, synthetic opioids, synthetic cannabinoids, and synthetic cathinones account for the majority of NPS-related deaths an…
Open article record in new tab ↗Many diseases are accompanied by symptoms that can impair the ability to perform complex everyday tasks, such as active participation in road traffic. If a cure is not possible, the aim of drug therapy is to alleviate the symptoms to such an extent that the patient no longer has any restrictions in everyday life. However, around 20% of the approximately 100,000 medicines licensed in Germany have traffic-relevant s…
Open article record in new tab ↗Introduction The primary aim of this study was to assess changes in sleep-specific health-related quality of life (HRQoL) for those prescribed cannabis-based medicinal products (CBMPs) for insomnia. Methods A case series of UK patients with insomnia was analyzed. Primary outcomes were changes in the Single-Item Sleep-Quality Scale (SQS), Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), and EQ-5D-5L at up to 6 months from b…
Background It is known that illicit and prescribed drugs impact pupil size, eye movement and function. Still, comprehensive quantitative evaluations under known ambient light conditions are lacking, when smartphones are used for monitoring. Methods In this clinical study (NCT05731999), four medicinal products with addiction risks were administered to 48 subjects (18-70 years old, all with informed consent, 12 subj…
Background Benzodiazepines are a class of medications that are being frequently prescribed in Canada but carry significant risk of harm. There has been increasing clinical interest on the potential "sparing effects" of medical cannabis as one strategy to reduce benzodiazepine use. The objective of this study as to examine the association of medical cannabis authorization with benzodiazepine usage between 2013 and…
Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) make up a class of novel psychoactive substances (NPS), used predominantly in prisons and homeless communities in the U.K. SCs can have severe side effects, including psychosis, stroke, and seizures, with numerous reported deaths associated with their use. The chemical diversity of SCs presents the major challenge to their detection since approaches relying on specific molecular recogn…
Aim. Drug abuse and addiction are major public health concerns, with millions of people worldwide affected by the negative consequences of drug use. To better understand this complex issue, a review was conducted to examine the mechanisms of action and effects of drugs of abuse, including their acute and chronic effects, the symptoms of abstinence syndrome, as well as their cardiovascular impacts. Methods. The ana…
Introduction: Although cannabis is widely used for the treatment of chronic pain, most research relies on patient self-report and few studies have objectively quantified its efficacy and side effects. Extant inventories for measuring cannabis use were not designed to capture the medically relevant features of cannabis use, but rather were designed to detect problematic use or cannabis use disorder. Thus, we sought…
Open article record in new tab ↗Purpose In forensics, entomological specimens can be used as additional/alternative matrices to detect xenobiotics when human specimens are limited in their application. Despite some advantages over implementing putrefied human remains, most medico-legal laboratories do not include entomotoxicological procedures as routine analytical methods. We thus applied two authentic cases to evaluate necrophagous larvae's po…
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on daily life, affecting both physical and mental health. Changes arising from the pandemic may longitudinally impact health-related behaviors (HRB). As different HRBs co-occur, in this study, we explore how six HRBs - alcohol (past-week and binge-drinking), tobacco, marijuana, benzodiazepine use, and unhealthy food consumption - were grouped and changed over time…
Open article record in new tab ↗BACKGROUND: the nonmedical use of prescribed medications among adolescents has increased significantly in recent years. We aimed to identify the patterns of benzodiazepine nonmedical use and its evolution during the decade 2006-2016 among immigrant and native-born adolescent populations. METHODS: we used individualized secondary data retrieved from the 2006-2016 Spanish State Survey on Drug Use in Secondary Educat…
Abstract Visual analogue scales are widely used to measure subjective responses. Norris' 16 visual analogue scales (N_VAS) measure subjective feelings of alertness and mood. Up to now, different scientists have clustered items of N_VAS into different ways and Bond and Lader's way has been the most frequently used in clinical research. However, there are concerns about the stability of this clustering over differen…
Background NPS belonging to the benzodiazepine (BZD) class, e.g., 'legal/designer BZDs'/'research chemicals', have recently emerged in the drug (mainly online/virtual) market. Objective While certain NPS belonging to the BZD class possess pharmacological profiles similar to controlled pharmaceutical BZDs, clinical and pharmacological profiles of current emerging BZDs are still not well-described. Therefore, there…
The use of designer benzodiazepines appears to be increasing in many countries, but data concerning blood concentrations are scarce, making interpretation of concentrations difficult. The aim of this study was to report blood concentrations of clonazolam, diclazepam, etizolam, flualprazolam, flubromazepam, flubromazolam and phenazepam and to investigate the relationship between blood concentrations and impairment.…
Open article record in new tab ↗BACKGROUND: Driving under the influence of alcohol, illicit drugs and certain medicines is not allowed worldwide. Roadside drug testing is considered an important tool for determining such behavior. In Spain, mandatory roadside oral fluid drug testing is carried out regularly. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of benzodiazepines and benzodiazepines in combination with other drugs in drivers, ex…
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