Research You Can Use

Every day in Australia, 156 people are admitted to hospital because of drugs. Not alcohol, not tobacco. Drugs. Drug-related harm in Australia is no longer a slow burn. New national figures put the number of drug-related hospitalisations at 56,797 for 2023-24, a 10.5% rise on the year before. Over the same period, all-cause hospitalisations went

Workplace deaths in Australia hit 222 in 2025, the largest yearly toll since 2012. Each one was a person who went to work and did not come home. Meanwhile, the nation’s wastewater is telling a second story, with ice and cocaine consumption at record highs. Two bad trends, one country. So it is fair to

Workplace deaths in Australia hit 222 in 2025, the largest yearly toll since 2012. Each one was a person who went to work and did not come home. Meanwhile, the nation’s wastewater is telling a second story, with ice and cocaine consumption at record highs. Two bad trends, one country. So it is fair to

The Australian methamphetamine problem has reached levels that no national monitoring system has recorded before. The National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at UNSW Sydney released its September 2026 bulletin (Chrzanowska et al., 2026). Nearly every headline indicator points upward. Wastewater consumption, hospitalisations and overdose deaths sit at record highs. Crystal methamphetamine, meanwhile, sells

Drug checking services have quietly become one of the most accepted tools in how society now handles illegal drug use. A sample goes in. A result comes out. Somewhere in that exchange, a seller learns whether they cut the batch correctly, and a buyer learns whether tonight’s supply is roughly what it claims to be.

Why School Based Drug Education Belongs in the Science of Resilience New findings from brain science and education research are changing how communities view school based drug education. Researchers no longer treat it as one isolated lesson. Instead, they place it within life course science, alongside growing research on youth resilience. Two recent studies show

There is a version of the psychedelics story that everyone already knows. A veteran who stopped waking up screaming. A cancer patient who made peace with dying. A depressive who, after decades of grey, felt sunlight again. These stories are moving, they are frequently true, and Netflix, bestselling books, presidential press conferences, and a booming

A major new study has raised serious concerns about teen drug use and mental health, finding that young people who use drugs or binge drink are far more likely to suffer psychological distress. They are also more likely to have considered or attempted suicide, according to research from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research

Addiction has long been treated as a matter of willpower, a personal failing, or a moral weakness. But a growing body of neuroscience tells a very different story. A landmark study published in Translational Psychiatry in 2025 found that people dependent on wildly different substances share a remarkably consistent set of addiction brain patterns. This applies

It looks like a travel shampoo bottle, smells like bubblegum, and fits in a school bag pocket. On top of that, it costs less than a coffee. And according to a growing and convergent body of scientific research, it is very likely giving young people cancer. The vaping carcinogens inhaled with every puff are no