Border controls No legislative changes ought to be made to Australia’s current border controls for nicotine products. The black market and mislabelling of nicotine e-liquids exists precisely because Nicotine Vaping Products (NVPs) are regulated as medicines and only available on prescription. Given the reluctance of many General Practitioners (GPs) to prescribe, the complicated policies and  …

Written by Tiago Vasconcelos Psychiatric disorders can be considered to disturb the brain’s equilibria, emerging when different factors converge to push the brain towards inefficient states. Depression and anxiety are two of the most pervasive mental health conditions, and are challenging to treat; an estimated 30% of depression sufferers prove resistant to first-line treatment (Al-Harbi,  …

Written by Professor David Nutt  I have just come back from a 3-week lecture tour of South-Eastern Australia supporting the cause of the charity Mind Medicine Australia (MMA) They have been raising money for psychedelic research for about 4 years with considerable success. Through their efforts, the Australian government last year put up $15million for  …

By Alice Lineham *Note that throughout this article the term ‘teenager’ is used to refer to individuals between the ages of 13-18. Since the turn of the century, an influx of psychedelic trials have taken place at renowned institutions across the globe. Weekly news stories are lauding these compounds for their benefits in treating adults  …

Event review written by Nikol Naydenova In the heart of London, on Great Portland Street, patients, prescribers, cannabis advocates, police officers, and journalists all met together to discuss and debate their shared belief that medical cannabis could revolutionise healthcare. In honour of Medical Cannabis Awareness Week, held at the International Students House, Drug Science and  …

Article written by Jemima Lowe and Kirran Ahmad Indigenous populations¹ are active stewards of our planet and resources, safeguarding 80% of global diversity. They make up 6% of the world’s population and occupy roughly 25% of the world’s surface meaning they are often positioned in resource-rich locales. However, indigenous rights, responsibilities and values are often  …

In response to the government’s recent White Paper on ‘tough consequences’ for recreational drug use, Drug Science has warned that the proposed measures are unlikely to work, and will increase the impact of institutional racism in the control of drug possession. Ending the criminalisation of drug possession is a strategy advocated by many leading voices,  …

Get Project Twenty21 Updates via Email Project Twenty21: August Update 16th August 2022 We’re doing some work behind the scenes to revamp the way our monthly T21 data update is laid out, so this month’s data points will be a little delayed and released as soon as they are ready – please bear with us! In the meantime,  …

By Professor David Nutt and James Bunn The Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) recently withdrew a proposal to ban five psychedelic substances: 4-Hydroxy-N,N-diisopropyltryptamine (4-OH-DiPT), 5-Methoxy-alphamethyltryptamine (5-MeO-AMT), N-Isopropyl-5-Methoxy-N-Methyltryptamine (5-MeO-MiPT), N,N-Diethyl-5-methoxytryptamine (5-MeO-DET), and N,N-Diisopropyltryptamine (DiPT). Earlier this year, the DEA proposed that these substances ought to be moved to schedule 1 (the most restrictive schedule in the Controlled  …

Get Project Twenty21 Updates via Email Our Project Twenty21 monthly updates have changed. From now on, we will be incorporating the medical cannabis news (previously included in our T21 mailout) into the Drug Science newsletter which goes out around the first Tuesday of every month. This means that from next month you will receive a second  …

Get Project Twenty21 Updates via Email Project Twenty21 June Update The big news this month is that our Chronic Pain paper has been published! Using Project Twenty21 data, it looks at the characteristics of people seeking prescribed cannabinoids for the treatment of chronic pain. Our results demonstrate the complexities of studying chronic pain, and the  …

Authors Anne Katrin Schlag, Michael Lynskey, Alan Fayaz, Alkyoni Athanasiou-Fragkouli, Brigitta Brandner, Barbara Haja, Elizabeth Iveson and David J. Nutt Published June 14, 2022 Medical Cannabis for Chronic Pain Chronic pain is a pervasive, and potentially disabling condition. In the UK it is estimated to affect between one third and one half of the adult  …

Written by Tiago Vasconcelos. A review of the recent paper – ‘Adjunctive Ketamine With Relapse Prevention–Based Psychological Therapy in the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder’ by Grabski et al., 2021   Alcohol abuse is one of the costliest conditions affecting modern health and a high proportion of people suffering from alcohol use disorder (AUD) are  …

Get Project Twenty21 Updates via Email Project Twenty21 May Update We are well over the 2500 mark now with the number of patients registered with the project. Thank you for everything you do as supporters of Drug Science to help us spread the word about medical cannabis and Project Twenty21. Our research project with the University  …

In 2019, Drug Science submitted evidence to the Drugs Policy Inquiry by the Health and Social Care Committee. In 2020, we prepared a detailed report in response to the Dame Carol Black Drugs Review. In 2021, we reacted to the government’s 10-year Drug Strategy. Our 2022 response to the UK government’s call for evidence of  …

Get Project Twenty21 Updates via Email   Project Twenty21 April Update This month we’re celebrating another fantastic clinic joining us, plus some of the exciting events that we’re involved with in the coming weeks – including one organised by a Twenty21 patient. And there’s even more in the pipeline – as always, we’ll keep you fully up-to-date  …

Get Project Twenty21 Updates via Email Spring is definitely here – our website has undergone a Spring-clean, we’re continuing to see encouraging results from our data analysis and there are lots of events (both virtual and in-person) on the horizon where we’ll be spreading the word about medical cannabis. We’ve got good news, that we’ve updated  …

By Dr Carol Routledge, Chief Medical & Scientific Officer at Small Pharma DMT-assisted therapy is a novel psychedelic therapy which aims to treat a whole suite of mental health problems that we have sadly come to take for granted as part of 21st century life. Early trials are investigating DMT-assisted therapy in the treatment of  …

By Dr Michael White – Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Psychology, University of Adelaide, South Australia Marcotte et al. (2022): Per se laws are unjust One of the best cannabis-impairment studies that I have encountered (Marcotte et al., 2022) was published online this week, as an open-access article. You can read it here: Driving Performance and  …

New medical cannabis study approved Drug Science is pleased to announce that the UK’s NHS Research Ethics Committee (NHS REC) and Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory agency (MHRA) has granted our researchers permission to study the effects of medical cannabis on long-COVID. Following this approval, our new patient study will run for six months from  …

Authors David J Nutt Published January 26, 2022 “Medical cannabis has been legal to prescribe since 2018—yet just a handful of prescriptions have been made in three years. The reasons: stigma, fear, and an entrenched resistance in the medical profession that is harming patients” Prof David Nutt – Founder of Drug Science The field of  …

By Leah Williams What is Drug Policy In law, a policy outlines the rules and guidelines for an act or behaviour. Drug policy explains the different sanctions, criminal or civil, that an individual will face if they break the rules or fail to follow the guidelines around recreational drugs. The government put these sanctions in place in  …

Update What you have helped us achieve so far Our medical cannabis registry, Project Twenty21, was originally designed to run until the end of 2021 (hence the name). As you will know from your own life during the pandemic, the last two years have been full of challenges and obstacles. Project Twenty21 has navigated the  …

The available data for drug-related trends in the UK, and around the world, is extremely lacking. Crime surveys and national statistics have a narrow scope due to the limited data which they collect. Enter the Global Drug Survey (GDS), which collects data directly from people who have experience with drugs and which has become an  …

Drug Science Response to the UKs 10-Year Drug Strategy Drug Science welcomes the fact that the government has agreed to accept many aspects of the Dame Carol Black review on addiction treatment services, to which Drug Science previously submitted evidence. The major positive outcome appears to be a focus on the use of treatments rather  …

The British Paediatric Neurology Association (BPNA) recently produced new guidance on the prescription of cannabis medicines for children with epilepsy. However, the Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society (UKMCCS) and Drug Science fundamentally disagree with this guidance. Expert clinicians from both organisations have produced a critique to provide commentary, evidence and further crucial information to guide paediatricians to  …

The 24th of November 2021 was a remarkable day for German drug policy reformers and cannabis enthusiasts. The federal election allowed a coalition to form, which is called the “traffic light coalition” due to the individual parties’ colours. Whilst two parties, the Greens and the FDP, are campaigning for cannabis legalisation for quite a while  …

Is LSD Safe? LSD, technically named lysergic acid diethylamide and also known as acid, is one of the most widely used psychedelic drugs. As it changes both your cognition and your perception, it’s natural to assume this comes with an element of risk and yet LSD is widely regarded to be very safe. But is  …