Nyaope, a highly addictive high-grade heroin mixture combined with various adulterants, presented a severe socio-economic and public health crisis in South Africa. The administration of chronic exposure to nyaope induces systemic neurobehavioral alte...
The development of depression frequently impacts epileptic patients due to unmanaged central nervous system changes. This may severely reduce their quality of life. These mental conditions can lead to the administration of illicit drugs for self-medi...
The global drug landscape is undergoing its most profound transformation since the emergence of the modern illicit drug market during the twentieth century. For decades, drug policies, analytical toxicology, forensic science, and public health respon...
Background: Alcohol use disorder (AUD) remains a leading contributor to global morbidity, yet conventional treatments often yield suboptimal outcomes and high relapse rates. Psilocybin-assisted therapy has re-emerged as a potential intervention for s...
Rotator cuff tears are common, and although surgical repair is frequently performed, re-tear and complication rates remain substantial. The impact of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibito...
Background/Objectives: In a recent meta-analysis of 1186 empirical studies, results showed that impulsivity may be one of the most important predictors of substance use. As such, the current study examined the association between an emerging psycholo...
The nature of the psychedelic experience, and the distinctive phenomenological features it generates, leaves it susceptible to an unresolved epistemological tension between first-person phenomenological reports and claims about the fundamental nature...
Cannabis use among adolescents and young adults has increased alongside legalization, commercialization, and higher product potency. However, evidence regarding the effectiveness of interventions to prevent or reduce cannabis use remains heterogeneou...
The label content on consumer products is important for communicating health-related information and promoting safety, which is especially important for psychoactive products such as legal cannabis. New York State (NYS) legalized cannabis for adult u...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) remains inadequately treated by existing pharmacological and psychological interventions, prompting growing interest in psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy. Although randomised controlled trials have evaluated sev...
Acute pain is the most common presentation in the emergency department (ED), accounting for approximately 78% of visits and highlighting the need for rapid and effective pain management. Ketamine is a well-established analgesic that can serve as an a...
While prior research links psychedelic use to improved psychological outcomes, less is known about whether psychedelic exposure relates to engagement with formal mental health care when treatment is recognized as needed. Using publicly available, de-...
This observational study examined the association between binge drinking and a binary measure of participation in physical activity (PPA) in veterans and nonveterans using pooled 2021–2023 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data (n = 10...
Prolonged grief disorder (PGD) affects approximately 10% of bereaved individuals and is now formally recognized in both the DSM-5-TR and ICD-11. Despite its prevalence, PGD often responds poorly to traditional therapeutic approaches. This manuscript...
Increasing rates of cannabis use among young adult college students is concerning, as research suggests that there may be a negative relationship between cannabis use and academic performance. The present study was conducted to investigate the relati...
Introduction: Chronic non-cancer pain represents a major global health challenge because of its high prevalence, functional impact, and limited response to conventional therapies, highlighting the need for alternative approaches. In this context, sub...
Synthetic cannabinoids are widely available in the United States, yet contemporary national data on who uses these products, and disparities in use, are limited. To assess disparities in lifetime and past-year synthetic cannabis use (each yes/no), we...
In 2025, Psychoactives continued its clear upward trajectory, strengthening its position as an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal dedicated to advancing the science of psychoactive substances, spanning pharmacology, clinical psychiatry...
Background: Mitragynine pseudoindoxyl (MP) is a semi-synthetic kratom metabolite increasingly sold online and over-the-counter, marketed misleadingly as “kratom” or “7-OH,” despite lacking FDA approval and safety data in human...
Public debates about psychoactive substances have traditionally been organized around the pharmacology of compounds and the institutional control of supply. In digitally mediated societies, however, the pathways through which people encounter psychoa...
Male-biased drug use is a consistent finding in contemporary epidemiology, yet most global evidence derives from urban and industrialized populations. As a result, little is known about gendered substance use in small-scale societies, leaving unresol...
Interest in psychoactive substances, including psychedelics, is rapidly expanding in medical, academic, and other popular fields. Despite the classifications established within the psychopharmacological scientific community, certain plants, animals,...
Cannabis is one of the most common intoxicants used worldwide. Cannabis is widely consumed worldwide and can lead to visual alterations. However, most of the available information on its effects comes from studies conducted in developed countries, wh...
Adolescent mental health conditions, particularly treatment-resistant depression (TRD), represent a growing public health challenge associated with high morbidity, functional impairment, and elevated suicide risk. Psychedelic-assisted therapies have...
Cannabis and its derivatives are increasingly popular. The public perception of “cannabis” is commonly related to abuse potential with no sharp distinction to “marijuana”, “cannabinoids”, “hemp”, and ca...
Kähönen argued that the harms associated with psychedelics have been overstated, while evidence for the latter’s moral enhancing effects was disregarded, in my earlier commentary. Here, I respond to these arguments and maintain that t...
In a recent Psychoactives article, Bor Luen Tang argues against psychedelic moral bioenhancement (PMBE)—the use of classic psychedelics such as psilocybin to foster moral growth in healthy individuals [...]
Background: This review examines the prevalence of substance abuse and related disorders in South Pacific nations. Methods: The review focused on data included in reports published since 2000 from countries like Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Fre...
Serotonergic psychedelics, particularly psilocybin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and dimethyltryptamine (DMT), are increasingly recognised as powerful tools to advance the understanding of consciousness and its relation to brain activity. Psyche...
Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant with severe health and psychosocial consequences. Over recent decades, genetic and molecular research on methamphetamine use disorders has expanded considerably, yet a comprehensive synthesis of this gr...
Today’s research highlights the therapeutic potential of the hallucinogen psilocybin in the treatment of pathologies associated with mood, cognitive, and affective dysregulation. These domains of function are regulated by the serotonergic syste...
Opioid misuse and suicide among youth remain pressing public health challenges. This scoping review examined studies published between 2020 and 2024 on associations between opioid misuse and suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, or non-suicidal self-i...
Medetomidine, a potent central acting α2 agonist, has emerged as a fentanyl adulterant in the non-medical opioid supply. Its use has been linked to a novel withdrawal syndrome that is often resistant to conventional treatment protocols. Four ca...
Cannabis use (CU) motives among older adults (OA) could be an important indicator of broader mental health. OA ages 60+ (N = 78) reported on CU, alcohol consumption, and mood and anxiety. Coping, enhancement, social, conformity, expansion, and routin...
Psychedelic-assisted therapy offers rapid and profound benefits for treatment-resistant psychiatric conditions but remains constrained by the need for intensive, clinic-based administration. Concurrently, advances in digital health technologies have...
Czechia has recently approved the medical use of psilocybin, marking a pivotal shift in the country’s drug policy landscape. This development paves the way for regulated therapeutic applications of psilocybin within clinical settings, while sim...
States like Hawai‘i are decriminalizing psychedelics based on emerging evidence linking their use to improved psychological well-being. Yet, in many cultural contexts, stigma surrounding mental illness may lead individuals to pursue non-traditi...
Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) profoundly impacts individuals and society, driven by neurobiological adaptations that sustain chronicity and relapse. Emerging research highlights neuroinflammation, particularly microglial activation, as a central mechani...
Dementia is a progressive neurodegenerative disease which is characterised by cognitive decline, memory loss, and behavioural changes. Patients suffering from dementia often experience emotional distress, sadness and depression which also impacts the...
Psychedelic substances have experienced a resurgence of clinical interest in recent years, particularly for their promising effects in the treatment of psychiatric disorders such as depression and anxiety. While evidence regarding their role in chron...
This review synthesizes preclinical evidence on the behavioral and neurobiological effects of cannabis exposure during prenatal and adolescent developmental periods, with a focus on anxiety, social behavior, learning and memory, and associated brain...
Numerous individuals suffer from mental health issues including depression and anxiety, resulting in substantial societal burden. Data suggests individuals are choosing to self-medicate with Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS); however, this phenomen...
This study estimates the prevalence of co-use of alcohol and cannabis, assesses the sociodemographic risk factors of co-use, and examines the associations between mental health and heavy episodic drinking (HED) and alcohol–cannabis co-use in Ca...
Despite growing evidence supporting the efficacy of LSD-assisted psychotherapy in treating major depressive disorder (MDD), identifying reliable psychopharmacological biomarkers remains necessary. Oxytocin, a neuropeptide implicated in social bonding...
Shaboo is a street name commonly used in parts of Asia, particularly the Philippines and Thailand, to refer to methamphetamine, a powerful and highly addictive stimulant. Its long-term effects are related to chronic exposure to the drug effects, prim...
Pain is a protective mechanism that can be classified into acute and chronic types. Ayahuasca is a psychoactive brew rich in dimethyltryptamine or DMT (a 5-HT2A receptor agonist), and harmine (a monoamine-oxidase (MAO) inhibitor) used for religious a...
Canada’s national surveillance shows an 11% year-over-year decline in deaths from opioid and other unregulated drug poisonings, and a 10% drop in related hospitalisations in 2024. In stark contrast, Québec, home to more than nine million...
Background: Persisting symptoms after concussion is a complex syndrome warranting exploration into further treatment options. Emerging research highlights the potential of classic psychedelics, such as psilocybin, in managing neuropsychiatric conditi...
Psychedelic treatments are emerging as promising interventions for many mental health conditions. These interventions are not offered in a standardized fashion across studies and between different healthcare centers. Beyond differences in substances...
Ketamine and esketamine are two closely related compounds with fast-acting antidepressant properties that have reshaped the treatment landscape for individuals with treatment-resistant depression (TRD). Originally developed as anesthetic agents, both...
