Drug use and internet fraud often fed each other, according to 22 young adults in addiction treatment in southwestern Nigeria who took part in focus groups for a 2026 study. They also described both as driven by peer pressure, lack of jobs and mixed community approval, and as carrying real costs in guilt and distress.1 …
About 1 in 7 adults in Spain who use illicit drugs reported using them to enhance sex in the past year, according to a 2026 analysis of a large web survey. Far fewer, about 3%, reported going to a chemsex party, and most drug use was simply for fun.1 Research Highlights Sex was a minority …
A 2026 randomized youth trial found that integrated exposure-based treatment reduced posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms more than supportive counseling, while substance-use changes were smaller and showed no clear treatment-specific advantage. Research Highlights COPE-A reduced PTSD more: youth receiving Concurrent Treatment of PTSD and Substance Use Disorders Using Prolonged Exposure – Adolescent version had a 17.00-point …
Cannabis users often say the drug helps them blunt stressful memories. A 2026 randomized trial of 36 healthy adults tested low-dose oral THC against placebo during retrieval of a standardized lab stressor, and on every subjective and physiological measure that mattered, THC did nothing.1 Research Highlights 36-adult, 3-arm RCT: participants got placebo, 5 mg oral …
A 2026 prospective German aneurysm cohort found risky alcohol use in 4.6% of 954 intracranial aneurysm patients, and that exposure carried 2.00x higher adjusted odds of aneurysm rupture plus 3.26x higher adjusted odds of clinically severe aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Research Highlights Risky alcohol was the main signal: drinking above the study threshold was independently associated …
A 2026 PRISMA-compliant systematic review and meta-analysis in Drug and Alcohol Review consolidated 30 publications covering 202 prevalence estimates from 120,041 South African adolescents: pooled lifetime prevalence was 35.09% for alcohol use, 25.47% for tobacco use, and 10.47% for cannabis use.1 Research Highlights 30 publications, 202 estimates: pooled data covered 120,041 South African adolescents. Alcohol …
Whether alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, and cannabis damage the same brain regions or different brain regions has been hard to settle in the addiction-imaging literature. A 2026 ENIGMA Addiction analysis by Georgiadis et al. — pooling 4,733 brains across 51 sites — now has an answer. Research Highlights Across 2,782 people with substance use disorder (SUD) …