Addiction Audio

In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim speaks to Dr Wei Deng, an assistant professor from McMaster University and St Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton, Canada. The interview covers the research article Wei led examining externalising as a common genetic influence for a broad spectrum of substance use and behavioural conditions using a large UK longitudinal dataset.‘Externalising’ is a type of outward-directed behavioural expression, such as risky substance use, aggression, and hyperactivity. ‘Polygenic risk scores’ are numbers that estimate a person’s inherited risk for a disease, trait, or condition (in this case, addiction) based on the...

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth speaks to Professor Owen Bowden-Jones from Central North-West London NHS Foundation and Mr Arun Sahai from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals NHS Trust, both in the UK. The interview covers an editorial they wrote with Professor Paul Dargan on responses to non-medical and medical ketamine use, including concerns about the increasing harms from illicit ketamine and excitement about the potential therapeutic value of ketamine.  We apologise for the sound quality at points during this episode, but we promise its worth the listen! ·      Ketamine and its uses [01:15]·      Why ketamine is lis...

In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim talks to Dr Katie East, an Associate Professor in Public Health within the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in the UK. The interview covers her and her co-authors research report on a randomised online experiment evaluating the impact of vaping fact films on vaping harm perceptions among UK young adults, as well as discussing the broader misconceptions around vaping and the importance of expert-led health messaging. ·      How vapes differ from conventional tobacco smoking [1:31]·      Some misconceptions around vaping [02:07]·      What do people know about n...

In this episode, Dr Zoe Swithenbank speaks to Dr June Leung, a senior researcher at the SHORE and Whariki Research Centre at Massey University in New Zealand. The interview covers June’s systematic review and meta-analysis on the association of parental or caregiver alcohol use with child maltreatment.·      An overview of the review and the definition and forms of child maltreatment [01:00]·      Why it is important to look at all forms of child maltreatment [03:48]·      Quantifying the harms of alcohol and identifying preventable risk factors [05:00]·      The take home messages of the study [06:23]·      What June’s findings...

In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim talks to Dr Lavinia Baltes, Head of Research at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Psychiatric Services Aargau, Switzerland. The interview covers her research report on a randomised control trial of public health-oriented recreational cannabis access compared to illegal market access in Basel-Stadt, Switzerland. ·      The current legal landscape in Switzerland with respect to cannabis [01:12]·      The difference between cannabis obtained legally and illegally [02:30]·      The potential benefits of legal cannabis compared to illegal cannabis [03:25]·      The key findings of the study [04:20]·      Speculations about why the people who used drugs other than ca...

In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim talks to Dr Danilo Romero, a licensed clinical psychologist at the Stockholm Centre for Dependency Disorders in Sweden. The interview covers his research report on the questionable generalisability of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test – Consumption (AUDIT-C) when used as an outcome measure in clinical trials than as a primary care screening tool, highlighting the need for researchers and clinicians to reconsider their application of the AUDIT-C. ·      What is the AUDIT-C and why it is widely used in primary care and research? [01:13]·      What made the authors question the generalisability...

In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim talks to: Dr Marilyn Piccirillo from the Department of Psychiatry at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and Drs Katherine Walukevich-Dienst and Elizabeth Lehinger from the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine. The interview covers their research report on the longer-term efficacy of brief, alcohol-focused personalised feedback interventions among young adults in two universities on the West coast of the US. Note for listeners: The acronym PFI is used throughout this episode, which stands for ‘personalised feedback intervention’.·      What is an alcohol-focused personalised feedback in...

In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim speaks to Dr Emma Beard, a lecturer in statistics and quantitative methods at University College London. The interview covers Emma’s research report titled, ‘How much does the absence of the ‘hidden population’ from United Kingdom household surveys underestimate smoking prevalence?’·      How we normally estimate the smoking prevalence reported in official statistics [01:28]·      Why it is important to consider the hidden population [01:55]·      The consequences of not taking into account the hidden population when estimating smoking prevalence [02:35]·      The ‘workbook method’: how we estimate the hidden population [02:55]·      The key findings and implicati...

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth speaks to Professor Joanne Neale from the Addictions Department at King’s College London and Professor Brian Kelly from the Department of Sociology at Indiana University. The interview covers their editorial titled, ‘Over a decade later and Addiction journal is still committed to publishing qualitative research’.  ·      The origins of the editorial and why it is needed [01:01]·      The goal of the changes Addiction is implementing for qualitative submissions [01:44]·      The importance of increasing the word limit to 6,000 words [02:49]·      Whether similar journals in the addiction field struggle with low numbers of qualitative submissi...

In this episode, Dr Tsen Vei Lim talks to Dr James MacKillop, a clinical psychologist and professor at McMaster University in Canada, and director for both the Peter Boris Centre for Addictions Research and the Michael G DeGroote Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research. The interview covers his research report on the diagnostic validity of drinking behaviour for identifying alcohol use disorder (AUD) with findings from a representative sample of community adults and an inpatient clinical sample. ·      What alcohol use disorder is and how it is currently diagnosed [01:41]·      The surprising exclusion of drinking behaviour in AUD diagnosis [03...

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth speaks to Dr Sandra Jumbe from the School of Social and Health Sciences at Millenium University in Malawi and the Wolfson Institute of Public Health Queen Mary, and Dr Chris Newby from the Medical School at the University of Nottingham. Sandra and Chris discuss their findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis on factors associated with adolescent substance use in Africa between 2000 and 2020. ·      What do we already know about adolescent use in Africa and why this review was needed [01:40]·      The headline findings of the review [03:50]·      What the consolidation of findi...

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr Richard Bade from Queensland Alliance for Environmental Health Sciences at the University of Queensland about his and his co-authors research report on the identification of nitazenes through wastewater analysis, using two-years of data from 22 countries. Richard discusses why a study detecting nitazenes in wastewater was needed and what the future for detecting nitazenes in wastewater looks like, including implications for policy and practice. ·      What is wastewater analysis and how we use it in the field of drugs [01:21]·      What are nitazenes and why they are a problem [02:28]·      Wh...

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to three generations of tobacco/nicotine researchers: Dr Sarah Jackson and Emeritus Professors Martin Jarvis and Robert West, all from the Department of Behavioural Science and Health at University College London. They discuss a recent editorial, ‘The price of a cigarette: 20 minutes of life?’ – why the message resonated, what was and is difficult to convey in tobacco research, and how the media coverage has changed for tobacco research over the years. ·      What the editorial is about [00:56]·      Why the editorial resonated with the public and the media [01:40]·      What messages were difficul...

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr Noa Krawczyk from the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine about her and her co-authors research report on self-reported experiences and perspectives on using psychedelics to manage opioid use among participants of two Reddit communities. Noa discusses the current treatments available for opioid use disorder and why psychedelics are having their moment as an alternative medicine, and what people who use opioids found when taking psychedelics with the intention of reducing or stopping their opioid use. ·      What is Reddit and why is Noa using it to a...

In this episode, Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Dr James Nicholls from the University of Stirling about an opinion paper he co-authored with Professor Geoffrey Hunt on whether pleasure should receive more attention in public health-oriented alcohol research. They discuss what alcohol researchers and public health professionals can learn about ‘intoxication and pleasure’ from drug research, the different ways that the pleasure of drinking is made more socially acceptable, and what more research on pleasure could do for policy and practice. ·      Why public health research has historically not explored the pleasure of alcohol intoxication [01:04]·      Why this is an imp...

In this episode Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Professor David Hammond about vaping. They discuss policy differences between the Canada, the UK and the US as well as changes relating to disposable vapes and the use of nicotine salts. They cover the environmental impact of some of these products before talking about the different choices available to policymakers when developing regulations. “What the change has meant in England is that there’s probably more room for regulating some of these [vaping] products without undermining their use as a cessation aid”Original article...

In this episode Ben Scher talks to Dr Aleksi Hamina from the Norwegian centre for addiction research at the University of Oslo and the Niuvanniemi Hospital in Finland. They discuss a recent paper co-authored by Dr Hamina in which the team matched large national datasets to identify excess mortality among people who use drugs that can be attributed to cancers. They found increases in incidences and mortality according to liver, lung, larynx and pancreas cancers.They highlight the impact of smoking, alcohol use and hepatitis, and discuss the policy implications of knowing the impact that these...

In this episode, Dr Rob Calder talks to Dr Lindsey Hines about her study using longitudinal data to examine links between cannabis use, cannabis potency and psychotic experiences. Dr Hines talks about using Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) data - also known as 'Children of the Nineties' and discusses why psychosis and cannabis potency are important to measure and some of the challenges of doing so with both."In unregulated markets like the UK where it's illegal to use cannabis....better health messaging and better awareness among those using cannabis of those...

In this episode Dr Elle Wadsworth talks to Professor Jonathan Caulkins about self-reported cannabis use in the US between 1979 and 2022 and how those trends compare with alcohol use over the same period. The research focused on four specific time points, measuring cannabis prevalence against US policy changes. Dr Wadsworth and Professor Caulkins then talk about differences between cannabis and alcohol as intoxicants and the impact that cannabis regulations have on cannabis use and the intensity of cannabis use.Professor Caulkins also discusses the limitations of self-report when it comes to substance use, and how this is...

In this episode, Ben Scher talks to Dr Kathleen Page about her evaluation of an integrated care van that ran in Baltimore offering healthcare interventions and buprenorphine prescribing. Dr Page discusses using a cluster randomised trial to compare outcomes in different neighbourhoods (those where the van did and didn't go) and to explore whether the van was effective at improving health outcomes for people who inject drugs.Dr Page also talks about the impact of COVID-19 on the research as well as the specific needs of people who accessed the van."When...