Being a teenager is often a confusing, challenging time, which can make teens vulnerable to falling into a destructive pattern of drug use. While most teens probably see their drug use as a casual way to have fun, there are negative effects that are a result of this use of alcohol or other drugs. New study says we need constant attention to help teens to overcome drug abuse.

Chemists are reporting development of what they term the most powerful substance ever discovered for eliminating cocaine from the body, an advance that could lead to the world's first effective medicine for fighting overdoses and addictions of the illicit drug.

Chinese veterinarians have put an Asian elephant who was fed with drugged bananas by animal smugglers through a detox program to cure the animal of his addiction, the Xinhua news agency reported on Thursday.

A new study has unraveled some of the mysteries of the cocaine-addicted brain and may pave the way for the design of more effective treatments for drug addiction.

Why are celebrities and drug addicts like Amy Winehouse being rewarded by being participants in such honorable events such as Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday celebration in London.

Patients suffering from drug addiction in UK may loose benefits for next six month if they refuse to receive proper treatment.

UQ pharmacy graduate Dr Selena Bartlett is starting clinical trials of a new drug that could potentially curb addictions such as smoking, drinking, gambling even depression.

This is what the brain says when people use tobacco, as well as ‘hard drugs’ such as heroin. New research published in the February 13 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience indicates that the effects of nicotine and opiates on the brain's reward system are equally strong in a key pleasure-sensing areas of the brain – the nucleus accumbens.

In experiments with rats, researchers have identified the change in brain circuitry that drives development of a compulsion to seek drugs, even when that compulsion is self-destructive.

Methadone is a possible cause of sudden cardiac death even when it isn’t overdosed but is taken at therapeutic levels primarily for relief of chronic pain or drug addiction withdrawal, a new study by Oregon Health & Science University researchers suggests.

Using an integrative meta-analysis approach, researchers from the Center for Bioinformatics at Peking University in Beijing have assembled the most comprehensive gene atlas underlying drug addiction and identified five molecular pathways common to four different addictive drugs. This novel paper appears in PLoS Computational Biology on January 4, 2008.

Why do mental illness and drug addiction so often go together" New research reveals that this type of dual diagnosis may stem from a common cause: developmental changes in the amygdala, a walnut-shaped part of the brain linked to fear, anxiety and other emotions.