Substance Misuse and Young People: Critical Issues is a comprehensive source of information on young people's requirements for assessment, treatment and other interventions because of their misuse of substances. It highlights approaches that enhance understanding of the routes that lead young people to substance misuse and also the routes away from it. The emergence of new substances and methods of misuse makes this ever more relevant. The authors are international experts in the fields of psychiatry, paediatrics, medicine, psychology, genetics, resilience, neuropharmacology and epidemiology. This book acknowledges how widespread both substance misuse and psychiatric disorders are and explores the complex, challenging links between co-occurring conditions. Use of substances is associated with illness and premature mortality, and more so for people who have combined disorders. The authors critically assess the vital need for intervention during adolescence and early adulthood. They provide detailed clinical views of the psychosocial interventions and medications currently available and illustrate them with case studies that emphasise adolescents' experiences and thoughtful lifestyle-specific interventions. This book provides theoretical knowledge and indicates the practical skills that practitioners require for work with young people who misuse substances. It is highly applicable to medical practitioners, psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, police officers, probation officers, educationalists and related social and healthcare professionals.

Substance Misuse and Young People: Critical Issues is a comprehensive source of information on young people's requirements for assessment, treatment and other interventions because of their misuse of substances. It highlights approaches that enhance understanding of the routes that lead young people to substance misuse and also the routes away from it. The emergence of new substances and methods of misuse makes this ever more relevant. The authors are international experts in the fields of psychiatry, paediatrics, medicine, psychology, genetics, resilience, neuropharmacology and epidemiology. This book acknowledges how widespread both substance misuse and psychiatric disorders are and explores the complex, challenging links between co-occurring conditions. Use of substances is associated with illness and premature mortality, and more so for people who have combined disorders. The authors critically assess the vital need for intervention during adolescence and early adulthood. They provide detailed clinical views of the psychosocial interventions and medications currently available and illustrate them with case studies that emphasise adolescents' experiences and thoughtful lifestyle-specific interventions. This book provides theoretical knowledge and indicates the practical skills that practitioners require for work with young people who misuse substances. It is highly applicable to medical practitioners, psychologists, pharmacists, social workers, police officers, probation officers, educationalists and related social and healthcare professionals.

For half a century the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 has dominated ill-conceived approaches to the prohibition of drugs and the criminalisation of many offenders. Wilful blindness to scientific facts has distorted the dispensation of justice, prevented lifesaving investigation, sidelined critics and thwarted advocates of politically inconvenient drugs law reform. This once in an epoch review by experts from a range of disciplines shows how lawmakers and the media have ignored the scientific evidence to sustain badly founded rhetoric in favour of blanket bans, punishment and the marginalisation of opponents. Countless individuals (including the vulnerable, deprived, addicted and mentally ill) have therefore suffered unnecessarily. This, the most comprehensive critique of the 1971 Act yet, rests on the combined learning of leading medical, scientific, psychiatric, academic, legal, drug safety and other specialists to provide sound reasons to re-think half a century of bad law.