Purpose: Stigma reduction is an important public health challenge because of the large morbidity and mortality associated with some forms of substance use. Extreme stigma can lead to dehumanisation of target groups, who are ascribed with lesser humanity. The authors examined whether there was blatant and subtle dehumanisation of people who use…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to review the research evidence on recent British trends in the use of heroin and/or crack-cocaine by young people in order to appraise the scale and nature of the contemporary health problem they pose. Design/methodology/approach: The approach consists of a narrative review of the main current data sources on…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe trends since 2000 in young people's use of illegal/illicit drugs in Britain, and to place these into a longer-term context alongside recent theorising on youthful drug taking. The implications for health educators are to be examined. Design/methodology/approach: A selective narrative review of…

Purpose: The feasibility of a community-level drug prevention intervention based upon the principles of motivational interviewing within a further education college was investigated in a pilot study. Design/methodology/approach: The implementation over the course of a single term of "Let's Talk about Drugs" was studied with both action…

There is mounting evidence that the age at which children are using and becoming exposed to illegal drugs is declining and that such use and exposure is becoming an increasing problem within pre-teenage populations. This suggests that there is an important role for drug education in primary schools in encouraging and helping young children to…