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Published: 10 June 2026

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National Tragedy Triggers Immediate Tobacco and Cannabis Cravings, New Research Finds

Collective Trauma and Substance Cravings: The Reflexive Response Nobody Talks About

When a national tragedy unfolds, the psychological fallout runs far deeper than grief or anxiety. New research in the Journal of Health Psychology shows that collective trauma and substance cravings are directly linked. Regular tobacco and cannabis users report an immediate spike in the urge to use. It happens simply from encountering reminders of a traumatic national event.

Dr Vera Skvirsky and Dr Uri Lifshin at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem led the study. Colleagues from the Israel Center for Addiction and Mental Health joined the research team. Their findings confirm that trauma-triggered drug cravings are not just anecdotal. They are a documented, reflexive psychological response.

Terror Management: Why the Brain Reaches for a Cigarette

Terror management theory sits at the heart of this research on collective trauma and substance cravings. It holds that humans are uniquely aware of their own mortality. When existential threats arise, people instinctively deploy psychological defences to cope. For many individuals, the researchers argue, reaching for a cigarette or cannabis is one of those defences.

It is not about habit in that moment. It is about suppression. Smoking functions as a rapid proximal defence. It temporarily blocks terrifying thoughts of death and vulnerability from conscious awareness.

Dr Lifshin was direct about what the data shows. The immediate urge to smoke after a collective existential reminder is a rapid defensive response, not simply a physical habit. Its purpose is to push thoughts of mortality out of conscious awareness.

Collective Trauma and Substance Cravings: What the Experiments Showed

The team ran two separate experiments. In the first, moderate to high-risk cannabis users read a news article about the October 7 attack on Israel. The article included recognisable images. A separate control group read about dental pain. Cannabis users exposed to the trauma content reported significantly heightened cravings.

The second experiment used the same method with daily tobacco smokers. The result held. Nicotine cravings surged after the trauma prompt, consistent across both groups. The pattern was clear: trauma-triggered drug cravings hit regular users hard, regardless of the substance.

People with high attachment anxiety showed higher overall cravings throughout. This group carries persistent fears about their own worth and whether support will be there when they need it. Their baseline craving levels ran higher from the outset.

When Standard Coping Strategies Fall Short

What did not work is perhaps the most important finding. Self-esteem, a secure attachment style, and a strong sense of national identity all failed to reduce trauma-triggered drug cravings. Structured self-affirmation tasks made no difference either.

This is significant for prevention work. Standard reassurance strategies may simply not reach the reflex fast enough. The urge operates on a more primitive psychological track than rational coping can access quickly. Around 17% of people with high attachment anxiety reported craving levels that standard buffers could not bring down.

Collective Trauma, Media Exposure, and Substance Use

This research sits in a broader and increasingly urgent global context. War, terrorism, political polarisation, displacement, and collective instability affect communities worldwide. Each shapes the link between collective trauma and substance cravings in ways prevention efforts need to account for.

Media exposure adds another layer to the collective trauma and substance cravings problem. Traumatic events may subside, but news reminders and anniversary coverage keep triggering the same craving response. For regular tobacco and cannabis users, the daily news cycle may quietly drive consumption in ways that rarely attract attention.

The findings make a strong case for trauma-informed approaches in substance use prevention, especially following shared national or community crises. Understanding the reflexive, fear-based nature of these cravings is a necessary first step toward addressing them effectively.

(Source: WRD News)

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Published: 01 June 2026

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(The Dalgarno Institute has decades long history in not only advocating, but practicing in this space. The school social context is an intense micro-verse that until recent decades, was a place where proactive, resilience and agency building education was standard. However, other agendas have seen that best-practice model not only interrupted, but displaced with not merely benign inactivity, but best-practice contra influences. It is time to re-engage with best practice in this vital educational context)

Substance use in young people is not a new concern. But a major study published in 2026 has shed important light on where and why it happens. The findings come from over 30,000 adolescents aged 12 to 15 across the south of England. They point clearly in one direction: schools matter far more than we may have realised.

Understanding what drives adolescent substance use is essential. So is knowing what protects against it. Both are needed to build prevention approaches that reach young people before problems take hold.

What the Research Found About Adolescent Substance Use

The study appeared in the International Journal of Drug Policy. It looked at four types of substance use among secondary school pupils: vaping, smoking, alcohol consumption, and illicit drug use including cannabis.

Researchers used statistical modelling that accounted for both school and neighbourhood contexts at the same time. The results were striking. Neighbourhood membership alone explained between 3% and 6% of the variation in substance use. But when school and neighbourhood were examined together, the neighbourhood effect disappeared entirely. The school context remained significant, accounting for between 6% and 8.5% of the variance.

In short: which school a young person attends matters more than where they live.

Schools are where young people spend most of their time. They form peer relationships there. They develop their sense of self. That makes schools one of the most powerful settings for prevention work.

Peer Pressure, Parents and the Role of Relationships

Relationships sit at the heart of adolescent substance use risk. Not all of them push in the same direction.

Susceptibility to peer pressure was one of the strongest risk factors in the study. It linked to 33% to 58% higher odds of using all four substances. Young people with stronger friendships also showed slightly higher odds of substance use, around 8% to 20% higher. Close peer groups can provide greater access to substances. They can also reinforce norms where use feels normal or expected.

Strong relationships with parents and carers worked the other way. Young people who felt closer to the adults at home had 16% to 27% lower odds of using any substance. Good relationships with teaching staff showed a similar protective effect across all four substances.

Trusted adults matter. At home and at school, meaningful adult relationships are among the most effective safeguards against young people using drugs and alcohol.

School Life and Adolescent Substance Use Risk

Several aspects of school life linked directly to substance use in the study. Young people who felt happier with their academic attainment were less likely to use any substance. Those with a stronger sense of belonging at school were less likely to vape, smoke or use illicit drugs.

School pressure showed a small but notable link to alcohol consumption. When young people feel overwhelmed and lack constructive ways to manage that pressure, risk increases. Emotional support and stress management need to be part of the school environment, not an afterthought.

Young people who used school-based mental health support showed higher rates of substance use. This likely reflects the fact that those with significant emotional difficulties are more vulnerable to substance use. It points to the importance of early intervention, reaching young people before difficulties escalate.

Emotional Wellbeing as a Prevention Priority

Emotional wellbeing connects closely to substance use in young people, particularly for vaping, smoking and alcohol. Young people with more internalising symptoms, such as worry or low mood, had higher odds of using these substances. Those with lower self-esteem were more likely to vape or drink alcohol.

Young people need practical skills and trusted networks to handle difficult feelings in healthy ways. Building emotional resilience is not separate from preventing substance use. It is a core part of it.

Illicit drug use followed a different pattern. Coping-related factors mattered less. Instead, peer influence, family relationships and unstructured leisure time were the main drivers. Strong adult relationships and structured activities protect against this type of substance use in young people.

Who Faces the Highest Risk

The research identified several groups with elevated risk:

Older adolescents showed consistently higher odds across all substances. Those in Year 10 had nearly four times the odds of illicit drug use compared to those in Year 8. Early and consistent prevention education throughout secondary school is essential.

LGBTQ+ young people showed higher odds of using all four substances compared to cisgender heterosexual boys. Their odds of smoking were more than double. Prevention programmes need to reach this group effectively.

Girls were more likely than boys to vape, drink alcohol and smoke. The historical gender gap in adolescent substance use has narrowed significantly. Prevention strategies need to reflect this.

Young people eligible for free school meals were more likely to vape, smoke and use illicit drugs. Prevention work must reach young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Those with special educational needs (SEN) showed mixed patterns. Those receiving SEN support had higher odds of vaping and smoking but lower odds of alcohol consumption. Prevention approaches for this group need to address specific risks carefully.

Free Time, Local Spaces and Keeping Young People Safe

How young people spend their free time plays a real role in adolescent substance use. More perceived leisure autonomy, meaning time spent freely without adult supervision, linked to higher odds of vaping and illicit drug use. Unstructured, unsupervised time is a known risk factor.

Young people who felt there were good places to spend time locally, such as parks, leisure centres or community spaces, had lower odds of vaping, illicit drug use and alcohol consumption. Accessible activities and safe spaces help keep young people occupied and away from substances.

What This Means for Prevention of Substance Use in Young People

The findings carry clear implications for anyone working to protect young people from drugs and alcohol.

Schools are the right setting for prevention work. School-based approaches reach young people at a critical time. Universal strategies that improve school climate, strengthen belonging and build positive relationships matter for every pupil.

Targeted prevention is essential. Some groups face higher risks across multiple substances. Others face substance-specific vulnerabilities. Prevention must be tailored to reach those at greatest risk before use begins.

Relationships are prevention. A trusted teacher, a supportive parent, a positive school environment. The evidence points repeatedly to the power of adult relationships in reducing the likelihood of adolescent substance use.

Resilience and coping skills are protective. Building young people’s capacity to manage stress through healthy means reduces the conditions that make substance use more likely.

Early adolescence is a critical window. Prevention efforts that start early, focus on school environments and strengthen relationships can genuinely keep young people safe. (Source: WRD News)

Also see

• The Deep Impact of Youth Substance Use The Imperative and Urgent Need for Prevention: A Dive into Human Harms Beyond the ‘Stats’ (White Paper)
• AOD Primary Prevention & Demand Reduction Priority Primer: TASKING THE NATIONAL HEALTH STRATEGIES FOR COMMUNITY WELL-BEING
• Parenting in the Era of Pro-Pot Propaganda & Other Substance Selling Sociopathy
• Prioritizing Abstinence-Based Prevention, Regulation, and Recovery to Reduce Substance-Related Harm and Promote Mental Health at a Population-Level

 

 

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Published: 02 April 2026

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A Dalgarno Institute Position on Early Intervention, Diversion, and the Culture We Want to Build

Queensland is in the middle of a significant drug policy decision, and the public deserves a serious conversation rather than a partisan one.

The state government has proposed winding back its three-strike drug diversion program, the arrangement that gave people caught with small quantities of illicit substances several chances before facing criminal charges. Under the existing framework, first-time offenders received a warning. Second and third-time offenders were referred to a health practitioner-run program. Under the proposed changes, only first-time offenders would be diverted. After that: fines, or criminal charges.

Peak medical and nursing bodies have responded sharply. The Australian Medical Association Queensland has called the decision “dangerous and contrary to evidence.” The Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union has accused the government of acting on “unsound information and prejudice.” Civil liberties advocates have warned the changes risk turning repeat offenders into de facto drug dealers, given the likely penalties they would face.

The Police Minister, by contrast, argued that allowing people to be caught with heroin or fentanyl multiple times without meaningful consequence sends entirely the wrong message.

Both positions have merit. Neither is sufficient. And the people caught in the middle (individuals struggling with drug dependence, and the families and communities around them) deserve better than a debate that treats drug policy as a political football.

At the Dalgarno Institute, the question we keep returning to is this: is Australia’s approach to early intervention actually serious about helping people exit drug use, or are we simply managing the optics of a problem we have not yet committed to solving?

The False Choice That Keeps Failing Us

For years, Australia’s drug policy debate has been framed around a binary: criminalise people who use drugs, or decriminalise them. Lock them up or let them off. Punish or permit.

This is a false choice, and it has caused serious, lasting damage.

Crude criminalisation (charging, convicting, and moving on) does not help anyone exit drug use. It damages livelihoods, fractures families, and too often embeds people more deeply in the very environments that contributed to their drug use in the first place. Nobody serious is arguing for that approach.

But decriminalisation is not the answer either, and the pro-drug lobby’s insistence that it is deserves direct and honest challenge. Removing the legal framework around drug use does not reduce harm. It normalises use, increases uptake, and strips away one of the most powerful tools available for motivating someone not yet ready to seek help voluntarily. We have cared enough about tobacco users to maintain robust societal and structural pressure toward cessation over decades. People dependent on illicit drugs deserve at least that same level of genuine, sustained care, not permission dressed up as compassion.

The evidence is not ambiguous on this. Decades of experience in problem-solving courts, drug courts, and structured diversion programs confirms it: coercive intervention, applied with care and consistency, produces outcomes that neither criminalisation nor decriminalisation can match. The law, used not as a battering ram but as a firm hand on the shoulder, can guide people through the door of recovery. Many will not open that door on their own. The most caring thing we can do is refuse to pretend otherwise.

That is the space this country needs to occupy. The evidence is there. The will to use it properly is what has been missing.

What “Diversion” Has Become, and Why It Needs to Change

Here is what needs to be said plainly, and what the medical community’s otherwise reasonable defence of existing diversion programs has been too quiet about: in too many settings, diversion has become a procedural formality.

A person is intercepted, referred, ticked off a list, and sent on their way. A pamphlet changes hands. A box is marked. The system records a successful diversion, and the person returns to exactly the same environment, with exactly the same pressures and exactly the same unresolved reasons for using drugs in the first place.

That is not intervention. It is paperwork with better intentions.

The problem becomes even more acute in court settings, where recidivistic drug-using offenders appear before a magistrate for the third, fourth, or fifth time. Increasingly, mental health diagnoses, whether genuine or conveniently timed, function as a mechanism for avoiding any meaningful engagement with the consequences of continued drug use. We understand why courts tread carefully here, and we are not dismissing the genuine complexity. But when a mental health claim becomes a reliable exit from accountability, the system stops serving the person and starts serving the process. Structure, consistency, and appropriate expectation are not obstacles to recovery; they are conditions for it. Removing them is not compassionate. It is negligent.

Robust early intervention looks quite different from what most Australians currently encounter. Structured, supervised engagement over time replaces the single appointment. Genuine connection to therapeutic communities, peer support, and where necessary, secure welfare rehabilitation sits at the centre of any serious program. Consequences for disengagement must be proportionate, consistent, and oriented toward re-engagement with recovery rather than simple punishment. Honest, thorough assessment of what is actually driving a person’s drug use matters far more than a one-size-fits-all program that treats every case identically.

None of this requires new laws. It requires the willingness to use existing ones properly, and the courage to insist that people are capable of more than we have been expecting of them.

The Judicial Educator: Law in the Service of Recovery

Here is something Robert Downey Jnr said in 2004, after coming through one of the most public battles with addiction of his generation: “It’s not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems. What’s hard is to decide to do it.”

That single observation sits at the heart of everything the Dalgarno Institute believes about early intervention. The decision to exit drug use is the hardest part, and for many people caught in the grip of dependency, the drug-affected brain cannot reliably make that decision without external help. Psychotropic substances corrupt the very cognitive processes needed to choose differently. This is not a moral failing. It is a neurological one. And it is precisely why assisted decision-making matters so much.

The Judicial Educator model exists to provide that assistance. The idea is to use the authority of the law not to punish, but to facilitate recovery. Not to brand a person, but to redirect them toward the exit from drug use that they may not yet be able to find on their own.

Anti-drug laws were always meant to serve this purpose. They were designed as a vehicle to protect communities, families, and children from the harms that flow from normalised drug use. For too long, those laws have sat underused while families paid the price. The Judicial Educator reclaims them for their original intent: not as a hammer, but as a hand on the shoulder.

Problem-solving courts and drug courts around the world have been operating on this basis for decades, and their results are well documented. They hold participants accountable for progress through recovery programs. They maintain the coercive potential of criminal sanctions for those who genuinely disengage, but reserve that potential as a last resort, not a first response. And critically, for those who complete the diversion pathway genuinely and in full, no criminal record need be recorded at all.

This is what purposeful intervention looks like in practice: not permission, but precision. Not the removal of legal consequence, but the intelligent deployment of legal authority in the service of human recovery.

Once psychotropic substances become entrenched in a person’s behavioural patterns, whether through short-term intoxication or long-term dependency, the risk to that person and to those around them requires more than a doctor’s appointment. It requires sustained, structured engagement with recovery, alongside genuine therapeutic and community support. The Judicial Educator, working in concert with health services and therapeutic communities, is the most effective framework we have for making that happen.

The existing criminal codes do not need weakening or erasing. They need tasking, again and properly, in the most proactive framework available to us. One voice, one message, one focus: helping people find their way out.

Prevention Belongs to Everyone, Including Police

Effective early intervention does not begin in a courtroom. It begins in the environments where drug use takes hold: on campuses, at events, in communities, and in the ordinary situations that no formal program ever reaches.

Campus police and community law enforcement officers occupy a position that is genuinely unique. They are present where drug use begins. They see what precedes harm. They observe patterns of behaviour that no clinician or educator ever sees, because those patterns play out on the street and in the moments between formal interventions. That proximity is not just an enforcement resource. It is a prevention resource, and one that Australian drug policy has consistently underused.

Research in prevention practice is clear: frontline officers create what practitioners call teachable moments, situations where a young person is far more open to a genuine conversation about risk than they would be in a classroom or a clinic. Students who binge drink are 3.5 times more likely to experience violence than those who do not. Nearly one in five students report feeling unsafe because of another student’s drinking. Officers see this up close, every week. That is not incidental. It is strategic intelligence.

Effective prevention requires that law enforcement be embedded in prevention planning from the outset, not called in after failure. It requires data-sharing between police and community health teams, consistent messaging across institutions, and officers who understand not just the law but the neuroscience of addiction and the principles of early intervention. When enforcement and prevention work in alignment, outcomes are measurably better, not because police become social workers, but because they become informed partners in a shared effort toward the same goal.

Prevention is not soft. It is one of the most strategic investments a community can make. And it belongs to all of us, including the officers who are already standing in the right place at the right time.

The Culture We Are Actually Trying to Build

All of this (the courts, the diversion programs, the campus officers, the therapeutic communities) is in service of something larger than policy. It is in service of culture change.

Drug use is not primarily a legal problem. It is a cultural one. And culture does not change through legislation alone. It changes when families, communities, schools, workplaces, sporting clubs, and individuals begin to speak with one voice, not a shaming voice, not a criminalising voice, but an honest and caring one that says: we know this causes harm, we know people can and do recover, and we are not going to look the other way to make anyone feel more comfortable.

The most instructive parallel remains tobacco. A generation ago, smoking was normal. Today it is not. That shift did not happen because of a single law or a single campaign. It happened because the whole of society, gradually and consistently, stopped accommodating tobacco use as a lifestyle choice and started addressing it honestly as a harm. Legal frameworks, health education, social norms, and economic signals moved in the same direction over decades. Nobody called that cruel. We called it care.

We can do the same with illicit drugs. It requires us to stop arguing about whether to punish or excuse, and to start building something better: early intervention programs that are robust, not tokenistic; legal frameworks that are purposeful, not brutal; communities that are honest, not permissive; and a shared commitment to holding people to the possibility of a better future, and meaning it.

The people most at risk are not statistics. They are sons and daughters, students and workers, neighbours and friends. A tick in a box is not enough. What they deserve is engaged, accountable, and genuinely caring support from every part of the community, from the courts and the clinics to the campus officers and the families who refuse to give up.

That is the culture worth building. And it starts with being honest about what we are willing to do to get there.

Research Team – Dalgarno Institute

The Dalgarno Institute is Australia’s leading drug prevention and education advocacy organisation. For resources, training, and policy submissions, visit dalgarnoinstitute.org.au

(Source: WRD News)

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Published: 01 April 2026

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A landmark study published in JAMA Network Open reveals a deeply troubling link between parental death and child mortality. Children who lose a parent to drug overdose, homicide, or suicide face a sharply elevated risk of dying before they reach adulthood. The findings raise urgent questions about bereavement support across the United States.

Professor Sean Esteban McCabe at the University of Michigan School of Nursing led the research. His team mapped the relationship between parental death and child mortality at a statewide level using 14 years of linked birth and death records from Michigan, spanning 1992 to 2023. The study tracked more than 32,000 children who lost a biological parent to one of three preventable causes.

The findings are stark. Children bereaved by a parent’s homicide recorded the highest childhood mortality rate, at roughly 106 deaths per 10,000. That compares with just 5.22 per 10,000 among the general Michigan child population. Children who lost a parent to suicide faced a rate of more than 66 per 10,000. Those bereaved by parental drug overdose recorded nearly 37 deaths per 10,000. Together, these figures account for approximately 150 excess childhood deaths over the study period.

The scale of disparity is difficult to overstate. Children bereaved by homicide face a mortality rate 2,000% higher than the average Michigan child. Those who lost a parent to suicide face a rate 1,200% higher. Parental drug overdose carries a 700% higher mortality risk. Parental death and child mortality, the study confirms, connect far more deeply than anyone previously measured.

Parental Death and Child Mortality: A Crisis Hidden in Plain Sight

US parental mortality has reached historic highs. The ongoing drug overdose crisis drives much of this rise. Michigan already records higher parental mortality rates than the national average. Tens of thousands of children across the state now carry the consequences of addiction, violence, and suicide in their own bodies.

McCabe also directs the University of Michigan’s Centre for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health. He brings a personal dimension to the work.

“I have had several close friends and loved ones die due to overdose, suicide, and homicide, leaving behind many children,” he said. He volunteers as a children’s bereavement group facilitator at a non-profit in South-East Michigan. He has watched how isolated grieving children become.

“Bereaved children often experience friends at school who have no clue what to say when they talk about their parent who died,” he noted. “Friends often change the subject, so grieving children don’t want to discuss their deceased parent.”

Why Bereaved Children Mortality Risk Stays So High

The study stops short of establishing direct causation. Researchers acknowledge the complexity involved. Losing a biological parent reduces what the team calls a child’s “level of protection against harm.” Family disruption, declining mental health, financial pressure, and social isolation all likely push bereaved children mortality risk higher.

Parental homicide produced the highest child mortality rates of the three causes. Researchers now want to examine why, looking at factors such as family restructuring and the psychological impact of violent loss.

The study has limitations. It covers only biological parents and may undercount paternal deaths. The true scale of the problem is likely larger. The 2023 data were also provisional at the time of publication.

The Case for Urgent Action

Preventing parental deaths from overdoses, suicides, and homicides would directly lower mortality among children. The link between parental death and child mortality is not merely a statistic. It is a policy challenge that demands a response.

McCabe has been clear about what must change.

“There are early preventive interventions and childhood bereavement services that have been shown to improve children’s health following the death of a parent that need to be made more widely available,” he said, “so no Michigan child grieves alone.”

He wants a statewide bereavement collaborative, the removal of what he calls “bereavement service deserts,” and swift action on shortages in mental health, addiction medicine, and psychiatric care.

“A child’s zip code should not dictate whether they receive evidence-based bereavement services and treatment,” he said.

The research team urges other researchers to replicate the study across different states. Doing so would help identify at-risk children, expose racial and ethnic disparities, and show where bereavement support is most lacking.

What the Numbers Show

The study’s data make the scale of the problem concrete:

• Over the 14-year study period, 21,368 children lost a parent to drug overdose or drug-related causes. 79 of those children subsequently died.
• 6,651 children lost a parent to suicide. 44 of those children died.
• 4,243 children lost a parent to homicide. 45 of those children died before reaching adulthood.

Each group-specific mortality rate stands significantly above Michigan’s overall child rate of 5.22 per 10,000. The connection between parental death and child mortality is not coincidental.

The study appeared on 23 March 2026 in JAMA Network Open. The National Institutes of Health and the US Food and Drug Administration funded the research. (Source: WRD News)