Blog
How Many of Young UK Adults Don't Drink Alcohol
Young people aged 16-24 are less likely to drink alcohol than any other age group, according to the figures released by the Office for National Statistics last week. Less than half of young people aged 16-24 drank alcohol in the week previous to the survey, and 27% stated that they do not drink... Read More
Leading charity calls for Spice to become a Class A drug
Leading charity, Addiction Helper, has called on the government to reclassify Spice as a Class A drug. The charity’s helpline has received a 25% increase in calls about Spice since the introduction of the Government ban in May 2016. Head of Addiction Helper, Daniel Gerrard, has said that the... Read More
How Drug Testing Works
The misuse of both legal and illegal drugs can cause varying risks to your health and the welfare and safety of others around you. Drug testing is used to detect the presence of drugs in a person’s sample, such as their hair, and can show a history of drug use over a period of time covering up to... Read More
How to Prove Alcohol Abstinence
Testing a person’s hair, blood, or fingernails for drug and alcohol consumption has been a common way to accurately establish substance abuse. The results are able to be used in life changing scenarios, such as child custody cases, workplace screening, or reissuing a person’s driving license.... Read More
Effects of Legal Highs Can Be Reported with Pilot Scheme
Are New Psychoactive Substances dangerous? New Psychoactive Substances (NPS), previously known as ‘legal highs’ can pose serious risks to the health of the user. They are easily accessible and often do not hold the same perceived threat to health as other drugs, however, the effects can be far... Read More
Paternity Testing – What are your options?
What is a paternity test? A paternity test is an accurate method to establish the biological father of a child. The procedure involves collecting a DNA sample from the child and the alleged father, in some cases a sample from the biological mother is also collected. A standard paternity test... Read More
Alcohol and the Risk of Cancer
According to Cancer Research UK alcohol increases the risk of 7 types of cancer, including breast, mouth, and bowel cancers. Not everyone who drinks alcohol will get cancer, however, research has shown that certain types of cancer are more commonly found in people who drink more alcohol than others... Read More
25K Calls Reporting Drug & Alcohol Abuse Around Children
The NSPCC released figures on Monday, 11th February that show the extent of children’s exposure to alcohol and drug abuse in the UK. The figures show that there have been over 25,000 calls made to their helpline reporting drug and alcohol abuse near children over the past 3 years. On average,... Read More
Indirect Markers of Alcohol Consumption: LFT, CDT, and MCV
The majority of blood alcohol testing conducted is based on indirect markers, and these tests look at how the body and its organs are functioning. They check to see if they are functioning within normal ranges or outside the normal range. The indirect markers that are used for testing are often... Read More
What are New Psychoactive Substances and ‘legal highs’?
New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) contain substances that produce similar effects to drugs like cocaine, cannabis, and ecstasy. They are commonly referred to as ‘legal highs’, which gives a false impression about how dangerous they can be. Since the introduction of the Psychoactive Substances... Read More
Dry January: Tips on how to avoid alcohol and the benefits
What is Dry January? Dry January is a campaign by Alcohol Concern that challenges people to give up drinking alcohol throughout January. The campaign has grown in popularity since it first began in 2012, and was given a boost in 2015 when Public Health England got involved. Alcohol Concern say... Read More
The Rise of Spice in UK Prisons
Over the past 5 years the use of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS), also known as ‘legal highs’, has become a growing problem in UK prisons. Research has found that the synthetic cannabinoid ‘Spice’ was seized 737 times in prisons in 2014, a significant jump from just 15 in 2010. The growth in... Read More