DOING DRUGS WITH
PAUL DILLON

Last week I was approached by a parent after he'd heard me present and when he was sure that nobody was within earshot he gently dug me in the ribs and said "C'mon, everybody does it ... it's just that not everyone admits to it ..." I wasn't absolutely sure what he was talking about at the start but it became obvious as the conversation went on that he was referring to illicit drug use. His line was that there wasn't anybody who hadn't dabbled at least a couple of times, whether it was a puff on a joint when they were in uni, or a line of coke at a party once - it was just that although everyone had done it at some point, it was only a brave few that talked about their past use openly. He had come forward because of some of the data I had presented earlier that evening - i.e., the 2010 National Drug Household Survey results that clearly show that the majority of Australians have never used any illicit drug. It was quit...

Eight teenagers are sitting on the floor, each with a marker and a shot glass in front of them. A shot of beer is slammed back by each of them and another mark is drawn onto their arm. Another one has to be poured and drank before another minute goes past. They are playing the Century drinking game (or Centurions as it is also known) and the whole idea is to drink 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes without vomiting! This is scary enough with beer (at least that is fairly self-limiting - you drink, you bloat and you throw-up!) but this week I heard of a group of teens who were playing this game with spirits! Attempting to consume 100 shots of a drink like vodka in one session, no matter what time period is extremely dangerous, but in 100 minutes, it's absolutely terrifying! Drinking games have most probably been around for as long as alcohol. There are so many of them (Wikipedia lists 75!) that one website actually has categorised them into five distinct groups - standard, ...