We curate a digest of the latest news in our field for advocates, policymakers, community coalitions and all who work toward shaping policies and practices to effectively prevent substance use and treat addiction.
The town of Needham, Massachusetts has found raising the tobacco sales age to 21 has significantly reduced the teen smoking rate, according to The New York Times.
Two weeks after the Police Chief of Gloucester, Massachusetts launched a program to provide treatment for people who come to the police station with illegal drugs and paraphernalia, instead of arresting them, 17 people have accepted the offer.
Many marijuana growers in states that have legalized recreational or medical marijuana use pesticides, without any federal regulations, according to NPR.
Top headlines of the week from Friday, June 12- Thursday, June 18, 2015.
A new smartphone app being tested by pain specialists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has the potential to help reduce opioid use in chronic pain sufferers, according to an expert who spoke recently at the International Conference on Opioids.
Marijuana “dabbing,” a potentially dangerous way of using the drug, is increasingly popular, a new study finds.
Methamphetamine seizures by border officers in Arizona have spiked as production of the drug increases in Mexico, the Associated Press reports. Officers seized more than 3,240 pounds of meth between October and May, compared with 3,200 pounds for the entire last fiscal year.
Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are easing their resistance to needle exchange programs in the wake of increasing heroin use in many of their home states, according to The New York Times.
Wider adoption of electronic prescribing systems among healthcare providers could help reduce prescription drug abuse, according to experts speaking at a recent conference.
The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Monday that employees in the state can be fired for using marijuana off the job. The case involved a paralyzed customer service worker who uses medical marijuana to help treat painful spasms resulting from a car accident, The New York Times reports.
Calls to poison centers about synthetic marijuana shot up 330 percent from January to April of this year, according to a new government report. Synthetic marijuana, sold under names including Spice and K2, remain on the market despite repeated attempts to ban them, HealthDay reports.
A new study finds about half of U.S. adult deaths from 12 cancers, including lung, colon and pancreatic cancer, are caused by smoking.
Sixty percent of adults say they want a complete ban on powdered alcohol in their state, while 84 percent want a ban on online sales of the product, according to a new national poll.
The rate of underage drinking dropped 6.1 percent from 2002 to 2013, according to a new government report. Binge drinking among U.S. residents ages 12 through 20 also declined, by 5.1 percent, USA Today reports.
Government officials and researchers are gathering in Washington state this week to discuss the impact of marijuana legalization, the Associated Press reports.
The new synthetic drug known as flakka is outpacing cocaine in popularity in south Florida, officials there say. Flakka is cheaper and easier to obtain than cocaine, according to Reuters.
The small industrial city of Marion, Ohio is reeling from a recent surge in heroin overdoses. The Associated Press reports more than 30 people were sent to the hospital, and two people died, after taking blue-tinted heroin from Chicago in a 12-day stretch.
Top headlines of the week from Friday, June 5- Thursday, June 11, 2015.
We must take a comprehensive approach and start from the bottom up. That is the focus of a bill I introduced, called the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act of 2015.
A new online poll finds about 10 percent of U.S. adults use e-cigarettes, significantly higher than a recent government estimate of 2.6 percent.
A driver alcohol detection system that would be installed in cars could be ready for production in five years, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced.
At least 175,000 doses of prescription drugs were stolen from 27 pharmacies and two methadone clinics during the Baltimore riots in April, according to Police Commissioner Anthony Batts. He said the stolen drugs have led to turf wars and violence over their illegal resale.
Methamphetamine is growing in popularity among gay and bisexual black and Hispanic men in New York, according to The New York Times.
An increasing number of children under age 6 are being exposed to marijuana, according to a new study. Three-quarters of cases involve children who ingest the drug in the form of brownies, cookies and other foods containing marijuana.
Abuse-deterrent formulations of opioid painkillers are making it more difficult for people to misuse the medications, but have not eliminated the problem of opioid abuse, experts tell The New York Times.
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