The Latest News from Our Field

The Drug Enforcement Administration announced Wednesday it conducted a major crackdown on synthetic drugs that involved the arrest of at least 150 people in 29 states, and the seizure of more than $20 million in products and cash.

Doctors in Philadelphia say a 10-month-old infant who was rushed to the emergency room after swallowing e-cigarette refill liquid is one of a growing number of children who have been harmed by the fluid.

The Defense Department will target alcohol consumption as part of its campaign to reduce sexual assault in the military, Stars and Stripes reports.

Many professional golfers use smokeless tobacco, but few want to admit it, according to The New York Times.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, May 2- Thursday, May 8, 2014.

As we have learned from other previously stigmatized diseases, the role of advocacy in driving change is critical. By outlining the current state of our adolescent substance abuse treatment system, we can lay the framework for what needs to be done, and how we can come together as a community to address this growing crisis, says Kathleen Meyers of the Treatment Research Institute.

The privacy of information contained in prescription drug monitoring databases is being tightened, The Wall Street Journal reports. Privacy advocates hail the trend, while law enforcement officials say it is hampering their attempts to curb prescription drug abuse.

A new government report finds 10 percent of 16- and 17-year-olds had a major depressive episode in the past year. Almost 20 percent of young adults, ages 18 to 25, had any mental illness in the past year.

Government researchers will have access to an increased supply of marijuana for medical research, the Drug Enforcement Administration has announced.

Only 41 percent of college students say misusing prescription stimulants for academic purposes should be considered cheating, according to a survey at an unnamed Ivy League institution.

U.S. Senator Charles Schumer of New York is asking the Food and Drug Administration to prevent federal approval of the powdered alcohol product called Palcohol. He said it could become “the Kool-Aid of teen binge drinking.”

Dentists can be an important tool in the fight against methamphetamine addiction, according to an official at Tufts School of Dental Medicine in Massachusetts. Jennifer Towers, the school’s director of research affairs, has designed a campaign to alert dentists to the signs of “meth mouth.”

A new study suggests a type of e-cigarette called a "tank system" can produce some carcinogens also found in regular cigarettes, and at similar levels.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2014 Ramstad-Kennedy Annual Award for Outstanding Leadership by a Single State Authority. The deadline is this Friday, May 9.

Legislators in Minnesota and Vermont have introduced measures that would ban powdered alcohol, The Washington Post reports.

There has been a spike in illegal shipments of marijuana from Colorado to surrounding areas since the state legalized the drug, according to the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Six months after the FBI shut down the website Silk Road, which sold illegal drugs, the site has reopened and sales have bounced back, CNET reports.

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford announced Wednesday he will temporarily be leaving office, citing his problem with alcohol, The New York Times reports. Last November, Ford admitted to using crack cocaine.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, April 25- Thursday, May 1, 2014.

The Food and Drug Administration’s decision to approve Zohydro ER (extended release), a pure form of the painkiller hydrocodone, has stirred opposition from many addiction medicine experts, public health officials and legislators. Join Together spoke with Dr. Richard Blondell, Vice Chair for Addiction Medicine in the State University of New York at Buffalo Department of Family Medicine, about the issue.

While most colleges focus their substance use prevention and treatment programs on alcohol, marijuana and prescription drugs, heroin use is a serious but little-discussed problem, Inside Higher Ed reports.

Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), urged lawmakers this week to resist legalizing marijuana. At a House subpanel hearing, she said marijuana can act as a gateway drug.

E-cigarettes are as dangerous as regular cigarettes, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Tom Frieden told The Los Angeles Times. He is concerned the devices will hook a new generation of young people on smoking.

The U.S. Navy has announced a new campaign aimed at reducing prescription drug abuse among sailors, according to the Navy Times.

Health care providers must expand their use of medications to treat opioid addiction, in order to reduce overdose deaths, according to government health officials. Misperceptions have resulted in limited access to the medications, they argue in The New England Journal of Medicine.