The Latest News from Our Field

Prescription drug overdoses are the number one reason for emergency room visits in Los Angeles County, according to public health officials.

Bars and restaurants in Washington, D.C. will be able to serve liquor until 4 a.m., and can stay open 24 hours continuously until the day after the presidential inauguration, NBC Washington reports.

The New York Police Department has announced it will put decoy pill bottles with tracking devices on pharmacy shelves, in an effort to track stolen painkillers.

Doctors miss drinking problems in almost three-fourths of patients because they don’t conduct alcohol screening, a new study finds. Instead, many doctors rely on gut feelings about whether a patient is engaging in problem drinking.

States use little of the income they receive from tobacco taxes or legal settlements with cigarette manufacturers to pay for smoking prevention or cessation programs, the American Lung Association concludes in a new report.

Some young adults under age 21 are not happy with new laws in Colorado and Washington that allow the recreational use of marijuana only for those who are at least 21 years old, according to U.S. News.

Using the designer drugs known as “bath salts” is like playing Russian roulette with your brain, according to Michael H. Baumann, PhD, Chief of the Designer Drug Research Unit at NIDA’s Intramural Research Program.

Champion cyclist Lance Armstrong has admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs during his career, and apologized for doing so during an interview with Oprah Winfrey, the Associated Press reports.

Graphic cigarette warning labels that show the health consequences of smoking can influence a wide range of racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups, a new study concludes.

A greater percentage of homeless adults die from drug overdoses than from AIDS, according to a new study. Drug overdoses accounted for nearly 17 percent of all deaths among homeless patients studied, and 81 percent of the overdoses involved opioid painkillers and heroin.

A new study calls into question the results of a study published last year that concluded heavy marijuana use can permanently lower IQ by several points in teens. The new research suggests that the IQ drop may have been caused by factors related to economic class and home life, NBC News reports.

With the patent for the original version of OxyContin set to expire in April, experts in Kentucky and around the country are concerned that cheaper generic versions of the drug will become available, which will be easier to abuse.

The American Cancer Society is recommending that older people with a significant smoking history should consider getting a low-dose CT scan to screen for lung cancer.

A case involving the Justice Department indictment of a California medical marijuana entrepreneur highlights the dispute between federal and state authorities over the drug, according to The New York Times.

A graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented ice cubes that can warn drinkers when they’ve consumed too much alcohol, ABC News reports.

People in prisons and jails are four times more likely to have a substance use disorder than the general public, yet services for this population are sorely lacking, according to experts at George Mason University.

Health officials in Tennessee are reporting cases of a rare blood-clotting disorder in people who injected the painkiller Opana ER (extended release), after crushing the pills.

New York City public hospitals will restrict prescriptions of some powerful painkillers in their emergency rooms, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Thursday. The new policy is designed to cut down on prescription drug abuse.

More than three-quarters of middle school and high school students surveyed in North Carolina say smoking should not be allowed at home, indoors at work, or in cars, HealthDay reports. The tobacco-growing state has one of the nation’s lowest cigarette taxes, and only recently banned smoking in most restaurants, bars and hotels.

Major League Baseball and its players union announced they have reached an agreement to conduct in-season blood testing of players for human growth hormone. Players also will be tested for synthetic testosterone, which is increasingly popular because it washes out of the body fairly quickly after being used.

The Food and Drug Administration will soon consider whether prescription painkillers containing hydrocodone should be more tightly regulated, as the Drug Enforcement Administration has urged, USA Today reports.

Sending substance-abusing state prisoners to community-based treatment programs instead of prisons could reduce crime and save billions of dollars, a new study concludes.

A group opposing marijuana legalization, called Project SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), is launching Thursday, according to the Associated Press. Former U.S. Representative Patrick Kennedy, who has struggled with alcohol and drug addiction, chairs the organization.

Teens who live in a caring community may be less likely to abuse alcohol than their peers who report fewer positive experiences in their community, a new study suggests. Spending time with antisocial peers can increase the risk of alcohol abuse, researchers from Penn State report.

One in five high school girls binge drink, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The report finds almost 14 million women in the United States binge drink about three times a month.