The Latest News from Our Field

The Los Angeles City Council has voted to repeal a new ban on medical marijuana shops. The vote leaves the city without any regulation of its estimated 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Marijuana is one of the most hotly debated drugs of our time, according to Kevin Sabet, PhD, Policy Consultant and Assistant Professor, University of Florida. He says that while sifting through the rhetoric about the drug can be difficult, it is important to know what the research has established. There is now a plethora of scientific studies about the use of the drug and its public health implications.

Substance use disorders are common five years after juveniles are released from detention, a new study finds. Males are two to three times more likely to use alcohol and drugs compared with females, HealthDay reports.

Moderate drinking may increase the risk of the heart rhythm disorder called atrial fibrillation in older people with heart disease or diabetes, a new study suggests.

Many California inmates imprisoned under the state’s “three strikes” laws are much more likely than the general prison population to be addicted to drugs and alcohol, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

For more than one-third of Texas’ Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who died after leaving the military, the cause was a drug overdose, a deadly combination of drugs, or suicide, according to an investigation by the Austin American-Statesman.

The Food and Drug Administration is launching a new campaign to warn consumers to avoid buying medicine from fraudulent online pharmacies. The National Association of Boards of Pharmacy estimates that less than 3 percent of online pharmacies meet state and federal laws.

A growing number of Amtrak employees have been testing positive for drugs and alcohol, increasing the risk of a serious railroad accident, according to a new report.

Africans-American youth are exposed to higher levels of alcohol advertising than children and teens of other racial groups, according to a new study.

Patients in Kentucky with long-term medical conditions that require controlled substances must submit to urine drug tests under a new state law designed to combat prescription drug abuse. Those tests are not always covered by insurance companies, the Associated Press reports.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has described the country’s sharp rise in overdoses over the last decade from prescription painkillers, or opioids, as an epidemic. But it can be easy to lose sight of what “epidemic” truly means.

A national campaign launched this week aims to prevent half a million teenagers from abusing medicine within five years. CBS NewYork reports The Medicine Abuse Project is a multi-year effort to help educate parents, teens and the public about the dangers of medicine abuse.

Treating alcoholism saves families money, largely by cutting down on expenses related to alcohol and cigarettes, a new study finds.

The number of smoking scenes in movies rated G, PG and PG-13 increased by more than one-third from 2010 to 2011, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A Massachusetts chemist accused of mishandling drug test results has admitted wrongdoing, The Boston Globe reports. Annie Dookhan says she changed test results, did not perform proper testing, and forged colleagues’ initials for two to three years.

As a growing number of states enact restrictions designed to clamp down on prescription drug abuse, some pain sufferers say they are not able to get the opioids they need, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A new government report finds that Medicare routinely refills pain medications without new prescriptions that are required by federal law.

The Supreme Court announced it will hear a case that centers on the question of whether police must obtain a warrant before forcing suspected drunk drivers to submit to a blood alcohol test.

Officials at the University of Tennessee are investigating claims that fraternity members took alcohol enemas, leading to the hospitalization of one student with alcohol poisoning.

Laws that ban smoking in bars and restaurants may reduce alcohol abuse, a new study suggests. Researchers found people identified as problem drinkers who live in states with smoking bans have a higher rate of remission, compared with problem drinkers who live in states without laws that ban public smoking.

Critics of ballot initiatives to legalize recreational marijuana in Oregon, California and Colorado are focusing on mothers, according to Reuters.

A top official of the World Health Organization called doping in sports a public health issue. Speaking at an international anti-doping conference, Dr. Timothy Armstrong said the use of performance-enhancing drugs is not just a sporting problem.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys in Massachusetts are faced with reevaluating more than 34,000 drug cases that were handled by a chemist who is accused of misconduct, the Associated Press reports.

Simply by initiating a pre-surgical checklist comprised of the agreed-upon procedural steps, even very experienced surgical teams showed remarkable reductions in errors, untoward events, complications and deaths, says Thomas McLellan, PhD, CEO of the Treatment Research Institute.

Doctors and nurses should routinely screen their adult patients and pregnant women for alcohol misuse, and provide those engaged in risky or hazardous drinking with brief behavioral counseling, according to new recommendations from a national task force.