The Latest News from Our Field

Teenagers in treatment for substance abuse can benefit from 12-step programs, a new study suggests.

Many were stunned by a recent report that students in one community had been depicted on YouTube drinking and taking other drugs. It’s not entirely clear what people were most shocked by – the realization that kids abuse drugs and alcohol, or that videos glorifying the use of drugs and alcohol appear on the Internet, says David Festinger, PhD at the Treatment Research Institute.

The Obama Administration’s 2012 Drug Control Strategy, released Tuesday, advocates diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment.

Nominations are now being accepted for the 2012 Ramstad-Kennedy Annual Award for Outstanding Leadership by a Single State Authority. The deadline is June 1.

Poisoning deaths among teenagers rose 91 percent between 2000 and 2009, primarily due to prescription drug abuse, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Teenagers who play a risky activity called the “choking game” to get high are more likely to engage in other kinds of high-risk behavior, such as drug abuse and sex, than their peers who do not play the game, a new study suggests.

A new survey finds U.S. teens think drinking and driving is riskier than texting and driving, despite research that indicates they can be equally dangerous.

President Obama this weekend said “legalization is not the answer” to stemming the tide of illegal drugs. He spoke Saturday at a summit meeting of Western Hemisphere nations in Cartagena, Colombia.

Medical experts are expressing concern over athletes’ use of the injectable painkiller Toradol. They say little is known about the drug’s potential long-term side effects, according to The New York Times.

People who abuse substances are more likely to be stigmatized than those who smoke or are obese, a new study suggests.

Prescription drug monitoring programs and laws to ban synthetic drugs are hot topics in state legislatures around the country, according to the CEO of the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws (NAMSDL).

Scientists are working to make prescription painkillers and other commonly misused drugs “unabusable” by reformulating them, according to Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Manipulating memories of people formerly addicted to drugs may help them avoid relapse, a new study suggests.

Drug Enforcement Administration officials say criminal scam artists are selling prescription drugs online, then using customers’ personal information to blackmail them.

The alcohol industry has contributed thousands of dollars to the campaigns of Nebraska legislators on a committee in which a bill that would curb alcohol purchases to residents on a dry Indian reservation has stalled, The New York Times reports.

Researchers are using smart phones and hand-held computers to figure out why some people quit smoking the first time they try, while others are unsuccessful even after many attempts.

Exercise may make it more difficult to break an addiction in some cases, a study of cocaine-addicted mice suggests.

A Florida appeals court overturned a $79.2 million verdict against R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. this week. The personal injury verdict had been awarded to the daughter of a man who died from lung cancer after years of smoking.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said this week that it is unlikely the state legislature will take up the issue of medical marijuana this year. He added the risks of legalizing marijuana for pain relief require more study.

Offering low-dose CT scans to longtime smokers to screen them for lung cancer would reduce the death toll of the disease by an estimated 15,000 lives a year in the United States, a new study concludes.

All states must link their prescription drug monitoring programs in order to successfully fight “pill mills” and painkiller abuse, Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear said this week at the National Rx Drug Abuse Summit in Orlando.

The Food and Drug Administration asked a federal appeals court this week to undo a lower court ruling that said graphic cigarette warning labels are unconstitutional.

Legislative leaders in New York, along with the offices of Governor Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, are negotiating measures designed to curb “doctor shopping” for prescription painkillers.

I am grateful you are part of the Join Together community as we celebrate our first anniversary.

For 25 years, April has been recognized as Alcohol Awareness Month. So how does this campaign continue to be of value after all of these years?