The Latest News from Our Field

More than a decade of research by CASA Columbia has found that the more often kids eat dinner with their families, the less likely they are to smoke, drink or use drugs, explains Kathleen Ferrigno, Director of Marketing.

Baylor Health Care System in Dallas announced this week it will no longer hire people who use nicotine, starting in 2012. Current employees who smoke will not be fired, but they will have to pay an extra surcharge for health insurance.

Living alone substantially increases a person’s risk of dying from alcohol-related causes, a new study from Finland has found.

Tobacco manufacturer R.J. Reynolds refused a request this week from the Colorado Board of Health to stop using the state as a test market for new dissolvable tobacco products.

Massachusetts legislators are considering abolishing mandatory minimum sentences for some non-violent drug offenders, the Associated Press reports. The move would be part of a plan to reduce overcrowding in prisons and relieve budget pressures.

A coalition of health-care related organizations and companies issued a challenge this week for employers worldwide to ban smoking. The Global Smoke-Free Worksite Challenge was announced at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative in New York.

Tobacco manufacturers this week asked a federal judge to impose a temporary injunction to block the Food and Drug Administration’s requirement that cigarette packs carry graphic images of the consequences of smoking, including diseased lungs and rotting teeth.

Teenagers are more likely to start drinking alcohol when they have large networks of friends, a new study suggests.

Smokers have a more difficult time remembering everyday tasks than people who have quit smoking or those who have never smoked, a new study suggests.

Government researchers report a dramatic jump in the number of hospitalizations for overdoses caused by drugs and alcohol among 18- to 24-year-olds.

New guidelines set to go into effect next week restrict access to alcohol companies’ official brand pages on Facebook and other networking sites, to adults of legal drinking age.

Representatives from countries around the world pledged to tackle preventable causes of disease including smoking and excessive drinking, at the United Nations Meeting on Non-communicable Diseases this week in New York.

A new “911 Good Samaritan Law” took effect in New York State on September 18. The law encourages people to call 911 if they experience or see a drug or alcohol overdose, without fear of being charged with possessing small amounts of drugs.

Dr. LaKeesha N. Woods, Senior Associate, Community Science, shares how a new prevention program educates parents and other caregivers to be better able to communicate with their teens on drug and alcohol issues.

Doctors in Arizona say they are concerned there will be a spike in sales of “bath salts” this month, as stores try to unload the synthetic drugs at cut-rate prices before a Drug Enforcement Administration ban takes effect next month.

A needle exchange program in Fresno, California, is continuing to run after county supervisors decided not to legalize the operation.

A Florida state senator has filed legislation that would repeal a new state law requiring welfare applicants to pass a drug test.

Researchers in California, using a mouse model, have found three new formulations that could be used in a vaccine to treat addiction to methamphetamine.

Deaths caused by drugs have topped traffic-related deaths, an analysis by the Los Angeles Times concludes.

“Bath salts” are exploding in popularity around the country, and alarming health and law enforcement officials, the Star Tribune reports.

Adding exercise to a smoking cessation program can help teenage boys quit smoking, a new study suggests.

Taxes on tobacco and alcohol, as well as smoke-free laws, are among the recommendations made by the World Health Organization this week to reduce deaths from noninfectious diseases.

With great unmet demand for substance abuse treatment, addiction experts are looking for ways to expand treatment options. Dr. McCance-Katz, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco and former president of the AAAP, discusses the need to increase the number of patients treated with Suboxone and ways to increase use of the drug as treatment.

Researchers are studying whether the opioid antagonist naltrexone can help parolees recently released from prison who have a history of opiate addiction and relapse. Initial data indicates these parolees are less likely to be reincarcerated and to relapse.

A growing number of children in the United States are being accidentally poisoned when they swallow prescription drugs, a new study finds.