The Latest News from Our Field

An arbitration panel has ruled that Major League Baseball can ban New York Yankees player Alex Rodriguez for the entire 2014 season, Bloomberg reports. Rodriguez was suspended for violating the league’s antidoping rules.

Top headlines of the week from Friday, January 3- Thursday, January 9, 2014.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Wednesday he will allow some patients with serious illnesses to have access to medical marijuana.

Smokers who try to quit using the drugs varenicline (Chantix) and bupropion (Wellbutrin) together are more successful in the short term than those who use Chantix alone, a new study finds.

Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin on Wednesday said the state is suffering from a “full-blown heroin crisis,” The New York Times reports. In his State of the State Message, Governor Shumlin said he wants officials to respond to addiction as a chronic disease.

Ohio is launching a new initiative to encourage parents to speak with their children about the dangers of drug abuse. The increased use of prescription painkillers and heroin has led to a surge in drug overdoses in the state, the Associated Press reports.

Helping patients with substance use disorders manage their other health problems can assist them in their recovery, says Sharone Abramowitz, MD, co-chair of the recent California Society of Addiction Medicine conference. She notes addiction medicine professionals often ignore patients’ other chronic health conditions.

Only one in six American adults say their doctor or other health professional has ever asked them about their alcohol use, according to a new survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Eight million Americans have been saved from dying prematurely of smoking-related causes in the 50 years since the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health was issued 50 years ago, according to a new report.

People with severe mental illness have significantly higher rates of drinking, drug use and smoking, compared with the general population, a new study finds.

Brain scientists are debating whether marijuana could be a useful treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, NPR reports.

Addiction treatment centers in Colorado are bracing for an increase in teens referred for marijuana use, ABC News reports. The state began legal sales of recreational marijuana for adults last week.

Legal sales of recreational marijuana began in Colorado on Wednesday. Hundreds of state residents, as well as tourists from around the country, lined up before dawn to purchase state-regulated marijuana, The New York Times reports.

Researchers are making progress in the search for medicines to treat addiction, according to The Wall Street Journal. They are learning more about how heavy drug and alcohol use affects the brain.

Medicaid patients in southern and Midwestern states are less likely than those in other parts of the country to have access to outpatient addiction treatment, according to a new study.

Macklemore, a 30-year-old male artist with a history of drug and alcohol use, doesn’t brag about getting drunk or high; rather warns young people about the realities behind addiction, and urges his listeners to learn from his mistakes.

President Obama on Thursday commuted the sentences of eight federal inmates who had been convicted of crack cocaine offenses, The New York Times reports. Six of the inmates were sentenced to life in prison.

Fatal car crashes are more likely to be caused by alcohol on New Year’s Eve, compared with Christmas, according to the National Safety Council.

Kentucky lawmakers will soon consider a bill that would make the opioid overdose antidote drug naloxone more available, while stiffening penalties for high-level drug dealers. The bill also would expand anti-drug education, the Courier-Journal reports.

The New York City Council on Thursday voted to include e-cigarettes in the city’s public smoking ban, NPR reports.

New York, Los Angeles and Chicago are considering adding e-cigarettes to their public smoking bans. Public health officials in those cities say the devices are harmful and can be a gateway to smoking regular cigarettes, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Totally banning smoking in the home can help smokers quit, a new study finds. Banning smoking in parts of the house is not as effective.

A bill proposed by an Ohio legislator would require hospitals to report the number of opioid-dependent babies born each year, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

The Chinese government announced a major crackdown on makers of fake drugs, Businessweek reports. More than nine tons of raw materials used in counterfeit pharmaceuticals were seized, including some psychedelic or poisonous ingredients.

The percentage of teens who think there is a great risk from being a regular marijuana user has dropped, according to a new survey. The Monitoring the Future survey found 39.5 percent of 12th graders think regular marijuana use is harmful, down from 44.1 percent last year.