The Latest News from Our Field

A new phone app shows the effect of drinking alcohol on a person’s facial appearance. The “Drinking Mirror” is designed to make people aware of the physical toll of heavy alcohol consumption.

Once the Affordable Care Act is fully implemented in 2014, access to effective health care services for addiction will improve dramatically, according to Faces & Voices of Recovery. In an issue brief, the advocacy group describes how the new legislation will make it possible for many in or seeking recovery to be included in the health care system for the first time.

Legalizing marijuana sends the wrong message to young people, R. Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said this week. “We are certainly not sending a very good message when we call it medicine and legalize it,” he told The Oregonian.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania say MRI scans may be able to predict which patients will succeed with certain addiction treatments, and which ones will relapse, according to the Philadelphia Daily News.

A new study suggests substance abuse impairs sexual performance in men, even after they stop using drugs or alcohol. Earlier studies suggested men spontaneously recover their normal sexual performance several weeks after they end substance abuse.

Three federal legislators have sent letters to 14 marketers of energy drinks, asking for information about the products’ ingredients and for studies showing their risks and benefits to youth, The New York Times reports.

The number of emergency room visits involving energy drinks doubled from 2007 to 2011, reaching more than 20,000, according to a new government report.

People who smoke more have a greater chance of developing more aggressive and deadly bladder cancer, compared with those who smoke less or who are nonsmokers, a new study suggests.

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.