The Latest News from Our Field

More doctors are prescribing stimulants for students who are struggling in low-income schools, The New York Times reports. Many of these children, who do not have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, receive the drugs to increase their academic performance.

Mothers with an authoritative parenting style can influence the friends of their teenagers, making it less likely they will get drunk, or smoke cigarettes or marijuana, suggests a new study.

A new study finds that enrollment in smoking cessation programs jumped 10-fold in the Netherlands during one year when the government paid for them.

One of the biggest points of contention about marijuana is whether or not it can be considered medicine, according to Kevin Sabet, PhD, Policy Consultant and Assistant Professor, University of Florida. He says that while smoked crude marijuana is not medicine, marijuana does have medicinal properties – found in its individual components.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has collected a total of two million pounds of unused prescription medications during its five National Prescription Drug Take-Back Days, the agency announced Thursday.

A new study links smoking in adolescence with an increased risk of early death due to smoking-related cancer or heart disease. Teen smokers have a higher risk of early death even if they stop smoking by middle age.

The national chain Family Dollar is getting into tobacco in a big way, CSPnet.com reports. The chain, with 7,200 stores nationwide, is introducing a four-foot tobacco display to 6,000 of its stores by the end of the year.

In the wake of a recent scandal involving alcohol and prostitutes, the Secret Service has announced a new policy that bans agents from drinking alcohol in the hotel where the president or other protected persons are staying.

The Office of National Drug Control Policy has launched a new online training program to help doctors prescribe opioids more safely and effectively. The program’s goal is to reduce prescription drug abuse, The Boston Globe reports.

Nurses can significantly reduce substance abuse in homeless youth, a new study finds.

More than 195,000 people have signed an online petition demanding the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, known as Freddie Mac, test the homes it sells for methamphetamine contamination.

A new study links heavy smoking and drinking with an earlier onset of pancreatic cancer. While the disease is generally diagnosed at an average age of 72, heavy smokers with pancreatic cancer were diagnosed at age 62, and heavy drinkers at age 61, the study found.

The number of U.S. teens who drink and drive has decreased 54 percent since 1991, according to a new government report. Last year, 90 percent of high school students 16 and older said they don’t drink and drive.

The federal government will decide within the next month whether nurse anesthetists can be reimbursed by Medicare for treating chronic pain, The Wall Street Journal reports. Some doctors say such a move could complicate the fight against prescription drug abuse.

Almost one in 12 injured workers prescribed opioids are still taking the drugs three to six months later, a new study finds. Drug testing and psychological evaluation aimed at reducing drug abuse are not conducted in these workers most of the time.

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.