The Latest News from Our Field

Tobacco sales to minors reached an all-time low last year, under a government inspection program aimed at reducing underage tobacco use.

Doctors often miss alcohol problems in their patients who are not intoxicated at the time of their visit, a new study finds.

Combining caffeinated energy drinks with alcohol can lead to risky sex for college students, new research suggests.

Community-based residential rehabilitation programs are only helpful in the short term for methamphetamine users, a new study suggests. Shorter detoxification programs are even less successful, Reuters reports.

Medicare recipients can receive free alcohol misuse screening and counseling, as well as certain programs to help people quit smoking, under the Affordable Care Act. These are some of the ways in which the new healthcare law affects people with substance use disorders who are covered by public insurance programs, according to The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

Arizona has received a $7.5 million federal grant to help primary care providers identify patients at risk for, or who have, underlying substance abuse problems that might otherwise go undetected and untreated.

The San Francisco Police Department is reducing enforcement of drug crimes, according to The Wall Street Journal. The decrease in drug arrests reflects a shift to focusing on violent crime, as well as budget cuts, the department says.

Several recent studies are shedding light on why athletes may be more prone than the general population to substance abuse, eating disorders and suicide. The findings may have implications for athletes retiring after the Summer Olympics, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

Almost one-third of prescriptions paid for by Ohio’s insurance fund for injured workers last year were for painkillers. The state has seen a 37 percent increase in the use of such drugs among injured employees over the past 10 years.

New, harsher drunk driving laws go into effect Wednesday in Washington, D.C. Mandatory minimum jail terms for people with blood-alcohol concentrations of .20 percent or higher have doubled. Commercial drivers, including taxi drivers, now have a blood-alcohol limit of .04 percent.

People seeking welfare benefits in Utah must now take an online drug-screening survey, which is designed to determine if they are likely to have a substance use disorder, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

In King County, Washington, a portion of all sales tax collected is dedicated to substance abuse, mental health and therapeutic court services. The Mental Illness and Drug Dependency Plan, passed by the King County Council in 2007, has helped prevent and reduce the involvement of people with substance use disorders and mental illness in the criminal justice system, says the plan’s project manager.

Colombia’s cocaine production dropped 25 percent from the previous year, the White House Office on National Drug Control Policy announced Monday. Peru and Bolivia are now the world’s top producers of the drug.

The Affordable Care Act makes changes to the health insurance system and to health insurance benefits, which may affect the cost of insurance and healthcare for people with substance use disorders, according to The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

Party buses, promoted as a safe way to transport teens and adults to nightclubs and other hot spots, turn a blind eye to teen drinking, according to critics. The vehicles also dump hard-drinking partygoers in neighborhoods that don’t want them, the San Jose Mercury News reports.

A new study by Harvard researchers finds former smokers have an increased risk of developing two common types of inflammatory bowel disease, compared with people who have never smoked.

A federal appeals court has upheld a federal judge’s order that requires tobacco manufacturers to run corrective ads about the dangers of smoking, the Associated Press reports.

A pilot program in Ohio is using fingerprint scans in an effort to fight prescription drug abuse. Patients submit to a scan before seeing doctors in one hospital system, while several pharmacies are using the scans for patients filling prescriptions.

Some trucking companies are using hair tests to test drivers for drug use, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Medical marijuana may worsen driving skills, but typical sobriety tests do not detect the impairment, a small study suggests.

Tobacco manufacturers have promoted menthol cigarettes as a safer alternative to regular cigarettes. The FDA needs to do the right thing and ban menthol, for adults who currently smoke and young people who may be susceptible to initiating smoking, explains Amber E. Bullock of Legacy®.

Some doctors are concerned that making it more difficult to prescribe opioids could hinder treatment of patients in pain, ABC News reports. Earlier this week, 37 health care workers signed and submitted a petition to the Food and Drug Administration, urging officials to change labels on prescription opioids, in an effort to curb prescription drug abuse.

After the Los Angeles City Council voted this week to shut down the city’s 762 marijuana dispensaries, medical marijuana advocates said they will work to overturn the ban.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration has announced it is awarding more than $22 million in new funding to expand implementing screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment. This is an innovative approach to delivering early intervention and treatment services for people with substance use disorders and those at risk for developing them.

A new study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health finds that fewer people die when states expand their Medicaid programs.