The Latest News from Our Field

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.

Lung cancer rates are dropping, and the decrease is most noticeable in western states, where smoking rates are lower, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A group of medical organizations from around the world this week issued a statement calling on doctors to take the lead in demanding action to reduce alcohol misuse.

As the number of fatal overdoses from prescription painkillers grows, so does the number of doctors who are facing criminal charges for overprescribing painkillers and other controlled medications.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has proposed a rule that would ban smoking electronic cigarettes on all domestic and international commercial flights.

Policies that ban smoking on college campuses can reduce students’ smoking and change their attitudes toward smoking regulations, a new study suggests.

Cocaine, long thought of as the drug of choice in South Florida, is waning in popularity, the Miami Herald reports.

A mental health clinic in Louisville, KY, has stopped writing prescriptions for the anti-anxiety drug Xanax because of concerns about abuse and overdoses. Experts say benzodiazepines, including Xanax, are often overlooked as a source of prescription drug abuse.

Amphetamine-type stimulants such as Ecstasy and methamphetamines are second only to marijuana as the top drugs of abuse worldwide, according to a United Nations report.

Counseling alone is not enough to help most pregnant women quit smoking, a review of eight studies concludes.

The Wisconsin State Council on Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse has said it supports a ban on 190-proof grain alcohol in the state, following the death of a 22-year-old resident who drowned in his family’s swimming pool after drinking punch that included 190-proof grain alcohol.