The Latest News from Our Field

An animal study suggests what may happen in the brain when a person drinks so much alcohol that he or she blacks out.

Drinking and engaging in water sports can be a deadly mix, warns the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Half of all water recreation-related deaths of teens and adults involve alcohol, the NIAAA says.

Prescription drug abuse will be a major focus of the 2011 National Drug Control Strategy, according to the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The Obama Administration will center its attention on high-risk groups including active duty military and veterans, college students, women and their families, and those in the criminal justice system.

The introduction of the first nationally accredited residency programs in addition medicine, which began on July 1, demonstrates a change in thinking about the roots of addiction, experts tell The New York Times.

Former First Lady Betty Ford, who died Friday at the age of 93, had a profound effect on the treatment of alcoholism and other addictions by courageously admitting her own struggles with addiction, says a past medical director of the Betty Ford Center.

As a new Florida law to shut down “pill mills” takes effect, drug treatment centers in the state are bracing for an influx of new patients who are addicted to prescription opioids. The Sun-Sentinel reports that the new law is expected to greatly increase the number of people who will need treatment for prescription drug abuse.

A monthly injection to treat opioid dependence, approved in October 2010 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has gotten off to a slow start but is proving useful in helping certain patients, say doctors familiar with the drug, extended-release naltrexone (Vivitrol).

A study of drug overdose deaths in Florida between 2003 and 2009 has found that prescription medications were involved in 76 percent of cases. During that same period, 34 percent of overdose deaths involved illegal drugs.

Five years after it was launched, Oklahoma’s Prescription Monitoring Program is now being used by three-fourths of the state’s doctors. However, an estimated 100,000 state residents are still addicted to prescription drugs, according to The Oklahoman.

Preventing drug use and treating drug abuse will play a key role in the United States’ Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy along the U.S./Mexico border, federal officials announced on Thursday.

The majority of countries are doing nothing or are not doing enough to reduce smoking rates, the World Health Organization said this week.

The U.S. Justice Department has announced that medical marijuana dispensaries and licensed growers located in states with medical marijuana laws are not immune from prosecution for violation of federal drug and money-laundering laws.

New recommendations published in the Journal of the American Dental Association aim to help dentists reduce prescription drug abuse. Dentists, who prescribe 12 percent of opioids in the United States, can play an important role in minimizing the potential for misuse or abuse, Science Daily reports.

State agents in South Florida began to enforce the state’s new ban on doctors and clinics selling painkillers this week. They seized more than 40,000 pills from pain clinics, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

A bill sent to Ohio Governor John Kasich would ban both current and future synthetic drugs, the Columbus Dispatch reports.

In an era when prescription drug abuse is on the rise, doctors still don’t have a good way to measure pain objectively, The Wall Street Journal reports.

A growing number of businesses are using sticks instead of carrots to encourage employees to stop smoking, in an effort to cut health insurance costs, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

Some college students continue to drink heavily even when they experience harmful effects such as hangovers, fights and unwanted sexual situations, because they perceive the benefits of drinking to outweigh the negative, a new study suggests.

A legal, natural and addictive substance called kratom is becoming increasingly popular in South Florida, according to a news report.

Drivers high on marijuana represent an unrecognized crisis, experts tell the Los Angeles Times.

A new study finds that the smoking cessation drug varenicline (Chantix) increases the risk of a heart attack or stroke for smokers without a history of heart disease, compared with smokers who do not use the drug.

After new cigarette labels mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that carry graphic images were unveiled recently, calls to a national smokers’ quit line jumped.

Burger King, Sonic and Starbucks are among the fast food chains experimenting with selling alcohol, according to USA Today.

A new study suggests that the more alcohol-related memory blackouts a college student has, the greater the risk he or she has of future accidental injuries related to drinking.

Text messages that urge smokers to quit can double smoking cessation rates, a new study suggests.